[theothersean]

potato guns rule.


I built one today with a 4 foot barrel on it.

I used a 3" T for the combustion chamber and reduced it to a 11/2" 4ft barrel.

The bottom of the T has a ball valve for easy fuel adding.

I used a double grill sparker for ignition, the type used for a grill with a side burner.

The hardest thing was figuring out what fuel and what quantity to use. A short blast of starting fluid seems to work best. Shot the spud 150 - 200 yards , I ran out of potatos and had to use corn husks that don't fly as far.

I'll have to pick up some more spuds on my way home tomorrow.

We don't have much for entertainment out here in the country so we have to come up with stupid stuff like this.

[JeffL]

I'll attest to that, there certainly isnt much in the Brookfield area.

[R7]

Use hair spray for the fuel My cousin made one from PVC pipe and he got 200+ yards from the hair spray and only about 150 yards with the starting fluid

Country entertainment is the best

[theothersean]

any preference on brand?

I am assuming it need to be of the airesole (sp?) type.

[reiobard]

i forget the brand but the kind i used to use was the pink can with the brushed aluminium chicken wire design on it... aqua net or something like that.

[Punjistick]

Hair spray will eventually gum up the chamber. Try making a hybrid spud gun using compressed air and propane. Now those will shoot a potato! http://users.wfu.edu/shelj24/spud.html

[ZX-12R]

If you are confident in the manufacturing quality and safety of your spud gun, oxy-acetylene can fire a potato extremely far and it also makes an extremely loud report!

For average day to day use, I usually use WD40 as a propellant.

[SVRACER01]

AQUA NET!!! i had a 6ft potato gun once. easily over 200 yrds

[Cam_In_IL]

Screw hair spray. Get yourself some Static Guard and some frozen apples. The Static Guard won't gum up the chamber, and doesnt smell nearly as bad.

I need to build another one. I love potato guns. I think Jenn B may have seen the last one I had.

[oreo_n2]

what you're looking for is spray cans tha use propane as the propellant! Any of hte above products will work, some will smell worse than others and some will get gummy after a while.

i like hte ball valve idea, thats one i havent tried yet.

another fun party gag is to load it with some napkins and soak em in water (or crack some eggs in there)... makes for some fun blanks and cool firey blasts at night.

[theothersean]

bought some right guard. gotta read the label though cause not all of them are the same. I searched around on the web a bit and that seemed to be the most popular,

it has alcohol, isobutane and propane as the first listed ingredients.

I tried it out a few mins ago and seems to work the best.
It doesn't leave the condensation that some others leave.


now that I have the basic idea down I can improve on the design.


The ball valve is good for clearing the chamber before you open up a mis fire to see if its sparking or not, but I found that the best fuel delivery is to take the end cap off and spray. the ball valve doesn't let enough air in with the spray and floods the chamber.


as for any higher powered propellents I don't trust the plactic gun to hold up to that sort of abuse. I did read somewhere that if you get wire reinforced tape and tape up the whole gun with it it adds strength and in the event of a breach the plastic will be held together and not become schrapnel.

[JeffL]

I could very easily build one of these out of black iron.

[Cam_In_IL]

That's what I did, remove the end cap to spray the Static Guard. When firing, first I load the projectile into the barrell. I then open the end cap to the chamber and spray Static Guard, and quickly close it to keep all the fumes inside. Then flicked the flint and BOOOM!!!

If I had a misfire, I'd click the flint a few times, then open the end cap while holding the gun horizontally to my body. Meaning, the barrell is pointing to the side rather than in front of me. Safety first, right?

[OreoGitorio]

oh the memories

my PPU (Potato Propultion Unit ) consisted of about a 1' x 4" diameter chamber to about 6' x 2" barrel, a skrew on breach w/ a Grill ignitor in the middle of it and some Aquanet (blue can). We didn't get too crative but that basic design w/ 6' barrel still put it out a good 300 yards or so by my estimate when we took it out to an isolated lake

Just make sure to skrew that breach on tight so it didn't blow off the endcap & you're good to go. We usually used a big rock, tree or the ground to trigger the ignitor, just in case.