This is a great DIY design for a backyard bazooka. The end result, the launch of the bottle, is a little flaccid, but I think the design is cool. (And maybe there’s a more potent gas to put in the bottle.)
You can see the plans HERE
ht/ rob e.
11 Comments on Bottle Rockets
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Pfffft, not as much fun as bottle rockets out your ass. So I’m told anyway.
An old, old fun time toy, but he is totally doing it wrong.
Instead use 2″ Schedule 40 PVC, some fittings (I like a big clean out or 45° 3 way on the bottom so I can step on the igniter) Then buy the highest VOC hairspray or other aerosol you can find. Take a short piece of the 2″ PVC and file/grind as sharp a bevel as you can around one end. Take this piece and jab a potato into it, now push the potato down into the barrel to just before the clean out. Fill the clean out with a healthy dose of hairspray, cap it off and fire away.
Shooting potatoes from a cabin to an open lake, they’re going 200+ yards verified by the splashes. In fact we were lobbing them in the vicinity of some guys fishing, they kept chasing the splashes having no idea it was potatoes falling from the sky.
You can jam rags, socks, golf balls, handfuls of rocks, etc. down the barrel, just be wary of jamming it too tight, the reason why I like to step on the igniter rather than hold it like a bazooka.
Flaccid? That bottle went maybe 50 feet which might well said to be semi-tumescent. (-:
If you want a simple way to make a more potent gas, try a little water and a pebble of calcium carbide (ask your friendly local spelunker for some).
H2O + CaC2 –> Ca(OH)2 (slaked lime) + C2H2 (acetylene gas).
Yup, then put the bottle in a cardboard tube, right next to your ear, and fire it off.
If that’s not enough, build a bowling ball mortar. A welding gas bottle, a bowling ball, and 1/4 pound of black powder. Fun times!
Hair spray, PVC pipe and a few roots with a snap type grill lighter can send a 2 pound tuber over 300 yards and take out a 130 mph rated entry door. Don’t ask me how I know, and Anderson Windows warranty sucks when it comes to wind driven tubers!
Hope this helps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE3rhxEE5n0
Dude this is better
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHLvlm72cMc
Final Net is my personal favorite – Automobile starting fluid (Ether) is the military grade propellant
One of my boys made rockets with PVC pipe, the hairspray and big Idaho tatos. From where he shot to the woods was a little less than 1/10th mile and the taters landed somewhere in the woods. You are right Old Oaks, at least 200 yards. Those things used to scare me but I got over it fast. They were fun.
LOL. I’m a granny, I shouldn’t be relating to all this, but those were great times when the boys came up with doing things like this. Now I watch the grandsons build equipment for their stunts. Seems all the boys in the family (and our granddaughter) gravitate to stunts involving ballistics.