Water Rocket Forum

That's a fine looking launcher, some nice idea there. Thanks for sharing it, and welcome to the forum!

Hi Freqster!

That's a very ingenious launcher design you have constructed. The extruded aluminum T-Tracks you've used for adjustments is a great idea. You could fit any size water rocket on the launcher using that system. Great work. Thanks for posting your design, and welcome to the forum!

Where do you get aluminum C channel to make those rails from? Is it expensive? Thanks. And welcome!

I'll try getting some pictures of mine up later in the next couple of days. It's no where near as complex as these others I see. Mine is simple, and cheap; made almost all out of PVC. It uses cable ties as the locking mechanism. Although I will admit, that again, I was not the first to do this. I believe it was the Bible that states "There is nothing new under the Sun". Guess I need to start looking over it.

-The Incredible Rocket man
-Andrew Lee

Here are some of my launcher pictures. This is CT-2. CT-1 Bit the dust when my grandpa ran over it with a tractor...oops
I am not completely finished with this one yet. i still need to put in the changeable launch tube, for varied heights rockets. And I still haven't settled on a base design. I'm wanting it to be as collapsible as possible.

amiazing

Hi, you can check my launcher out at http://www.geocities.com/af_wr/. The website is crap, and I never even finished it, but the launcher is cool. I now have a slightly adapted design that uses a copper pipe inside the pvc pipe and uses metal fittings but it's pretty much the same. When it was still all pvc the T piece decided to blow up on me once at only 140 psi. That stuff really does shatter.

Alex

SaskAlex wrote:Hi, you can check my launcher out at http://www.geocities.com/af_wr/. The website is crap, and I never even finished it, but the launcher is cool. I now have a slightly adapted design that uses a copper pipe inside the pvc pipe and uses metal fittings but it's pretty much the same. When it was still all pvc the T piece decided to blow up on me once at only 140 psi. That stuff really does shatter.

Alex

Be careful with the copper pipe. The pipe itself is very strong and can hold a lot of pressure, but the new solder with no lead in it that is used to connect the copper pipes is quite brittle and can fail at much lower pressure than the pipe fails. This creates a copper pipe water rocket missile!

Thanks for the heads up USWR. I can only get about 200 psi out of my bike pump right now, do you think I should worry at these pressures? Actually, since my launcher is designed to release when pressure is relieved, if my soldered joint was to fail, the launcher would only go up with the rocket a short ways and then be shot right back down to earth. That's not to say my rocket would go too straight though.

Alex