Getting Back in the Saddle

[noname]

Hey guys, it's been a while. I still lurk semi frequently but university has been eating up my time the past couple years. The only exposure to launching stuff recently was at "potato launcher day" or something similar at campus, where some guy with a ball valve pneub gun tried to outshoot a solenoid sprinkler pneub gun. It was nice to see but...disappointing. Fast forward to later in the year when my friends and I manage to gather up ~300 stray golf balls from near a driving range and can't figure out anything cool to do with them. Me - "Oh I should make a golf ball gun." Everyone else - "Yeah that would be awesome!" Never happened because I don't have anywhere that sells the right pipe for the job. Fast forward again to last week, where I went home for the weekend and found the holy grail in a scrapyard: a length of 1.5" SDR 21! Went home, scrounged parts of old guns, brought them back to school.

So today we had an awesome shoot with a fully functional golf ball gun! No big deal or anything, a pretty small chamber and just a sprinkler valve, but WOW golf balls are perfect projectiles. I pressurized the gun to 120 psi behind a concrete BBQ pit just in case the pipe wasn't fully safe, but now I feel perfectly safe shooting at 90ish. My friends and I spent a good hour or so lobbing golf balls into the surrounding fields, then headed back. Nostalgia brought me to the Hybrid Cannon Showcase. A recent mental image reminded me that a local hardware store is closing.

Orchard Supply Hardware is being bought up all over the place by Lowe's, and as such, the deals are pretty great. I remembered hearing about this and went over there tonight. Walking up, the sign on the front said they would be in business for 3 more days. Inside, pretty much everything was gone, but I made my way to where all of us feel at home: the pipe and fittings section, PVC on one side and steel/iron/brass on the other. What kind of discount did they have, you ask? Oh, nothing too big, just NINETY PERCENT OFF all fittings! Aaaand now I have the beginnings of another hybrid $50-60 worth of galvanized fittings for a whopping $1.74. The cashier must've done something wrong, I dunno. Not complaining!

I don't have any tools with me here, or any of my precious spare fittings, valves, and igniters, but over winter break I really want to get this thing put together, configured for burst discs first, then hopefully a piston valve later once I have time for tinkering.

This ended up a lot longer than I wanted it to, but oh well. I'm hyped!

[mark.f]

That's definitely a whopping stroke of luck, my friend. I hope you got all the fittings to make a piston hybrid cheap too, instead of just a union?

Glad to hear you're back. In the spirit of getting stuff cheap, I have a potted stungun circuit lying around you could have as well.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

Spudding is like riding a bike... you never forget

[noname]

That's definitely a whopping stroke of luck, my friend. I hope you got all the fittings to make a piston hybrid cheap too, instead of just a union?

Glad to hear you're back. In the spirit of getting stuff cheap, I have a potted stungun circuit lying around you could have as well.

The store's inventory was next to nothing; they didn't have unions, Ts, ball valves, anything really. The PVC section was even worse. I don't mind paying full price for the few fittings I still need though, considering how much I'm saving overall. The was I see it, the money I saved buying those parts will be invested in making the hybrid less ghetto.
If you'd be willing to hook me up with a stungun circuit I would gladly accept! I've never used one and I'll admit they're kinda scary/intimidating but it would be cool to go over a 6x mix for once.

Spudding is like riding a bike... you never forget

It's true, I haven't forgotten the awesome possibilities but I had forgotten how it felt to trigger the release of a bunch of pressurized air to send something flying a couple hundred yards.

[Gun Freak]

Good to have you back shame your a hybrideer...

[noname]

Good to have you back shame your a hybrideer...

Glad to be back!
I read that whole pneumatic/hybrid thing. Pretty disappointing, I thought this was a 13 and up forum?
I'll build whatever I want for whatever purpose I want.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

I thought this was a 13 and up forum?

[jrrdw]

Good to have you back shame your a hybrideer...

Glad to be back!
I read that whole pneumatic/hybrid thing. Pretty disappointing, I thought this was a 13 and up forum?
I'll build whatever I want for whatever purpose I want.

And you will build it well and have tons of fun using it! :bom: BOOM!

[Gun Freak]

I'll build whatever I want for whatever purpose I want.

Ok little miss Sassy! 8)

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

Ok little miss Sassy! 8)

hehehe

[dart guy]

Noname= pot, Gunfreak= kettle, Jsr= captain obvious, I'm an idiot on a forum. We all get the point

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

Noname= pot, Gunfreak= kettle, Jsr= captain obvious, I'm an idiot on a forum. We all get the point

Actually the expression is "The pot calling the kettle black", so in this case GF is the pot while noname is the kettle

Also, you're not the forum idiot. You're the forum adolescent.

As you are, we once were. As we are, you will one day become.

Probably.

[noname]

I've got far more stuff in the Pneumatic/BB section than the hybrids, so I feel like "hybrideer" is a pretty bad label.

Dart guy, you get a gold star for the best punctuation I've ever seen in one of your posts!

[Gun Freak]

I was using the term Hybrideer more to describe your desire to build a hybrid, not necessarily that you have made a bunch of them

[dart guy]

never mind got rid of it