How long have you been spudgunning for?

[sputnick]

I have been spudding on off for about 6 years now, because of the distinct lack of sprinkler valves, and large pressure rated pvc, and parents who denied me the chance to build a combustion, I have built around 10 really simple medium powered cannons.

Funny thing is, I think I liked my first design the most, It was just 3 feet of copper for a barrel, a very easy to open ball valve, followed by a 1 1/2" 45 degree elbow and 2 feet of 1 1/2" chamber, it held like a rifle, and shot wonderfully, gave me 2 years of fun before I filled the barrel with odd rocks, and after it jammed up. The barrel was trashed, couldn't fix it. That was a sad day

Well, luckily, I have found a fastenal really near to me, so hopefully I can get a 1/2 QEV and one up all the guns of the past! I'm thinking 1/2" copper anti-material sniper at 400 psi

[starman]

For me and modern day PVC spudding, since the '93-94 timeframe. My very first experience with it was back in 1971, as documented here.

[jook13]

I remember messing with my friends dads spray and pray back when I was in 7th grade. I am now 26 so that was about 15 years ago. I built my first, a direct copy of my friends dads cannon in the year 2000, my senior year. I never really messed with spud guns after I graduated high school till I was bored one night and searched spudguns. About 3 years ago I found this site and I havent looked back.

[Moonbogg]

My very first experience was launching tennis balls out of connected paint cans back in 7th grade I think. Then it was another tennis ball cannon out of pipe and a fire extinguisher like right after high school. These were just mindless play toys created almost by accident.
Actually building cannons that require some thought, since 13 Oct 2008, my spudfiles join date. So 6 months. I built an ABS advanced combustion and loved it, but I was scratching my head trying to figure out what people meant by "hybrid" 3X, blah blah etc. I found out what they were talking about and never looked back.

[i-will]

i've been doin this as long as i can remember.

one of my first was a rubberband shooter made of paper and paper clips in the first grade. after i showed it to a few friends the whole school did it and i got detention for a week when they found out.

my first pneumatic was a Nerf gun that i converted to a pump action nail rifle in the 4th grade.

my first combustion was a bolt action design that fired a cartridge (a firecracker and whatever fits as ammo(rocks) in a 3" copper pipe) that was ignited by a long neck grill lighter pointed at the fuse. i did major damage with that one. this was in the 5th grade.

my first electric magnetic gun was in the 10th grade and was made of a hand full of disposable camera capacitors, a straw, some copper wire, and slingshot ammo. the accidental shocks temporarily damaged some nerves but it was kinda worth it. it shot about 30ft and had an impressive recoil.

these days i'm workin more on airsoft and milsim tech (6pack launchers, grenades( all kinds), nerf knife, booby traps, assault weapons, rifles, capacitor powered fuse igniters, IR shot counter. the big problem is that i have so many ideas that i can't start or finish a single project.

i didn't even know that spuddin was a hobby or that it even had a name until i joined this forum. i just like the idea of affecting something far away. whether it be by a homemade launcher or remote control (BOOM!)

i'm a nerd.

[inonickname]

I suppose potatoes aren't all that bad, I use them on minis for economy. Getting 100+ shots out of one potato is great, especially seen as I don't pay for them. Just grab them outa the cupboard.

Speaking of that, I need to make a new mini.

[D_Hall]

Somewhere around 8 years.

But I came at the hobby from two different directions at the same time.

1) We have a couple of 16" battleship guns at the office and some 'tard thought it would be a good idea to activate them for [reason]. The proposal ended up on my desk for an engineering evaluation of the concept. I (figuratively) shredded the proposal but acknowledged that a large bore gun could be very useful (just not THAT gun). I submitted a counter-proposal involving a large air cannon. The spreadsheet I threw together to elp crunch some numbers for the counter-proposal became the basis of the first version of GGDT. The counter-proposal was forgotten for several years but eventually resurfaced as the gun some of you know as the Pipe Dream.

2) At the same time I was into paintball. I very briefly got into scenario games. That led to me working on some custom projectile designs. I needed a cannon to test the designs.... I built one (using the spreadsheet already mentioned), and here we are today.



And I don't believe I've ever fired an actual spud. Doubt I ever will as they don't appeal to my meticulous nature (I want each projectile to be the same as the previous!).