SpudFiles

While looking to buy hair spray for my gun, i notice that you can buy hair spray with strong hold (10) or pretty much no hold (1). I'm guessing this is just like hair gel, higher the number the stronger it holds your hair. my question is does it matter? having a lower strength leave less gue in your chamber? have any effect on combustion?

I almost blew this off but I guess I'll contribute.

The holding power of the hair spray is irrelevant to spray and pray cannon usage. The propellant in the can is what you're actually burning for fuel, commonly di-methyl ether. The material that is the actual hair spray gunks up your chamber and you'll eventually have to clean it out. Just your basic cheap Aquanet gets the job done.

Others use spray deodorants, carb cleaner and various other spray products. If you really love spudding, I would suggest getting a few jollies with your hair spray cannon, and then set yourself to building a metered propane model. It's a whole different level of the hobby.

Welcome to Spudfiles. Do you have a cannon you can share with us?

Best spray and pray propellants are carb cleaner and butane. For smaller guns butane is great, for gigantic guns carb cleaner. But starman is right, if you want to get serious about combustion metered is the way to go.

I'm agreeing with them on the metered one, but personally if I had the choice I'd go for 1 (low stick). I haven't run any tests, but at a guess the 10 would be more difficult to remove from your chamber. Maybe try some in your hair and see which comes out the easiest?

Any hairspray will gum and stink out your chamber though.

ah hairspray
this really gives a very sticky chamber
buy butane or something like mentioned above.

If you aren't willing to spend the dollars on a metered, direct injection propane setup then I recommend these:

Propane meter
(scroll down)

There is a similar idea, except using butane. But I couldn't find it.

Thanks for the help.
i only have built the Basic Combustion Cannon. I'm looking to grow off it and building a Gb barrel for it. i am also looking into the metered propane.

Like others have said, if you really absolutely must start with a spray-n-pray then make your life easier and use either a butane refill cartridge or carb cleaner (or automotive cold weather starter spray). The cost will be about the same and these sprays don't have any junk in them that'll muck up your ignition system (or glue you cleanout plug shut or ...).

The performance of a spary-n-pray will be the same regardless of your fuel. There is so much variability in the amount of fuel that the very small differences in the energies of the fuels is totally swampled by the inaccurate fueling.

IIRC, automotive cold weather starter spray contains dimehtyl ether and propane. Dimethyl ether has an unusually wide combustion limit range and is a bit easier to get a combustable mixture with.

Combustion limit for dimethyl ether in air is 3 to 18.6% (vol/vol) (cite). That's about twice the range of propane or butane.

Use anti-persprint! You can get cheap stuff at Sainsburys (UK) for 50p a can.

The top 3 ingrediants listed on the can are propane, butane and isobutane.

They leave white flakes but do not leave the thick gum from hairspray and contain more flammable components.

jimmy163 wrote:They leave white flakes but do not leave the thick gum from hairspray and contain more flammable components.

It will leave a different material in the chamber but its flammability is not significantly different than the di-methyl ether in hair spray and other products.

thanks guys for all the help.

Its not that i could only build a spray and pray cannon, just I'm trying to learn a little before moving into the metered propane world. When i do, will i need to build a new chamber or can i use the one i have now. my whole set-up is 54" barrel of 1-1/2" SCH-40 and my chamber is 15" of 3" SCH-40 pipe.

Actually, depending on your igniter mechanism, your choice of "hold" can make a huge difference. I am fond of lantern lighters for spray-and-pray, and higher "holds" clog them up almost instantly. I use Aquanet #1, it seems to be the best of the hairsprays I've tried, and so far it hasn't caused a single misfire.

TollBooth wrote:thanks guys for all the help.

Its not that i could only build a spray and pray cannon, just I'm trying to learn a little before moving into the metered propane world. When i do, will i need to build a new chamber or can i use the one i have now. my whole set-up is 54" barrel of 1-1/2" SCH-40 and my chamber is 15" of 3" SCH-40 pipe.

You should be able to modify the one you have if you want to. You just need to decide if you want an onboard or outboard meter. Here's a look at an outboard meter...



Just install a female quick connect onto your chamber and you're ready to go...assuming you know what size to make your meter and at what pressure to run it. It all depends on volume of your chamber.

If metering propane isn't your thing. You can buy a propane torch, and attach it to your gun. Hold the button half way down to fill the chamber, and push down fully to ignite it. Its cheap-ish and easy, when I did it my chamber never got over fueled.

SpudsMcGee wrote:If metering propane isn't your thing. You can buy a propane torch, and attach it to your gun. Hold the button half way down to fill the chamber, and push down fully to ignite it. Its cheap-ish and easy, when I did it my chamber never got over fueled.

This thread has a couple of examples of propane torch metering:
http://www.spudfiles.com/forums/a-new-c ... 16824.html