Store-bought body tubes only come in store-bought sizes. For a rocket project I wanted custom diameters, so I rolled my own from plain paper and thinned Titebond III — and they came out shockingly strong. Here's the whole technique, including the glue mistake I made on tube one so you don't have to make it on yours.
| Step | Rule |
|---|---|
| Strip width | 2× the tube diameter (¾″ tube → 1½″ strips; 2″ tube → 4″ strips) |
| Base layer | Wrapped dry, no gaps, no overlaps — taped at both ends only |
| Glue | Titebond III mixed 50/50 with water |
| Application | Glue goes on the paper strip, never on the form |
| Wraps | 5 for small tubes; 7+ for 2″ and up |
| Finish | Trim both ends square, past where the base layer was taped |
The one number that drives everything: cut your paper strips twice as wide as the tube's diameter. For the ¾″ tube I cut 1½″ strips; for the 2″ tube, 4″ strips. That ratio keeps the spiral angle shallow enough to wrap cleanly without wrinkling, but steep enough that each wrap advances down the form at a workable rate. Mark both ends of the sheet, connect the marks with a long straightedge, clamp one end so nothing shifts, and slice the strips with a knife.
Why it fits: every strip on this page gets sliced along a long straightedge — a full-length metal one lets you connect the marks and cut the whole strip in one pass.
The spec that matters: metal, 24 inches — long enough to span the sheet, and a knife can't carve chunks out of it like a plastic ruler.
If the straightedge shifts mid-cut: the strip width wanders, and strip width is the one number that drives the whole technique — clamp one end like I do in the video.
The first layer wraps around your form (a dowel, PVC pipe, whatever matches your target inner diameter) completely dry — no glue — with no gaps and no overlaps. Tape it down at both ends with regular scotch tape. This layer is sacrificial: it's what lets the finished tube slide off the form instead of becoming permanently married to it. If your strip runs long, just tear it off flush.
Mix wood glue 50/50 with water and stir it until it's fully blended. I used Titebond III because it's what I had — any wood glue works. Thinning it matters: full-strength glue is too thick to soak into the paper, and the soak is the whole point. Wet paper plus wood glue dries into something closer to a composite than a craft project. Put down plastic or parchment first; this stage is not a clean stage.
On my first tube I spread glue onto the form and then laid dry paper over it. Don't do that. The paper stretches as it wets out and you end up chasing wrinkles and readjusting the base layer as you go — you can watch me fighting it in the video. The right method, which I switched to for the second tube: lay the strip on the table, coat the strip with glue, then wind the wet strip onto the form. The paper pre-stretches before it touches the tube, and the second tube came out dramatically smoother than the first.
The trickiest moment of each wrap is the start: take your time setting the spiral angle on the first turn, because every turn after it follows that angle. Get it right and the rest of the strip lays itself down.
Five wraps was perfect for the ¾″ tube — stiff, light, done. On the 2″ tube five wraps felt underbuilt; I'd go seven or more. Bigger diameter means longer unsupported spans of wall between "curvature," so bigger tubes need proportionally more wall. It's a repetitive process, but each layer goes faster than the last.
Once dry, cut both ends square — and trim past where you taped the base layer, since the taped portion isn't bonded like the rest. Yes, the tube gets a little shorter than the form. Plan for it by rolling a couple inches longer than you need. A square, clean end is what makes the finished tube look store-bought.
Why it fits: this whole build is knife work — slicing the strips at the start and squaring both ends of the cured tube at the finish.
The spec that matters: the spare blades. A cured paper-and-glue laminate dulls an edge fast, and a square end trim wants a fresh one.
If you trim with a dull blade: the layered wall tears and frays instead of cutting clean — swap blades before the final trim, not after.
A finished tube is a fiber-reinforced laminate — the same idea as fiberglass, with paper as the fiber and wood glue as the matrix. Paper is surprisingly strong in tension along the sheet; its weakness is that a single sheet buckles and tears. Winding it in a spiral fixes both: each wrap's fibers run at an angle to the wraps below, so loads in any direction — crush, bending, torsion — always meet several layers of fiber oriented to resist them. The cured glue bonds the layers into one thick wall so they can't slide past each other, which is where buckling resistance comes from. Five layers of paper and glue behave nothing like five layers of paper.
The same technique earns its keep on the airplane bench:
If you're building up a scratch-building bench, my recommended gear page covers the tools I actually use, and the Airplane Designer is the free place to start a plane that could use one of these booms.
Auto-transcribed from the video, so expect the odd mis-heard word. Here so you can search or skim what was said without watching.
Hey guys, in this video we're going to be making some paper tubes, much like you see here. Actually, they are what you see here. Let's go see how Pastor Eric made these tubes, and maybe he'll show you how you can make them too. Hey guys, my name is Eric Rob, and this is my channel. Let's jump into it.
Okay, so we want to mark off on both sides the width the papers we want to be. So we're making a three-quarter inch diameter tube, so we want one and a half inches paper strips, because we want it to be double the diameter of the tube itself. So we're going to mark on both sides, and we're just going to line them up with a long ruler here, as you see. And then we're just going to use the clamp on one side to help me keep it aligned straight, so that I could just go down with a knife and go across. And it was super simple and easy to do.
So now that we've got all our papers cut, we're going to take and we're going to put the base layer on. So we want to take and wrap this so that there aren't any overlabs, but there aren't any gaps either. So we're going to take and tape our first layer down just on the two ends, we'll just use some scotch tape and tape them down. And you see here, my paper was a little bit long, so I just ripped it off and it was worked out great. So as you see here, I'm using some Tapebomb 3 wood glue here.
You can use any wood glue you would like. This just happened to be what I had. So I'm just going to take this and put it in this little cup here with a 50 to 50 water to glue ratio. And then we're going to mix it up here really good, so that it's nice and blended together. After we get our wood glue all mixed up, we can take and put some plastic down just to protect our table.
You could use parchment paper or whatever you had. This is just what happened to be what I had lying around. So I am going to take and spread some wood glue onto this form here. Although as you will, I will let you know in a little bit, this is not the method that I would that I would suggest doing. This is just this is my first attempt.
So you know, it happens. So I just spread this glue on here on our first base layer. And then as you see here, as the paper got wet, it stretched and I had to readjust my base layer. So I got the base layer coated with glue and then it was ready to put on my first strip of paper. So I just took and made sure I got it lined up.
No gaps, no overlaps. Just did my best. I mean, it's not super huge, Joe. It's just going to make it look better. So this is what I did the next time, which I suggest doing, taking your strip of paper, putting on the table and then put a glue on that.
And then you can take that strip and put it on to the form. After you get all that done, I put like four or five layers here. So it's pretty simple. I just repeat the process for four or five times. Just really depends on how strong you want your tube to be for this smaller diameter tube.
But this five laps was perfect. And as you see here, it looks amazing. I'm going to do a larger tube here next. And the five laps wasn't really enough. I would probably go more like seven.
So this next one here is going to be a two inch tube. So we are going to want four inch wide strips because that's double the length. So we're just going to take and we can tape that and put our base layer on. And then we can put our glue on. Like I said here, this is a suggested method.
Put it on the paper and then put that paper onto the form that you have already growing. So it's pretty simple. Just after you get a hang of it, this second one turned out a lot better after we got this method down. Because if you put the glue on the form itself, instead of putting it on the paper and then applying to the form, it makes it a lot wrinklier. That's a word, trust me.
But yeah, so it was pretty simple to do. Just keep going. It's not, it doesn't take terribly long, but it is just a repetitive process. So starting your angles, the trickiest part, just take your time on it and make sure you get the right angle so that as you go throughout the tube, it'll make it a lot nicer and it'll make a lot easier in the long run. So after we got that done, we can take and I just trimmed the edge of it off.
You probably wanted to trim more than I did because you want to trim past where you taped the base layer on. So it does make it a little bit shorter, but it's just what it is. So you just want to make the edges straight so it looks nice and because the edges aren't always perfect. Thank you so much for watching this video to the end. If you got value out of this video, make sure you hit that like button.
And if you want to see more of my videos, go check out my channel where I post a bunch of similar videos to this project. If you like what you see there, hit the subscribe button so you get notified when I post more similar videos to this project. Have a great day. Bye.
