> Including making the charcoal and the potassium nitrate?
Black powder is rather poor fuel for homemade rocket engines. According to what I know, much better fuel is made from about 60/40 mixture of potassium nitrate and sorbitol. Reportedly it should be possible to manufacture engines of several pounds of weight.
Haven't tried that, but my friends and I were making some pretty impressive metal rockets in the mid-60s using stages with either zinc/sulphur or potassium perchlorate/asphalt (Galcit 58). Maximum heights attained for 2-stages in excess of 80k ft. (radar verified) using a Gerald Bull-syle "mortar" powered by the rocket's exhaust pressure to increase launch velocity and reduce directional dispersion (we cribbed the idea from Atlantic Research, the then leader in meteorological sounding rockets).
steve
