Wesley Scoggins
Indy Mogul
Wesley's Weekly HOW TO: Rocket Launcher
So you want an awesome Rocket Launcher prop for your next action movie, and the BFG just isn't "right" for your setting? Well fear not, today i'm going to show you how to make your own cheap RPG prop, and feel secure in knowing that your child soldiers will be able to defeat enemy armor with ease. (Or at least pretend to).
Start out with a piece of tubing (about a foot), you could use some kind of shipping tube, or maybe even a paper towel tube, but I really like the stability of PVC, and you'll only be using about a dollars worth (less than a third) of the PVC tube for this, and the entire thing was only about 3 dollars, so it wasn't that bad.
Next, get a couple of 8 oz. soda cans, and hot glue them end to end.
Then open one end of the glued cans. (I used a pair of pliers to peel it open, I wouldn't use a knife or anything since it's hard to cut aluminum but it's easy to peel it apart.)
And stick your piece of tubing into the open end, I used hot glue to secure the rod into the cans, but you could easily use plumbers epoxy, or something else to secure it together.
And do the same thing to the other end.
I then took this dollar store squirt gun I found...
And cut the trigger section away.
I then took a cheap plastic funnel.
And attached them both to the lauchers main structure. Like before, I used hot glue, but you could easil substitute plumbers epoxy again.
I then used some metal repair tape, and wrapped it around the center to cover up the gap between the cans better.
Now for the handle (rather than the trigger assembly), I cut into the can, and made a slit for this little cardboard gum box, you could also make your own handle out of foamboard or cardboard or anything, but really if you want to make it look extra realistic, something that almost looks just like the REAL handle on a REAL RPG-7 is a Paint Scraper handle, you can find paint scrapers at your local hardware store, and the most common shape of the handle is very very close to the real handle on an RPG-7, just something to keep in mind if you want to go the extra mile.
NOW FOR THE ROCKET, for the Rocket Casing I think two soda bottles end to end looks really close to the shape of a real RPG round.
I just cut the bottoms off of both bottles, then wrapped more metal repair tape around the center.
I then cut the top of the cap off of the bottom of the rocket, and stuck a dowel into it. It would be advisable to use plumbers epoxy here, as the bottle plastic is very heat sensitive and can warp easily. (Why I used tape to bind them together.)
Now, back to the launcher assembly, while the rocket dries I decided to finish cutting apart the cheap squirt gun I got, because it had these interesting mechanical molding on it. So I cut this part off (this originally held the pressure bottle for the squirt gun).
Then glued it to the top of the launcher assembly. (Once again, hot glue/epoxy, your decision).
I then covered both the rocket and launcher in a undercoat of silver acrylic primer.
Next, I covered the back/middle of the launcher assembly with plumbers insulation foam. I got a 5 foot tube of the stuff for only 3 dollars, and used only about a foots worth, so very affordable.
Then I took some of these clamps (which look very similar to the ones on real RPG-7's) and attached the foam to the launcher assembly with them. Make sure that your clamps are big enough to fit around the foam, because these were hard to get on and very snug.
After you attach the clamps, just give it a paint job to your liking, the typical paintjob is brown/wood for the handle, trigger, and foam section, then black for the back tube, front tube, and optics assembly, then Olive Drab for the Rocket. Some extra parts you can add to make it look extra good is the flip up sights on the front of the tube, you can just cut that out of foam board and attach it with a tiny hinge, and also, you could always attach a real scope and other stuff to make it look more realistic, just find lots of reference photos of these in the field and customize your own for whatever you need.
To make it look older or more low-tech distress the material by doing an undercoat of silver, and hitting the top layer of black or green paint with a piece of fine sand paper.
To make the rocket actually fire, I would suggest attaching a piece of fishing wire to the end of your rocket, and jerk it out as fast as you can.
Now, just take that footage, speed it up a little to make the rocket look like it's coming out even faster, then just visitng Detonation Films, take some of their fantastic rocket fire effects, then Motion Track them onto your own footage. Then just toss in some great rocket thrust and explosion sounds from the Free Sound Project and you've got your very own awesome rocket launcher to use in your films.
And now you're ready to go to war!
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