Bottle Rockets

[rider]

Just a quick question. To make a bottle rocket, do you basically jam propellant in a thick tube that can hold its own under high pressures and stick a fuse in the bottom?

I'm not looking for anything serious, just some little bottle rockets for shits and giggles. This does NOT mean I'm not going to be careful. I store all my propellants in a safe environment, away from any significant living being.

[asilentbob]

When dealing with black powder (pyrodex will NOT work) or KNO3/sugar/sulfur... pretty much, yeah. Your going to probably need a nozzle of some sort though. Cheap cat litter is common. Make sure to use a non-sparking rammer and mallet, like aluminum, brass, or wood. And the mallet is usually rubber or deadblow plastic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ7N8EmR5aQ

Thats the best video I could find on short notice describing the process... One thing to note is that you drill by hand just rolling the bit between your fingers... and you might have to experiment with the depth that you drill into the propellant grain. You also might need to experiment with the size of the nozzle hole.

Another, more high quality way is to make or buy some rocket tooling. EX:
http://www.wolterpyrotools.com/?page=cc_catg&cat=rocket
http://www.wfvisser.dds.nl/EN/rocket_tools_EN.html
http://www.wichitabuggywhip.com/fireworks/rockets/rockets.html
(the index of the above site is a really great place to learn about fireworks things, you might find it interesting here: http://www.wichitabuggywhip.com/fireworks/index.html )
http://www.truetex.com/stinger.htm (you might find this interesting)
http://www.brianredmond.net/pyro/bprock.html
http://www.jamesyawn.net/ (for any sugar propellant questions)

So yeah, if you have access to a metal lathe you can make some high quality aluminum or brass rocket tooling and make some much better rockets.

Whistle rockets are a good deal more dangerous and they must be hydrallicly pressed very carefully from behind some sort of blast shield.

Hope this helps :D

[rider]

Stuff....

Extremely helpful. Thanks.

[rider]

Generally, you should also use parallel wound tubes. I have a friend that uses and almost swears by spiral wound though. He's too cheap to pay for the parallel wound tubes and too lazy to roll his own.

Low quality BP can make or break your rocket. There things you can do to help though. Like try making a cored rocket instead of a simple nozzle burner.

Where can I buy rocket tubes?

I'm going to Lowes tomorrow to get some Potassium Nitrate and Sulfer tomorrow, and there's a Micheal's Crafts right next to it. Would they have it? They sure as hell have everything else imaginable.

[asilentbob]

I have not needed to roll tubes in a long time... but when I did I used elmers wood glue and rolled them to about 1/8" thick. I used plain kraft paper from a hobby store like Michael's.

[Treefingers.s]

I need more knowledge : ( I don't know anything.

[psyco_1322]

I can see why.

http://hobbyhorse.com/pyro_tubes.shtml

Best freakin tubes you can buy...nuff said.

[asilentbob]

IIRC those used to say NEPT by them, they don't now, but I imagine they are still NEPT. NEPT = New England Paper Tube, the company that makes them.

The really good NEPT rocket tubes are unbelievably strong. I remember seeing some burst pressure comparison between them and some home made tubes that were made very well (and IIRC strengthed with minwax wood hardener)... IIRC the NEPT took about 1.5-2x the pressure of the other tubes before bursting.

[psyco_1322]

Jim might have removed NEPT but he is still importing them from NEPT. He had a minor price increase a while back, the edit may have been then.