Hello form Utrecht in the Netherlands

[turokor]

Let me Introduce myself. I am Arthur Reekers form the Netherlands, 49 years old and started making water rocket just a couple of month's ago. The idea was first to master the art off making the rockets and than to start making them on my nephews school. But now i am hooked myself.

Until now it's one big adventure for me. I just finished my third generation of launch platform (more stable, with internal launch tube and flexible nozzles)

Third generation of my launchplatform

20120907_091455.jpg (77.63 KiB) Viewed 50 times

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At the moment i am working on a good parachute system, so i am able to shoot the rockets higher without damaging them when they land.


A good friend of mine promised me a couple off old scuba tanks and Air Command published a great article about using scuba tanks for pressurizing rocket. My holy grail is making a carbon rocket and launching the rocket with high pressure. If there are other water rocketeers who want to help me or just want to chance ideas my email is: aw.reekers@hccnet.nl.

[U.S. Water Rockets1]

Let me Introduce myself. I am Arthur Reekers form the Netherlands, 49 years old and started making water rocket just a couple of month's ago. The idea was first to master the art off making the rockets and than to start making them on my nephews school. But now i am hooked myself.

Until now it's one big adventure for me. I just finished my third generation of launch platform (more stable, with internal launch tube and flexible nozzles)

20120907_091455.jpg

.

At the moment i am working on a good parachute system, so i am able to shoot the rockets higher without damaging them when they land.


A good friend of mine promised me a couple off old scuba tanks and Air Command published a great article about using scuba tanks for pressurizing rocket. My holy grail is making a carbon rocket and launching the rocket with high pressure. If there are other water rocketeers who want to help me or just want to chance ideas my email is: aw.reekers@hccnet.nl.

20120907_091455.jpg

Hello Arthur,

Welcome to the forum. Thanks for sharing your history and the details of your water rocket experience. Your launcher design looks very robust. One question about the design: is that pipe a common type used for plumbing in the Netherlands? In the USA, the grey color pipe is only to be used for electrical wiring conduit. The plumbing pipe is white or sometimes red/blue for hot/cold water. Is that pipe made from PVC?

It looks really cool, no matter what you made it from.

[turokor]

This is a high pressure pipe rated at 16 bar.

[U.S. Water Rockets1]

This is a high pressure pipe rated at 16 bar.

Nice.

Keep us posted how everything works. It is a design unlike anything anyone has shown before.

[arjan]

Hi arthur, welcome to the forum. Nice to see someone else from the netherlands.

Are you going to fix your launcher to the ground? Looks like your launch abort tap would generate enough thrust to tip over your launcher when aborting a launch.

[turokor]

Hi Arjan, Interesting experiments with glue on your blog. I use Bison Bouwkit (it is strengthened with fibreglass). As you see in the picture, the glue is stronger than the PET tube.

[arjan]

Yes it looks like the "tangit m400" glue will hold, I 'm hoping to test some spliced pairs in a real rocket within a copple of weeks.

[turokor]

I forgot to answer your former question. My launcher is quite stable. I tried it with rockets over 1 meter, and no stability issues. The launcher is also quite flexible. I can us Gardena coupling as well the whole bottle neck.

I prefer a glue that has a bit more working time. Your glue gives you 2 minutes.

[U.S. Water Rockets1]

I forgot to answer your former question. My launcher is quite stable. I tried it with rockets over 1 meter, and no stability issues. The launcher is also quite flexible. I can us Gardena coupling as well the whole bottle neck.

I prefer a glue that has a bit more working time. Your glue gives you 2 minutes.

Are you having success with large volume rockets using that gardena launcher? Most people find the small nozzle does not give adequate thrust at liftoff and the rocket flies unstable for the first few seconds until it sheds enough weight to speed up and give the fins adequate air to bite.

[turokor]

The diameter off the rockets is only 5.5 cm. With a pressure of only 5 bar, the rocket flies very well with a Gardena launcher.