Green Waters Spudgun page

The inevitable Disclaimer:

The information presented here is my own presonal experiences and it is strongly recommended that irresponsible (ignorant) persons NOT duplicate these actions. They are somewhat dangerous and could lead to injuries.

Designs:

This page is primarily devoted to pneumatic spudgun design.

	I have built two, a 1-1/4x2 and a 2x4. Each is about four feet long. The design I followed can be found at the Backyard Ballistics pneumatic gun page. I wrap the chambers of the guns in a bath towel when firing for safety, a couple long nylon hose ties hold the towel in place.
	I believe I have found the perfect diaphragm material, it is 3/16 hard neoprene with cloth insert. I got it at a manufacturing company I worked for, I don't know where to get it locally. It is advertised in McMaster-Carr supply (708)833-0300 catalog if you have access to this catalog as "cloth inserted neoprene sheeting" with a tensile strength of 1000 psi. I have used this in both of my guns and have not seen any deformation with pressures reaching 120 psi. I will mail, at my expense, a 5x5 swatch of this material to the first dozen or so to e-mail me concerning this material. You must include a waiver of responsibility statement that I would accept.
	The air supply I use for my guns is a water (empty) fire extinguisher, I pressurize this with a small compressor to about 120 psi. It is rated for 200 psi and has a gauge at the valve, I fitted it with an air hose and a blow-gun. I can get about 10 shots with my smaller gun and only about 3 shots with my 2x4 gun. My next upgrade is to rig a small well-water tank, they are usually rated at 150 psi and I should get many more shots out of it. The wrench in the picture was fashioned out of top-rail (fencing) tubing to fit the 4" cleanout plug, so I don't have to carry my tools around with the gun.

Accelerated recycling:

My first attempt was to mash an aluminum can for my 1-1/4 gun. I reduced the diameter and placed it into a short pipe, then mashed it down with a ram rod of a wooden dowel. The can mashed easily, but the projectile was lame as there is to much air spaces within it. Maybe a wad of cloth would aid the load.

My current attempt is to melt a quart motor oil bottle (empty) in a short iron pipe nipple. I cut the bottom out of the bottle, placing the bottom into the bottle, then slit each narrow shoulder of the neck. Next I flatten the bottle and fold lengthwise, and roll into a tight cylinder. Force this into the iron nipple, place into the oven or heat gently with a torch. The soft (hot) plastic can be formed into a point to aid in accuracy. This cools into a VERY hard projectile, caution is to be emphasized, I only shoot this straight up for hang-time. I have created one of these and they work very well.

Spudgun links:

• Backyard Ballistics
  
• The Spud Gun Page
  
• Make you own Spud Gun
  
• http://www.almac.co.uk/personal/rcrymble/readme.txt
  
• http://www.vivanet.com/~jwol/spud/spud.html
  
• http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/tep/events/spud.html
  
• Make your own Spud Gun II, Potato Guns, Anarchy in the kitchen..
  
• Potato Gun's
  
• Potato Guns
  
• The Spud Zone
  
• Matt's Potato Gun Page
  
• Our Potato Gun Page *BOOM*
  

Be Happy:

• Delaware Pumpkin Chunkin When I get a job, I'm going here for vacation, with or without the wife!
  
• Darting links
  
• Stuart's quiz. E-mail me for the answers!

Other links:

• University of Florida Environmental Engineering Department
  
• Local environmental page by ESE
  
• Gator Attack Club homepage (Gator volleyball)
  
• Alachua FreeNet homepage
  
• Infoseek search engine
  
• Yahoo search engine
  
• PC Magazine
  
• The Whitehouse