SpudFiles

EDIT:

I finally finished it! I call it The Slice, The Wilson Slice

1/2 teaspoon calcium carbide powder grade for cannons, about 1-1/2 cups of water. Shoots the 75mm kids starter tennis balls from walmart. These are low bounce balls with pretty heavy fuzz compaired to a standard tennis ball. The low bounce balls are 2X as soft as far as how firm they are i think they absorb alot of the shock of the blast.

I put a shot 2" rail on th ebottom so i can use a rifle tripod to make it some what portable. Use a large 1/4" door hinge pin in the reducer to stop the balls from rolling down into the breech. Also helped support the cannon while i painted it. I hung it from that pin a few times.

Cant wait to fire it again, ive fired it a few times after i first built it but dont think i fired anything from it. Best one ive built so far.

This was in the June 1976 issue of popular mechanics magazine. The company that makes "Bangsite" said the year this came out they had the highest sales on bangsite LOL!

The article plans uses 6" PVC 2/3 teaspoon of carbide. Ive found the best bang with mine 4" is 1/2 teaspoon and about a cup of water. The 4" is about half the price as the one in the article also.

These are the first 2 i built i think i put about 15 shots threw the black one till a guy at my local gun range HAD to have it so i let it go.

The breech cleanout cap has a rod that puts the powder holder, as you insert the cleanout cap and screw it in that dumps the carbide down into the water chamber creating the gas. Wait a few seconds and let it rip!

hahahaha fantastic!

Totally needs a carriage

Carriage...yup. :thumbup: :thumbup:

I used this kwik seal glue stuff in a tube its white and is paintable to give the sort of look like welds came out kinda neat i think.

Threw together a half assed carriage today. Still needs some stain and paint the hardware black, might throw on some little chains or some rope. Going to be a fun forth!

Here it is all done

Police were called on me today for firing my cannons. Looks like ill have to wait now for the 4th

I will admit they are pretty loud, i dont know what people must think they are.

I almost admit it was a spud gun but i dont kow what the laws are so i just pretend i didnt hear anything.

Built a 2" tennis ball shooter last night with my birthday money my brother gave me. Did a search on this forum a few days ago for "tennis ball" and found all kinds of posts for tennis ball shooters and 2.5" pipe then read that the normal yellow tennis ball is 2.6" and that it fits tight in the hard to find 2.5" PVC i checked my local lowes and they dont have 2.5 let alone a 2.5-3" coupler so the next best thing was a 2"

Did some digging and found these small dog tennis balls called "chuckit!" are 2" and walmart has them so i built a JR. tennis ball shooter.

Shot it today with 1/8 teaspoon of powder canon grade powder and i dont think my neighbors will like this one either.

I need to paint them but then the neighbors will be on to who is making all the noise. Ill have to sneak over to a friends and paint it in his back yard hidden by a fence! lol

How about making silencers for them? That way you get the fun without worrying about the neighbors or the cops.

Alanstone wrote:How about making silencers for them? That way you get the fun without worrying about the neighbors or the cops.

It seems to me that the noise is half the fun

Here's something simple to have some noise abatement:

Yes! That is totally freaking awesome! I forgot all about carbide cannons. I had one when I was a kid that said "Not for firing projectiles" or something like that. It would shoot marbles through cardboard easy.

I love the pirate cannon look. Great job. Thanks for adding another cannon to my future build list.

Keep them coming!

Boomer58cal wrote:Yes! That is totally freaking awesome! I forgot all about carbide cannons. I had one when I was a kid that said "Not for firing projectiles" or something like that. It would shoot marbles through cardboard easy.

I love the pirate cannon look. Great job. Thanks for adding another cannon to my future build list.

Keep them coming!

When you build it make sure you post a picture i cant get enough of them. Im watching rerun youtube videos when i cant shoot mine and there arnt that many good ones on there.

I do see alot of the backyard balistics designs with the 4 way tee you can always tell where they got their idea when you see them.

I bet that red and yellow paint job would let you pass it as a toy.

Cannon? What cannon officer? I'm just playing fetch with my dog.

This is the one i made for my friend, we are planning to use it to shoot 2 liter bottle rockets made from empty 2 liter bottles of coke. Also tennis balls and to make noise for the 4th of july.

This one uses a spark igniter from the camping section from walmart for colmen lanterns. At the end i screwed in a little eyelet to run string threw. I measured out 15 yards of kite string and put a little loop on the end. You hook the loop to the little screw on the spark igniter then you wrap the string around the spark dial about 10 times. When you give the string a little tug it unwinds the string spinning the spark igniter and BOOM goes the rocket!

Ive shot the one i built for him before i painted it, no video of it in action yet. I havnt shot the Wilson Slice since i painted it yet either but i have a few videos of the other 3 ive made on my Youtube channel, is one of the videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPqy140fjxQ i have 3 videos so far shooting my cannons