Hello from California

[art41]

I was excited when I found this message board for the WRA.

I started playing with Park Plastics water rockets in the 50's, first the single stage and then the 2 stage rockets. I remember losing sight of the second stage and having to listen for the sound of it hitting the ground so we could retrieve it. we (my brother and I) lost a lot of second stages. However since my father worked at Park Plastics, we had an unlimited supply of the rockets. I remember that the recommended number of pumps (maybe 20 or so) was way lower that we usually used. we probably destroyed a few pumps by pumping until the gasket started to leak, before we launched the rocket. The most common failure mechanism of the pump was a failure of the pump piston (this only occurred when the number of pumps got over 40).

[Tim Chen]

I was excited when I found this message board for the WRA.

I started playing with Park Plastics water rockets in the 50's, first the single stage and then the 2 stage rockets. I remember losing sight of the second stage and having to listen for the sound of it hitting the ground so we could retrieve it. we (my brother and I) lost a lot of second stages. However since my father worked at Park Plastics, we had an unlimited supply of the rockets. I remember that the recommended number of pumps (maybe 20 or so) was way lower that we usually used. we probably destroyed a few pumps by pumping until the gasket started to leak, before we launched the rocket. The most common failure mechanism of the pump was a failure of the pump piston (this only occurred when the number of pumps got over 40).

Awesome! to the water rocket forum!

Do you recall how the rockets with more then one stage worked? There is very little information on how they triggered the separation on these rockets. If you remember any details I would love to know!

[art41]

there is a thread on this forum discussing the Park Plastics patent for the two stage rocket. (I didn't book mark it) if you can't find the thread and discussion, here is the patent number. 3049832 I use pat2pdf.org to get the pdf files of patents. also Google patent search is useful.

I remember there was a little grease in the first stage release mechanism and it didn't work after we used it on the beach and got sand in it. That only took one try to learn. After a few flights we found that the higher the pressure the better the flight. if the pressure wasn't high enough the before separation the rockets would be tilting slightly to one side and the second stage usually got lost in someone's back yard. with a lot of pressure the rocket was pointing straight up and the second stage went very high and fell close to the launch site. (we got very good at aiming them straight up so we would not lose the second stage.)

to pump it up enough we used the corner of a brick wall to put the pump against while we pushed on the pump handle, since we weren't strong enough to hold it with one hand and pump with the other.

the patent has the original tear drop design like a V-2 rocket, the second model came out with a more modern looking rocket shape. I believe the second stage release mechanism was the same for both models.

Art Lange

[U.S. Water Rockets1]

Hi Art,

It might please you to know that many of our team members have fond memories of the Park Plastics Water Rockets. The most common ones were the ones with the red front and white back of the fuselage. They came with a white pump with red trim. There are numerous "clones" out now and they all use a plastic rod in the pump that breaks if you look at it the wrong way. The original rockets were of a much higher build quality.

We also experimented with exceeding the pressure the instructions called out, but we would use a rock or board on the ground to increase our leverage.

Nice to meet someone connected to the toy that inspired us! Welcome to the WRA2 Forum!