Water Rocket Forum

Here's my ~8L Water Rocket with tommy timer parachute system. I didn't launched it yet but I hope to do it soon- I haven't much time for water rockets . I already tested the pressure and it has no air leaks.
Testing the parachute system:
[youtube][/youtube]

Good work on the videos. That's a really big rocket you have there! One minor point we hope you don't mind us mentioning. There are a large number of people making what they call "Tommy" Timers, which is not the correct term. The system is named "Tomy" (one M) which is pronounced "Toh-mee", which rhymes with "Foamy". The name "Tomy" comes from a wind-up toy manufacturing company, while sold mechanical toys for decades worldwide.

There are people who spend their lives collecting antique and famous Tomy wind up toys.

Since so many people use the wrong name for this deploy system, we thought we would point it out. We hope you are okay with that.

U.S. Water Rockets1 wrote:Good work on the videos. That's a really big rocket you have there! One minor point we hope you don't mind us mentioning. There are a large number of people making what they call "Tommy" Timers, which is not the correct term. The system is named "Tomy" (one M) which is pronounced "Toh-mee", which rhymes with "Foamy". The name "Tomy" comes from a wind-up toy manufacturing company, while sold mechanical toys for decades worldwide.

There are people who spend their lives collecting antique and famous Tomy wind up toys.

Since so many people use the wrong name for this deploy system, we thought we would point it out. We hope you are okay with that.

Ok, whether it is 'tomy', then so be it. I didn't know about it.

Tomy made the toys, not the clockworks. Appearently you don't get famous making cheap plastic clockworks for toy companies.

And now, you too, are the proud owner of an amazingly useless fact! ;-)

Excellent rocket btw!

good luck on the first flight looking forward to seeing it.

bugwubber wrote:Tomy made the toys, not the clockworks. Appearently you don't get famous making cheap plastic clockworks for toy companies.

And now, you too, are the proud owner of an amazingly useless fact! ;-)

Excellent rocket btw!

Are you sure? Tomy dates back to the early 20th century. They made a lot of stamped metal toys where the clockworks was part of the toy itself. It seems likely that they might have had a supplier for gears and bearings, which they assembled into those old toys.

Did you launch this rocket yet? How did your deploy system workout?

Hi everyone,
Today is probably the worse day of my water rockets life . Today is the day that I lost this rocket, the biggest rocket I've ever had.
Everything started yesterday, when I was watching some water rocket videos on Youtube. I found a incredible french channel; that guy has the most beautiful water rocket I've ever see. The rockets are really beautiful and amazing. He has a rocket that drop a airplane on is way up and there is a RC rocket with the shape of a space shuttle. All rockets are painted with pretty colors and the rockets aerodynamics are perfect. Even the launcher is unique. http://www.youtube.com/user/fuzeao and http://www.youtube.com/user/petgaz25
So, with so much inspiration, I decided to paint my rocket and give it a name: FEIO, that means 'ugly'.
Today I started to paint the rocket with a spray. Until the paint started getting spoiled. Later, the wind threw the rocket to the ground. The rocket smeared everything around. The rocket appeared to have come from a sewer.
The newspaper sheets that were under the rocket flew with the wind and stuck to the rocket. I went into panic and stress. I angered me and threw the rocket to the trash. I grabbed a knife and stabbed it. I opened it and yanked the tornado coupling. It looked like a terror scene!
And so it was ... I wasted 4 expensive bottles , too much expensive glue, lot of expensive ink and other expensive materials.
I think, 'from the depths of my heart', that I'll let the giant water rockets for professional and I will choose to work only with small rockets.
I hate this life!

Sorry to hear of your troubles. That's a great story. I'm sure we've all had times like that while trying to perfect a rocket in some way or another. Now THAT should be put on video so we could all have a laugh. (including yourself I'm sure.)

That launcher in the video [http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=rZpQ2dwruEg*] is brilliant the simplicity, that thing will last forever. No tweaking cable ties no tightening hose clamps. I'm sure it is no easy feat to make work right but once you get it tuned in BAM that thing will last forever.

I am curious however what it is he is using in the video for the stopper? ( the thing that gets compressed ) it's not rubber.

Thanks for that link my mind is racing all over the place. The build is now in my head and now for the fun part.

U.S. Water Rockets1 wrote:

bugwubber wrote:Tomy made the toys, not the clockworks. Appearently you don't get famous making cheap plastic clockworks for toy companies.

And now, you too, are the proud owner of an amazingly useless fact! ;-)

Excellent rocket btw!

Are you sure? Tomy dates back to the early 20th century. They made a lot of stamped metal toys where the clockworks was part of the toy itself. It seems likely that they might have had a supplier for gears and bearings, which they assembled into those old toys.

Well of course because I read it on the Internet! Specifically referring to the plastic clock works that came out in the late seventies but this is probably the least important discussion I've ever started! Sorry:)

PTrockets wrote:Hi everyone,
Today is probably the worse day of my water rockets life . Today is the day that I lost this rocket, the biggest rocket I've ever had.
Everything started yesterday, when I was watching some water rocket videos on Youtube. I found a incredible french channel; that guy has the most beautiful water rocket I've ever see. The rockets are really beautiful and amazing. He has a rocket that drop a airplane on is way up and there is a RC rocket with the shape of a space shuttle. All rockets are painted with pretty colors and the rockets aerodynamics are perfect. Even the launcher is unique. http://www.youtube.com/user/fuzeao and http://www.youtube.com/user/petgaz25
So, with so much inspiration, I decided to paint my rocket and give it a name: FEIO, that means 'ugly'.
Today I started to paint the rocket with a spray. Until the paint started getting spoiled. Later, the wind threw the rocket to the ground. The rocket smeared everything around. The rocket appeared to have come from a sewer.
The newspaper sheets that were under the rocket flew with the wind and stuck to the rocket. I went into panic and stress. I angered me and threw the rocket to the trash. I grabbed a knife and stabbed it. I opened it and yanked the tornado coupling. It looked like a terror scene!
And so it was ... I wasted 4 expensive bottles , too much expensive glue, lot of expensive ink and other expensive materials.
I think, 'from the depths of my heart', that I'll let the giant water rockets for professional and I will choose to work only with small rockets.
I hate this life!

PT- I am going to post a picture of a rocket I'm most proud of. It looks like the butt of a dead narwhal. But I am proud of it because I made it. Don't get hung up on "other people's" lookers. I tell my scouts, do YOUR best, and be proud of it.

I agree if you spend all that time prettying up your rocket and it CATO's it will suck even more. Also I did notice after watching a few of those videos that he did have some rockets take off prior to desired launch pressure. So I am not so enthused about the launcher any more. Still something to think about perfecting.

alright here they are-
The red one, is a single coke bottle. The fins are plywood, the nosecone is canned foam. The middle was drilled out so I could stuff my camera in. I ended up strapping the camera to the side of the rocket so I could get a downward view. This one workd well and has probably done 30 launches. With a little touch up on the foam it could go again. This one tends to come down sideways becaue the fins are so oversized and heavy. Notice the beautiful curves of the fins and nose designed to enhance and flow with the shapely half painted coke bottle. The paint was mostly to keep the foam and wood from soaking up water. It had a decorative nozzle chamber attached to the bottom which promptly blew apart on the first launch leaving behind an unsightly pl premium ring.

The white and silver rocket- notice the use of close to half a tube of pl premium! This is 4 20oz bottles spliced together. It had a cardboard payload and nosecone that did NOT NOAA. It got one flight. The fins were coroplast and covered in white duck tape..."to make it pretty" lol.

Asupremeflight wrote: Sorry to hear of your troubles. That's a great story. I'm sure we've all had times like that while trying to perfect a rocket in some way or another. Now THAT should be put on video so we could all have a laugh. (including yourself I'm sure.)

That launcher in the video [http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=rZpQ2dwruEg*] is brilliant the simplicity, that thing will last forever. No tweaking cable ties no tightening hose clamps. I'm sure it is no easy feat to make work right but once you get it tuned in BAM that thing will last forever.

I am curious however what it is he is using in the video for the stopper? ( the thing that gets compressed ) it's not rubber.

Thanks for that link my mind is racing all over the place. The build is now in my head and now for the fun part.

You are right. As is often said (in my country) 'from your mistakes is that you learn'.
The channel inspired me a lot and I wanted to paint the rocket quickly. And that went wrong, very wrong. And after, they grumbled with me for having wasted ink and material.
For the next time I'll build a rocket will more calmly.
Thank you for your concern.


PTrockets

bugwubber wrote:alright here they are-
The red one, is a single coke bottle. The fins are plywood, the nosecone is canned foam. The middle was drilled out so I could stuff my camera in. I ended up strapping the camera to the side of the rocket so I could get a downward view. This one workd well and has probably done 30 launches. With a little touch up on the foam it could go again. This one tends to come down sideways becaue the fins are so oversized and heavy. Notice the beautiful curves of the fins and nose designed to enhance and flow with the shapely half painted coke bottle. The paint was mostly to keep the foam and wood from soaking up water. It had a decorative nozzle chamber attached to the bottom which promptly blew apart on the first launch leaving behind an unsightly pl premium ring.

The white and silver rocket- notice the use of close to half a tube of pl premium! This is 4 20oz bottles spliced together. It had a cardboard payload and nosecone that did NOT NOAA. It got one flight. The fins were coroplast and covered in white duck tape..."to make it pretty" lol.

narwhal.JPG

Well, truly they are not very pretty .
I now understand my mistake. But now it's too late, because the rocket should already be on the garbage central .
The main problem of the rocket wasn't the color, but the aerodynamic. The amendments of the spliced bottles were faulty.
Thanks for your concern.

PTrockets