How To Make Sugar Rocket Engines

Learn how to make fireworks sky rockets with a very simple sugar motor rocket propellant. Using only sorbitol and potassium nitrate you'll be flying homemade solid fuel sky rocket sugar rockets in no time.

Materials Needed:

Thanks to Matthew Carpenter who passed this homemade sky rocket project along to us. You don’t need any special sky rocket tooling for this one. First ram a bentonite clay plug into a parallel sky rocket tube. Mix potassium nitrate (CH5300) and sorbitol (CH8293) powders in a ratio of 65:35 potassium nitrate to sorbitol. Outdoors on an electric hotplate, carefully mix and melt the two together to make your homemade sky rocket fuel. Do not melt these on an open flame, unless you want this to be your last project! When the sky rocket mix is milky, frosting-like goo, you can pour it into large diameter sky rocket tubes or spoon it into smaller diameter sky rocket tubes. After you spoon it into the sky rocket tubes, wait a minute or two for the sky rocket fuel to cool a little. Then use an aluminum rammer to pack it into the sky rocket tube.

For a sky rocket tube with a 3/4-inch inside diameter make a core in the sky rocket by shoving a 1/8-inch diameter welding rod all the way down into the grain (fuel) of the sky rocket. Mount the sky rocket on a stick as usual, and then let it fly.

If you have never flown a sky rocket that uses a stick for a stabilizer, here’s one way to do it. Firmly tape the sky rocket to the end of a square stick (round will work). Tape the sky rocket tube (nozzle down) to the sky rocket stick in at least two places. How long should the sky rocket stick be? Balance the stick with sky rocket attached on your index finger. The balance point should be right behind/under the sky rocket nozzle. Keep breaking off pieces of wood until it balances. Insert a piece of visco fuse into the core of the sky rocket and attach it to the sky rocket stick with a little piece of tape. Shove a piece of pipe into the ground. Place the sky rocket and stick into the pipe. Make sure your sky rocket is aimed straight up, light the visco fuse, and retire quickly.

To learn more about making sky rockets read these:

"Stinger Missile Sky Rockets"
"Black Powder Sky Rockets"
"Cut Your Own Sky Rocket Sticks"