Simple method for adding O-Ring to Clark Cable Tie Launchers

[A5Ben]

Great tutorial! I used a method very similar to this when I made my launcher. Keep the tutorials coming!


Ben

[U.S. Water Rockets1]

Great tutorial! I used a method very similar to this when I made my launcher. Keep the tutorials coming!


Ben

The entire launcher build tutorial is almost complete. You can find it at http://www.uswaterrockets.com along with our progress reports and updates. A lot of people make this kind of launcher, and this design lends itself to mass production well if you are a scoutmaster or teacher in need of a lot of launchers.

[A5Ben]

I'm actually putting together a launcher to send up 4 rockets at once for our Scout competition. We'll have the boys bring their bottles and make the rockets onsite and we'll launch and judge based on distance. Should be a blast! No pun intended :-)


Ben

[eljose707]

pretty cool

[BGummer]

This is a great way to do this. The only other way required reaming the I.D. of the 1/2". Thanks.

[U.S. Water Rockets1]

This is a great way to do this. The only other way required reaming the I.D. of the 1/2". Thanks.

Thanks for the feedback. There have been previous designs which had been done before that involved cutting a fine groove in the PVC pipe to seat the o-ring. We don't recommend that style because the groove weakens the pipe at the cut point and it can fail.

[WRA2]

For those of you having difficulties finding the 3/8 inch PVC pipe mentioned in this article, try this supplier:

http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?sku=26301

[U.S. Water Rockets1]

For those of you having difficulties finding the 3/8 inch PVC pipe mentioned in this article, try this supplier:

http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?sku=26301

Good find! It looks like they will ship anything longer than 5 feet and the pipe is pretty inexpensive per foot.

[Willem]

Nice idea! I might make something like this too, as I have no ideas for my launcher at the moment.
My old launcher only fits those strong German bottles

[U.S. Water Rockets1]

Nice idea! I might make something like this too, as I have no ideas for my launcher at the moment.
My old launcher only fits those strong German bottles

Glad you found the method to be useful.

By the way, do you have a way to measure the opening on those German bottles? Is the inside diameter of your bottles the same as the inside diameter of US bottles? If the diameter is the same, then it would be possible to build launchers using US sourced PVC pipe that people could use world-wide. The bottles look very similar on photographs, but the difference could be a few mils and the pipe would not work.

[PTrockets]

Hi everyone,
I've a problem with this type of launcher. I made a hole around the pipe to fit the O-ring. The problem is that air passes underneath the O-ring .
So I decided to replace the O-ring with duct tape. It works, but I need to change the tape constantly. And, furthermore, the launcher gets very basic.

[U.S. Water Rockets1]

Hi everyone,
I've a problem with this type of launcher. I made a hole around the pipe to fit the O-ring. The problem is that air passes underneath the O-ring .
So I decided to replace the O-ring with duct tape. It works, but I need to change the tape constantly. And, furthermore, the launcher gets very basic.

If air is getting by the o-ring, then the problem is that the surface under the o-ring in the groove is not smooth. If you build the groove using the method described in this tutorial, then it will be very smooth.

The other possibility is that the o-ring is not the proper size and does not seal correctly.

Trust us, this method has been tested to thousands of PSI (using materials stronger then PVC pipe, obviously) and it works flawlessly.