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Soda Bottle Rocket.

Soda Bottle Rocket.
A simple soda bottle rocket launcher using coathanger wire, an inner tube, and a soda bottle.
 
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Soda Bottle Rocket.
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63 comments
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Aug 16, 2010. 11:47 PMmalchermes says:
instead of the inner tube just use a rubber cork and a tire valve, its less expensive and doesnt leak at all. you drill through the center of the cork and shove the tire valve in, it works great. you can get the tire valve at a pep boys or auto store for less than $3. and you can get a rubber cork at any hardware store for a dollar or even less.
Sep 7, 2007. 8:36 PMMasterOfNone says:
Did anyone actually build one of these launchers? It seems like a great idea, but when I made the "plug" by wrapping a strip of inner tube around the tire valve, I found that it leaks at the little gap formed at the end of the strip of rubber. Anyone solved this problem?
May 27, 2010. 6:02 AMNicola Tesla says:
The way I did it is by using a bigger mouthed bottle, wound the rubber a little smaller than the mouth. After that I cut two three 1inch rings of inner tube and put it on it.



P.S.If you need help just ask.
Dec 19, 2007. 10:35 AMdj whatever says:
try to glue the inner tube with glue that dries in seconds I haven't tried that but it's a good idea.
Dec 19, 2007. 4:34 PMMasterOfNone says:
Thanks for the reply. I think you'll still have a problem with the little "step" that forms from the end of the rubber coil, even if it's glued.
Dec 20, 2007. 5:23 AMdj whatever says:
well then try it with a wine cork or electrical tape
Mar 7, 2008. 1:27 PMMasterOfNone says:
Yeah, sure. I'm just trying to see if anyone actually made it work "as written."
Apr 5, 2006. 3:44 PMFlorida61 says:
What psi should u luanch it at?
Sep 11, 2006. 5:28 PMpaper warrior says:
about 60 they explode at 70
Jul 11, 2009. 6:21 PMjridley says:
I've pumped them to bursting and they typically go at 160. Some make it higher than that. The lowest I've ever seen one blow is about 130.
Apr 10, 2008. 11:19 AMBOOM5601 says:
Only if you are using a bottle tht isn't designed to hold a carbonated drink.
Mar 29, 2008. 2:39 PMinventinator says:
no. we just had to do this for a school project and we launched them at 90 psi. it will withstand that.
Mar 6, 2008. 12:16 PMMattrox says:
I made one of these and got it up to 120 psi
May 10, 2008. 12:37 PMAar000n3y says:
The 'trigger' makes no sense... The bike pump stopper needs to come out from the pressure inside the bottle for there to be a launch. The 'trigger' seems to be pretty much useless.
Jul 11, 2009. 6:20 PMjridley says:
The stopper will come out at a pretty low pressure, probably no more than 20 PSI. With the trigger holding it in place, you can run the pressure up a lot higher. I use different triggers but I run the pressure as high as 140 PSI. 2L PETE bottles will burst at about 160, so pushing 140 is probably not a great idea, though they don't hurt anything then they burst, except to make a lot of noise.
Sep 5, 2006. 8:17 PMProp says:
I found a video of a guy with like 100 of these straped to his back. When they fied all at the same time it launched the guy really far...to bad i cant find it any more.
Mar 2, 2007. 2:18 PMpooboy says:
saw it on mythbusters
Mar 10, 2007. 8:21 AMjoemonkey says:
you know they proved that fake?!
Jun 16, 2009. 1:08 PMPeacedude says:
Not exactly, they proved that some chinease guy didnt blast himself 20 ft. in the air using soda bottle rockets
Jun 16, 2009. 2:46 PMProp says:
I know they said they proved it a fake but I just think they didnt do it right....they couldnt fire them all at once but I think I they had a better way to fire they it would have worked
Jun 16, 2009. 1:09 PMPeacedude says:
Finally, something I can UNDERSTAND
May 20, 2009. 10:03 AMDakota Manning says:
u r awesome!!!!!!!
Jan 19, 2009. 9:16 AMFasteners says:
This stuff is always fun
Oct 5, 2008. 8:31 AMtaco_guy93 says:
my science teacher made one of these only it had a base and the base held all the pressure, then he challenged us to make rockets and see how high they fly! he made a HUGE rocket out of 2 2 liter bottles, 3 gatorade bottles, and 3 normal water bottles. it was like 7 feet tall!!
Oct 5, 2008. 7:35 AMRock Soldier says:
The design for the launcher kinda looks like what my teacher made for launching waterbottle rockets
Sep 20, 2008. 9:41 PMaltomic says:
cool. bottle rockets. when I was in Japan I watched this competition show on plastic bottle rockets. this one team had the behemoth of bottle rockets. It was a 2 stage rocket. it went something like 450 meters. or something crazy like that.
Jul 26, 2008. 3:36 AMfariscfc says:
this 1 really help me.. Thanx a LOTT!!!
Jul 10, 2008. 8:51 AMchikid68 says:
I believe that you might have luck using the lid and a standard tire valve (available at any auto parts house) as opposed to the inner tube since that will take care of any leakage issues
Apr 20, 2008. 4:57 AMindestructables says:
i have pumped a cola bottle to around 160 psi and it expanded big time, i thought it would explode at around 100 psi but it didnt.
Feb 6, 2008. 7:38 AMknex lover says:
Nice idea, and the launcher does produce high pressures for launching and its reallly cheap to build!
Jul 28, 2007. 3:32 PMmenk says:
I like the comic presentation, plus the use of common materials instead like other tutorials I've seen that require wooden blanks or some PVC pipe construction. I'm linking to this instructable as a possible reuse of a soda bottle from my site...
GreenItUp - Plastic bottles
Apr 14, 2007. 7:49 AMDeus says:
here's a Video don't know where it came from but this guy flies really far with a lot of rockets straped to his back
Jan 25, 2007. 8:58 PMwEiRd LOAD says:
how about a hole drilled in the cap and a replacement tire valve pulled through from inner to out of the cap?seems tube is a weak link
May 6, 2006. 6:43 PMPSPerson says:
sweet project..... SCAM!!!! the only reason you should post this is if YOU drew the comic for howtoons.com which doesn't even work or exist!!!!!
May 26, 2006. 11:22 AMstienman says:
All of the howtoons are posted on instructables now. howtoons.com redirects to instructables, and there's a little blurb about it here:
http://www.instructables.com/howtoons/

The only problem I had with the move is that howtoons.com had high quality images of the cartoons, whereas now we have poor quality compressed images and poor quality PDFs. I wish they'd attach the original images, some of the howtoons are absolutely horrible to view or print now.
Dec 4, 2006. 7:20 PMPSPerson says:
i didn't realize that thanks
Aug 22, 2006. 1:22 PMewilhelm says:
Grab the original higher quality image by clicking on the "i" in the upper left of the image.
Nov 22, 2006. 4:12 PMmasih14 says:
Hi i have a rocet project and im in secendary 2 and if u go up to the page, u will see a pic of how to make and work with the rocke, i tried to make the base for putting the rocket and make it fly, its hard . can some1 help me? email me masihgolbahar@gmail.com
Nov 6, 2006. 2:51 PMlastresamigas says:
U guys all suck at rockets and are mean and you suck at life....thanks!!!!!!!
Nov 6, 2006. 2:37 PMlastresamigas says:
hi we are from mexico and we want to build the best rocket ever!!!!!!!please give us the instructions so we can take over the world with our big rockets
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