Received this kit yesterday and put it together. The instructions were very detailed and easy to follow with color pictures. Everything is included except PVC cement and duct tape. You can tell that the designer of this kit has spent a lot of time optimizing the design of this little rig. If you follow his instructions to the T, you''ll have no problems getting an impressive blast off.
The only minor draw back is that it does not have a built-in pressure gauge. That would be a nice additional-cost option.
I am glad I purchased this inexpensive kit instead of making several trips to the hardware store perfecting my own design.
We tried it out today, and it worked impressively on the first try. After several launches, it''s still working flawlessly without need for adjustment.
There isn''t a kid under 80 years old who won''t be impressed with what happens after the countdown.
This package arrived today and I went straight to work assembling the rocket launcher from the PVC pieces and attachments. My work was slowed down by the fact that I wanted to demonstrate to my five year old son how this launcher was put together. I was trying to make this experience into an educational one. In our modern age products just arrive in the mail and they just work straight out of the box, remember the days when you had to be creative and constructive? Me too and I was trying to share that with my son.
After a few minutes of making my way through the instructions, which were excellently laid out for me, my son lost interest in the assembly portion of the project. He just wanted it to be launch time. So just so you know, assembly make take upwards of a half hour. You have to hunt down the needed tools and items (PVC cement, scissors, tape measure, screwdriver, etc.). After that there is aligning and adjusting the pieces so that they fit and look perfectly (I like things to be perfect when it comes to projects).
But after assembling all the pieces the largest amount of time is spent making the necessary adjustments to where the lip of the soda bottle meets up with the collar (you''ll know what I''m talking about when you get to this step). I had to use a little creativity and insert duct tape inside the collar to make a tight fit around the lip of the soda bottle. It seemed as if others had this same problem and as I saw it there is no other option, the collar would not be tight otherwise.
Once I had a good tight fit around the lip of the bottle I used an air compressor (with a tire pressure gauge attached to determine pressure) to pressurize the system. After about 50 lbs water will start leaking out around the sides (a bug that I think is inevitable without the use of rubber seals) but I just continued pressurizing until I was at about 90 lbs. The string on the collar mechanism will need some engineering to work properly but (and I don''t recommend this) what I dis was just pull the collar down by hand. That will send the bottle into orbit, ka-pow, my kids loved it. As for me I got a little wet and was off to chase down the bottle from the neighbors yard.
Overall, great product, lots of fun, but you will need to do some work-arounds to get this to work for you.
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For my son''s 7yr old Birthday Party, we decided on a "rocket" theme. Each child decorated their own pop-bottle rocket with stickers and markers, then we launched them with this Rocket Launcher. We had to make a few adjustments several times, but like a real rocket launch, we just went into a "hold" mode. Everyone had a great time!
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This is a nice little kit put together with off-the-shelf parts but not something I would have been able to guess how to create myself. I figured I''d save five dollars and put it together with my son but it turned out that the extra materials (PVC cement and duct tape) was another ten dollars so nothing was saved. However the fun and educational value of putting it together ourselves was well worth it. We may be building something larger out of PVC material later so it gave us some good experience with the primer and cement.
The trickiest part was the trigger mechanism. There were several hints about how to get it to work on the instructions (which are color with photos and very clear), but we still couldn''t get it to "lock" in place. Instead what I wound up doing was adding a few layers of duct tape to the inside of the trigger tube (large piece of PVC shown in the photo with bright red string) so that it would "stick" in place until it was pulled down.
We also had trouble getting it pumped up beyond about 40psi, even though the instructions suggested a max of 130psi. The water would leak out of the sides and we''d have to pull the trigger before it all leaked out. Even at 40psi however the bottle shot up dramatically about 50+ft in the air. I tried adding some greasy suntan lotion to help with the seal and that seemed to help a bit. We will have to experiment with it some more to see if the leakage can be reduced.
In all a very educational experience for my son and I.
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If you have ever wanted to build one of these, but kept putting it off, this kit is a great way to just be done with it. Yes, any diy''er with half a brain and handful of tools could goto a local big box store and build a few of these for cheaper, but for guys like me, buying this kit took it from being something I talked about doing to something I actually did.
It works well built as seller intended and we are having fun with it.
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I like the bottle it''s unique, and durable.
