Making Bubble Canopies from Light Bulb Packaging

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By Bob Harrington

I needed a clear bubble canopy for a project that I am working on so when I was about to discard an empty package of night light bulbs, this idea came to me. I will do my best to illustrate the procedure but several of the pictures had too much glare to be usable.

The packaging I used held night light bulbs but Christmas tree bulbs come in similar packaging.

I started by cutting one of the individual bubbles from the packaging.

Then I cut off the end of the packaging where the threads were and trimmed around the edges until I wound up with a shape like this.

The resulting canopies will fit a BT-20 or ST-7 body tubes. They also fit nicely on nose cones for BT-20, ST-7, BT-50 or ST-9.

Canopy on a PNC-20A cone.

Canopy on a BC-08542 cone.

The completed canopies can be glued to the finished nose cone with Wilhold R/C-56 glue. The glue is used by the R/C Airplane crowd to attach canopies. It holds tight and dries clear.

For larger canopies, the packaging for large candelabra based décor bulbs can be used.

GUEST's OPINION:
07/07 "Wow! What a neat fix for this problem. I'm sure that many rocketeers will benefit from this tip. That's what I call thinking outside the box!" (W.D.M.)