SpudFiles

This is my first cannon project and I wanted to take the opportunity to brag (of course) and to get some constructive criticism.

This cannon was built to launch tshirts in short range areas such as small auditoriums and basketball gyms. All the PVC is 3" Sch 40 pressure rated painted satin black with Kryon Fusion. The valve is an Orbit Watermaster with a blowgun mod. The pipe fittings are galvanized one inch pipe that includes a tee to hold a 115 PSI pop-off valve for safety and a standard air compressor quick connect fitting. I'm using a Kobalt CO2 system (thank you Lowes) with 9oz tanks. In use the 9oz tank hangs nicely from my belt and doesn't get in the way. With inside use I haven't had to take the pressure beyond 40PSI for my 50-ish foot target ranges. I need to paint the valve / fittings and get some shorter 1" threaded pieces to tighten up the whole thing, but other than that this thing is good to go.

I originally had an over-under design for this, but with an overall length of 38" (12" chamber and 15" barrel) it's just the right size to be impressive without being cumbersome as an in-line model. I may make a smaller diameter barrel for it as well since I've found that I have to roll little kid tshirts into a ball to get them to seal the barrel vs. the ballistic burrito I get with adult size shirts.

Thoughts, criticisms or warnings?

greene123 wrote:Thoughts, criticisms or warnings?

Simple and well made, as to safety you seem to have it covered

That is wonderful! Great job on your first (I would guess) cannon! Looks fairly clean, and seems to work well from what you say.

How much did the whole CO2+regulator setup cost you?

Lowes says over 80 bucks for the reg, and probably bout 15 for the tank. For that money you could have picked up the realy nice stabalizer reg, but whatever, you have a nice gun. How many shots you getting off a 9oz?

That scared me, I thought it was ABS until I saw you painted it. Nice job! I love it! And by the way, you should remove the nozzle at the bottom of your blow gun.

Aye the Kobalt regulator with 2 9oz tanks was $80 + tax. I had looked into a simple regulator with a remote line for this, but after it was all said and done the prices that I was looking at were close so I went with the immediate gratification angle since I could pick it up locally.

With all the goofing around and test fires I'm not sure on a shot count per tank. I going to say at least twenty.

And yes this is my first cannon though not my first time to make things go boom.

Nice work, good to see someone using a safety valve. 8) Safety is still cool in my book

Looking forward to seeing more clean cannons from you

Good work mate. May it serve you well

Nice to see a good looking cannon on here. Just a thought, you could make the barrel a bit longer, just to get some more muzzle velocity.
Also, i've been wondering for a while, what does one with a cannon that launches T shirts. Do you fire them into crowds at events?

battlemonkey wrote:you could make the barrel a bit longer, just to get some more muzzle velocity

Perhaps the short barrel is because he wants to just distribute t-shirts, not knock the audience out

Looks like a sweet little system. You could launch confetti as well with this. It actually makes me want to consider a similar CO2 project.

jackssmirkingrevenge wrote:

battlemonkey wrote: you could make the barrel a bit longer, just to get some more muzzle velocity

Perhaps the short barrel is because he wants to just distribute t-shirts, not knock the audience out

In seriousality, though, nice launcher. How many shots are you expecting out of that 9 oz. thank, though?