Self Venting, Metered, New Cannon

cannon freak · Posted: 04/16/2008 16:52 PM Post subject:

Hey all!

Its been quite some time since Ive posted, made a cannon, or even been on the site, however, things have been a little boring so I decided to make another cannon.

Now its definitely not the best looking cannon at the moment, as its held together by carpet and electrical tape. I have some metal strapping but had a hard time getting it tight so I decided to get everything taped up to see what it looked like.

Specs -

- Chamber volume somewhere around 380 cubic inches.

- Barrel length approximately 5'. On the end of that particular barrel is a 3" coupling and 3" female adapter, this is because I had an older cannon which was for a much larger dual chambered cannon which had a 3" barrel and the barrel which you see which was for 2" ammo. I didn't feel like buying more pipe so I slapped on a male fitting to the end and simply turned the pipe around to use for this gun.

- Ignition is a simple BBQ piezoelectric ignitor taped o the side. This is only temporary and when I get around it it I will replace it with a nice camera flash ignition system.

- Soon I will be making a nice spark strip but for the moment all I have is a piece of kindling with two screws in it and glued to the chamber wall.

- Venting is accomplished via a one inch diameter plastic check valve, I was a bit weary about the valve but it holds up just fine under combustion. This valve is connected to an old inflatable bed inflator running off of four D - Cell batteries. This provides enough air volume to force open the one way valve and vent the chamber.

- I have made the cannon a breach loader by taking four two inch couplings and sanding the inside with a dremel until it glided over a two inch piece of pipe. I then proceeded to simply glue them together, IM a bit concerned that the glue joints holding them together may fail so I'm going to strengthen them up soon and add an extension and handle grip to the breech so its much easier to open and close.

- I rigged up a quick propane meter from pieces around the garage, it was pretty dark out when I did the soldering so the joints could definitely be a lot better but its air tight and works great. The meter only needs to be charged to 45 PSI for the right mixture in the tank, I made it quite large because I wanted to be able to use it for my other, larger cannon. At the moment all I have is a piece of garden hose hooked to the ball valve going into my gun, I don't have much of a seal there so that needs to be replaced an fixed. Soon I will be adding another piece of 3" ABS pipe to conceal that unsightly propane meter and make the gun look cleaner.

All in all its a pretty decent gun, once I fix a few things and give it a nice paint job it should look pretty sharp. Its quite a heavy little bugger though.

Well enough reading, here are a few pics, hope you like em!!

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Videos will be posted when I find time to make them, hope you enjoyed.