Water Rocket Forum

I'm building my first cable tie launcher and have a question. What is the best way to attach the ties to the launcher and how many ties do I use (I'm using this to launch plain 2 liter bottles so my pressures will not be too high). I have seen on some site where the ties were glued to the launcher to prevent them from slipping. Is this a good idea?

xenon wrote:I'm building my first cable tie launcher and have a question. What is the best way to attach the ties to the launcher and how many ties do I use (I'm using this to launch plain 2 liter bottles so my pressures will not be too high). I have seen on some site where the ties were glued to the launcher to prevent them from slipping. Is this a good idea?

No glue don't really stick at all to the plastic they make cable ties from. Your best bet is to wrap the cable ties with more cable ties and lace them under and over each other to make a lot of friction so they don't pull out. Friction is the only way to hold them on.

xenon wrote:I'm building my first cable tie launcher and have a question. What is the best way to attach the ties to the launcher and how many ties do I use (I'm using this to launch plain 2 liter bottles so my pressures will not be too high). I have seen on some site where the ties were glued to the launcher to prevent them from slipping. Is this a good idea?

I use a lot of glue and a hose pipe strap clamp to hold them together.

Here is what I did and it works great

First get your cable ties and put them so all the heads are up (the thing that you put the end in)

Then line them up with a ruler, by taping the ruler over the cable ties and then pushing all the heads flat agents the ruler

After that take some duck tape and put it across all the ties

And lastly flip it over and tape the other side.

Then just get some screw clamps and clamp it on

my cable tie launcher stays put. i put my cable ties through the launching bung (plastic calk), then putting cable tie heads on the relise cable ties so they dont pull out. but maby alot of araldite would hold them.

Thanks for the suggestions but I'm still having problems. I tried the hose clamp but my rocket still leaks when I get between 80 and 100 PSI. One time the rocket launched all by itself. I'm using 6 ties and I think that they may may be stretching. Do you think more would help?

Thanks

to hold it on better i used some pipe with atleast a 37mm inside diametre. enough room for bottle neck & cable tie.

xenon wrote:Thanks for the suggestions but I'm still having problems. I tried the hose clamp but my rocket still leaks when I get between 80 and 100 PSI. One time the rocket launched all by itself. I'm using 6 ties and I think that they may may be stretching. Do you think more would help?

Thanks

Put as many ties as you think you can fit around the rocket/pipe side-by-side. I don't remember if you said you used an O-ring or not. If you carve a groove in the pipe you can slip an o-ring in it and this will help the seal even if the rocket moves around a bit.

I finally got it to work right. Those extra ties did the trick. Now I can work on making my rocket fly better.

Thank you for the help,