CP Technologies was the first company with a comprehensive book, video and software set explaining in detail how to make composite solid rocket propellant motors and amateur rockets. The purpose of the bookset was to help amateurs, with no prior knowledge of rockets and motors, to design, build and launch rockets successfully. While the bookset is comprehensive, you may still have questions, have problems, or need more information. This page is here for you to find the help you need and provide you with additional resources for you to be successful.
Where To Find Rocket Motor and Rocket Supplies
We have provided a link below to a web page that list suppliers. The list is constantly changing as companies go out of business and new ones take their place. In addition to our list, a good way to located chemical suppliers for propellant chemicals is to do a Google search for pyrotechnic supplies. You will find others we have not listed. We often get emails from people wondering about annual purchase limits from some companies. These are restriction put in place by those companies, not the government. Very few companies have an annual purchase limit and do not require ATFE permits to make a purchase. Shop around and find the best deal for you.
Technical Information
In this section we provide additional technical information and links to reports that will be useful to amateurs building motors, rockets and setting up test stands.
Rocket Motor Test Data Acquistion
There is an entire chapter in the “How to Make Amateur Rockets” book devoted to static firing your rocket motor. Here is some additional information.
Propellant Formulas
Here are some propellant formulas you can use in your motor. It is important to note that your burn rate parameters may be different from those listed on the page. This is due to particle sizes and shapes being different from your chemical supplier for the oxidizer and metal fuel. It is best to make a motor and check the burn rate parameters. If they appear to be different from those on the web page, you will need to recharacterize the propellant for your chemicals.
Substitute for Black Powder Ejection Charges
The topic has come up from time to time about using Pyrodex instead of 4F black powder for ejection charges. We have found the secret to using Pyrodex as a direct substitute for 4F black powder after conducing a series of ground tests and successfully flying many, many rockets with various sized ejection charges all of them using 100% Pyrodex instead of black powder.