SpudFiles

I haven't tested these yet, but I bet they work at least better than just the paper towels I was using before as golf ball sabots.

The golf ball you see is stuffed in a few cupcake cooking fabric thingies I found at walmart. There are the plain paper kind and then there are also aluminum foil ones. They fit really nicely around the ball as they are designed to fold around an object already. The foil ones could be potentially good burst discs as they are already round. They would need a little trimming perhaps.
The gollf ball is stuffed in a few of these cupcake cloths and then a small plastic cup is used to fit tightly around the whole thing, making it very slick for low friction in the barrel. I found that paper towels got ripped and hung up on the fried potato residue in the barrel, so this plastic may help. We'll see.

Also, the foam pool toy is one of those really long things, only 2 bucks each. they have a hole in the center and the whole thing could be shaves around the outside to fit in your particular barrel, and the inside hole opened up to tightly hold anything you want to shoot. The whole thing can then be sliced in half so it easily opens up once it leaves the barrel, allowing the projectile to continue on without getting hung up.

The foam looks like it would be an excellent sabot for archery arrows as well

Swimming pool noodles, boy that takes a lot of work out of building sabots. Good thinking.

Not quite Jrrdw, swimming pool noodles are ussually solid foam, and these things have a hole in the middle, that clearly shows they are not swimming pool noodles.
I would suggest that swimming pool noodles would be even better sabots as they can have pretty much any projectile infront of them and can be cut into any size that is the same, or lower than their diameter.

Sooooo, John, your the swimming pool toy expert of the forum, who knew???

jrrdw wrote:Swimming pool noodles, boy that takes a lot of work out of building sabots.

I'm going to point out the idea has been used before. Time to use my "never forget a thing JSR has posted" skills (yes, I know that's a sucky superpower) in his favour this time.

And John is right. That looks more like unusually coloured pipe lagging to me.

Ragnarok wrote: And John is right. That looks more like unusually coloured pipe lagging to me.

In the US, the norm is swim noodles in all sorts of pretty colors with the hole. We tell it apart from the pipe stuff as the pipe stuff is perforated for and easy split wrap and tape operation and generaly comes in black or white. Swim noodles are tougher and don't have the perf line.

Hmm, i should or writen a page about swimming noodles, from inventor up until their atomic build up...too bad, next time.

john bunsenburner wrote:Hmm, i should or writen a page about swimming noodles, from inventor up until their atomic build up...too bad, next time.

Why? You seem to think swimming noodles don't have holes in them.

I think cutting any sabot in half so it falls away quickly is the better of ideas. Way less drag on the projectile.

Or you could cut it so that a bit of material is left, liek that it bends back wards when it exits the barrel being far more out of the way than when it simply falls.

And swimming noodles DONT have a hole in them, that wierd under water fun toy device does. *in old mothers tone talking to some poor kid that made out with her daughter* "You make me sick!"

I gotta go buy some pool noodles! They will work perfect for the pneumatic I just finished (I will post it later when I have more damage pics). However, the great omniscient wikipedia says that pool noodles sometimes have holes in them http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_noodle line 1 words 16 and 17

Tidbit, you obviously did not read on!

Some thing I have used as sabot/wadding is "stress ball".

You can get them typically in 2.5 inch diameter but they will easily compress to smaller barrel diameters.

They are made in a closed cell foam which works better than open cell foam.

Obviously for combustion you would want some way of flame proofing.

Here on the end of the barrel is what they typically look like.

My suggestion would be polyurethane foam. Take a piece of pipe, the size of your barrel, lubricate or powder it inside and then spray the foam into it.

pro: very light and reusable

cons: need some time to cure

MRR wrote:My suggestion would be polyurethane foam. Take a piece of pipe, the size of your barrel, lubricate or powder it inside and then spray the foam into it.

pro: very light and reusable

cons: need some time to cure

Hoooooooly crap. Thats brilliant. Make your own mold! Maybe I could even put the golf ball inside the barrel and suspend it somehow and then the sabot will be all pre molded, ready to fit the golf ball. Cut it in half and done. Good thinking.

Maybe I could even put the golf ball inside the barrel and suspend it somehow

Tooth picks and super glue???