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9 july 2002

Geert made a new launcher, based on the NASA design. (they also have a 128 page document explaining it all in detail for those who still can't get enough of it).

Metal bar before and after. I started with drilling a 1mm hole, then 2mm, and so on up to 6mm. Note that the wood plank I used has already some holes in it (it is recycled from the disassembly of an older launcher)

Wood clamps in action.

Hint: if the package of your screws says they have a diameter of 3mm, then don't drill holes of 3mm, but smaller ones. Duh.

Determining the correct position of the L-pieces.

Everything in place. Note the two round rings on the upper left L-piece: this is because the screws are slightly longer than the wood and I don't like their sharp points sticking out. But after the first one I decided that this setup was temporarily anyway (and that the points still stuck out a little bit) so I didn't bother to use rings on them either.

I decided to go for bigger L-pieces. So more woodwork. Actually, even bigger L-pieces would be better still.

That looks better. The L-pieces are in correct position (since the nails hold the bottle nicely).

Let's test it out!

I pressurized to 4 bar and then launched. At 4 bar, the bottle was leaking only a very little bit. Also pulling out the nails went effortlessly.

Let's try a bigger one!

This one at 4 bar ended up nearly on the roof. Hence we decided to move a little bit.
Note that this bottle only barely fits between the two upright threaded rods!

The result after yet another launch! Note that the water is centered around the launcher, which indicates that the bottle flew nicely vertically.

Now Pieter will launch one.

Is this a very fine launcher or is this a very fine launcher!!! The trees are only a little behind the launcher (as you can see on the previous picture) so you can get a pretty accurate impression of the height reached.

This is what you get after two successful launches ...