LAKE TOWNSHIP, Ohio USA — Auto-body repairman Steve Eves is also a rocket scientist preparing to shoot for a world record.

In his workshop is a homemade, beautifully detailed, one-tenth scale Saturn V rocket that Eves, 50, plans to launch from a farmer's field 60 miles outside Baltimore in April.

Its nine motors run on an ammonium perchlorate-based propellant that will create 8,000 pounds of thrust. More than 3 feet long, it will weigh about 1,800 pounds, which would make it the heaviest hobby rocket to be successfully launched, according to Rockets Please Magazine.

"I'd love to get the re cord," he said. "But to me, it's not so much about re cords as it is about chal lenges and overcoming them. Building this rocket and getting it 5,000 feet into space and back safely is a huge challenge."

Eves, who has no college degree, started last May with a month of Internet research and then designed the rocket by copying a 100th-scale toy model.

Construction of the skeleton began in June 2007. Eves spent $800 for the wood — a ~-inch-thick, aircraft-grade plywood for added strength — and $1,000 for fiberglass to wrap around the wood frame so it can withstand the shock of thrust at takeoff.

The plan is to launch the craft to an altitude of 5,000 feet. At that point, the rocket should split into two sections and its path would become an arc. An altimeter on board should register the beginning of the rocket's descent and trigger four 28-foot parachutes for the main section of the rocket. The top section will have a single 35-foot parachute.

Eves estimates that he will have invested $20,000 in the rocket by launch time and put in about 2,000 hours of labor.

"If we can get it up in the air and none of the motors fail and then get it under chute, I'm going to be the happiest camper in the world," he said.

And the holder of a world record.

Copyright © 2008, The Plain Dealer.