SpudFiles

I wonder if you could take your cannon and turn the chamber into a leyden jar to store static electricity and use that to fire it. That would be fun to explain to someone.

Man if you can do that go to NASA and apply for a job, i bet they hire you!

i've thought of the "jerk off" cannon a year ago when i made my leyden jar
if your pipe wall is thin enough, go for it, abs plastic is good for static electricity

why not just use capacitors, i guess its fun to make the leyden jars.

I'm using a capacitor on my current cannon. If I built a Leyden Chamber, I could rub a piece of cloth on it to charge it. When I pole vault in my nylon track uniform, the mat gives me a huge static charge, whenever we get off the mat or touch someone we get shocked, even through our shoes. The sparks get pretty long, about 3 inches max. Static is fun because the air crackles before the shock. I'm pretty sure a 3 inch long spark would do the trick for ignition. To make a Leyden Chamber just use thin PVC and metallic paint. Just cover the outside with something insulated. I'll look up a charging method, there's a site, I just googled static generator.

whoa a 3 in spark damn , i love shuffling my feet on the sports court at my school (it is made out of that plastic mesh squares) and then zapping my friends.

anyway that is actually a really good idea...i was just going to build a leyden jar a few hours ago. however leydens spark on the outside (if you made it correctly) so you would need to reverse engineer it in a way to do what you want to do

3 inches? holy crapp!

Yeah, it kinda hurts. They go through your shoes sometimes. It's fun to poke somebody, their muscle flinches. 3 inches could spark clear across my chamber.

Did you see the one on mythbusters?