Rocket Kit Review

Vaughn Brothers EX-18

I won a $20.00 V.B. gift certificate at the last HayBurner launch (April 14, 2000), and I was looking through the Vaughn Brothers catalog and lusting after the LARGE Wild Thing, and came across this cute little two-stage, 18mm, that cost only about $11.00. Well I needed a simple two-stage to continue my work on very low power staging , B-6-0 to B-6-6, and the Sam-X that I had previously built was very unstable. So I got the EX and was imediately impressed by the High Tech nature of the design and construction materials. Thin G-10-like fins all around and a Kevlar-like shock mounted in a coupler make this a carefully designed kit that any rocketeer will appreciate. The instructions recommend epxoy, which seemed like overkill to me, but actually produced a good-looking finished kit. I haven't flown it yet but will put it up at the next LUNAR launch in mid June 2000.