Introducing the U.S. Water Rockets Ultimate Tornado Tube! This free downloadable 3D Printer object is our take on the classic "Tornado Tube", used for joining soft drink bottles together to create massively huge water rockets.
The "tornado tube" name comes from a science toy which is used to connect two bottles together to demonstrate a vortex when water moves from one bottle to another. Water rocket builders quickly seized upon this science toy and repurposed it as a water rocket bottle coupler.
However, the science toy version of the Tornado Tube is notorious for leaking air or water when under pressure, and it is also known for choking the flow inside the rocket, due to the small opening between the bottles that is formed by the seats for the flat washer seals.
Our design uses an external o-ring seal on each end, which we invented when designing our Gardena water rocket nozzle. Our seal design creates an unrestricted flow between bottles for optimum performance.
When you combine this design with our technique for splicing multiple bottles together, you can create gigantic water rockets that fly to incredible heights.
You can download the files for this design (and our other designs) from our Thingiverse page. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1522968
