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Posted by Sunsnail on Jul-30-2009 17:17:

potato guns

gonna try and make one with a friend this weekend. anyone got any tips or recommendations?

Posted by Moral Hazard on Jul-30-2009 17:20:

wear a helmet and a cup

Posted by amp3 on Jul-30-2009 17:43:

You don't really need that much hairspray, start out with a little bit, than work your way up. They are a lot of fun.

Also, hide it before you start drinking, because it will seem like a great idea when you are drunk to fire it into the neighbor's pool at 2 in the morning only to take out a window (and narrowly missing a chihahua) instead.

Posted by colonelcrisp on Jul-30-2009 18:14:

Re: potato guns

quote:
Originally posted by Sunsnail
gonna try and make one with a friend this weekend. anyone got any tips or recommendations?

dont make the combustion chamber too big, 10 - 12" MAX of 6" PVC SDR80 (schedule 80 is a must since you want it to be able to withstand AT LEAST 80 PSI before catastrophic failure) also i have found that barrel length of 36 to 48" works best. As for fuel, hairspray works well (garnier fruictus) but it will gum up the electrical contacts after a while. the best (and most awesome way) is oxygen and acetylene.

what you want (ideally) is a 5" and a 2" length of 1/2" cast iron pipe (threaded at both ends) and install a standard high pressure 1/2" ball valve on each end of each pipe. one of the ball valves on each pipe install a standard coupler for attaching a 120z compressed gas cylinder. the other end should be fitted with a 90degree elbow and a small lenght of threaded pipe to be screwed into the side of the combustion chamber. the 5" pipe is for O2 and teh 2" pipe is for C2H2 (acetylene) basically have all the valves closed, open the tank side ones first to allow the pipe to fill with gas, then close the tank side valves and open the other valves to vent the gas to the combustion chamber.

you now have a loaded potatoe cannon with a perfect 5:2 ratio of O2 and C2H2 in the chamber. this has a huge punch and will easily launch a potatoe a couple hundred yards.

enjoy

Posted by Sunsnail on Jul-30-2009 18:36:

i knew i would get a response from you, mr. canadian engineer

Posted by colonelcrisp on Jul-30-2009 19:20:

quote:
Originally posted by Sunsnail
i knew i would get a response from you, mr. canadian engineer

what can i say, its hard to resist the nerd urges to build something that launches root vegetables, and then spend 3 years of optimizing it in my spare time....

ask karim, i tested one of my earlier models on him (he was being an idiot and asked me to shoot a sock at him...... it left a healthy bruise)

Posted by jonze on Jul-31-2009 11:52:

Re: Re: potato guns

quote:
Originally posted by colonelcrisp

you now have a loaded potatoe cannon with a perfect 5:2 ratio of O2 and C2H2 in the chamber. this has a huge punch and will easily launch a potatoe a couple hundred yards.

i never thought dan quayle would be browsing the CORe

Posted by nchs09 on Jul-31-2009 12:46:

Re: potato guns

quote:
Originally posted by Sunsnail
gonna try and make one with a friend this weekend. anyone got any tips or recommendations?
Going to try? Its like the easiest thing to do.... if you fail at making one, you FAIL at life!

Posted by Omega_M on Jul-31-2009 17:11:

Re: Re: Re: potato guns

quote:
Originally posted by jonze
i never thought dan quayle would be browsing the CORe

haha