how does the gun i made sound?

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soadkid332
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Sun May 15, 2005 8:32 pm

ok i just recently made my first spudgun. it got burned to shit, ill tell that story after i tell the design. excuse spelling mistakes, im tired lol. ok it has a removable cap on the end, threaded, followed by a 17"x3" combustion chamber, with a 3" to 2" reducer, then a 2" barrel thats a little over 5' long. it fires really good like distance wise. my first firing system, which was a long nosed lighter which i ripped apart and just took the sparker from and attached some wires from it to two bolts. those bolts sucked. my dad made me some bolts at work, which are copper and have copper wire soldered into the center so they work nice :-D and that system sparked every time if positioned correctly. the female plug on the combustion chamber had messed up threads so the plug often got stuck. it got stuck so bad me and my buddy had to crack the female plug in 2 places to get it out, then i glued the cracks. we fired it after a few unsuccesful trys and the apple went far. so did the plug lol it flew off really far. now my dad says that the guns he used to see had permanent caps on them and had a small hole for fuel and u lit them through the hole. well my gun basically caught fire and got burned to hell and had all the threads burned up so my dad just glued the plug in and had me drill a small hole so i can squirt carberator cleaner in. it still sparks if i got the wires positioned right cause my ignitor has a broken lead. i sealed the cracks in the female plug with liquid plastic. first of all, what do u think of my original design? what do u think of my dads repairs? and do u think itll still work as well? suggestions would be sweet
spudshot
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Mon May 16, 2005 3:27 am

you dont want ANY holes in your launcher, searing hot gases burn like hell, you should have just bought a new cleanout cap if the threads were messed up, if thats how your dad used to do it he's lucky he didnt get burnt before. i dont know how yours could have caught on fire unless the liquid fuel caught on fire (guilty of that)

your original design seemed good, the only thing was the ignitor may not be very strong, i usually use peizo ignitors from bbq grills, and i have them jump multiple spark gaps, which you may want to do if your chamber is long.

you should really just get a new female adapter and a cleanout plug, its alot safer.
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soadkid332
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Mon May 16, 2005 11:45 am

yeah i was thinking about that just my dad insisted, and he made these bolts for me. the copper bolts connected to the lighter, which i may add was the lighter from a long nosed candle lighter, sparked every time and would ignite if i put in the proper fuel. my chamber was about 17" long and i just planned on sawing off the old end with the cap stuck in it and buying a new one and glueing it on. i could probably get multiple sparks to jump, ive seen 2 sparks jump at once from my bolts. the bolts look like this (washers and other parts included, and the bolt head is not a normal head)-
[|======------
^1 ^2bolt ^3
3) wire
1)hookup for wires/ gator clips

whats a good way to increase my range of firing and refuel more efficiently, usually i have tons of excess fuel and thats probably what caught on fire
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CS
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Mon May 16, 2005 6:32 pm

I would suggest a regular designed potato gun with a1 1/2" barrel, 4" chamber, chamber fan, and a propane injection system.
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No.Va
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Tue May 17, 2005 9:01 am

how exactly does a propane injection work anyways? ive always been curious about ti but for me things always seem to go wrong and i dont want an exploding chamber any time soon.
soadkid332
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Tue May 17, 2005 11:31 am

i dont understand all the crap on makin a propane injection system, id like to if it was in ENGLISH lol. to me just all the abbreviations throw me off. My gun works amazingly, and i couldnt find a 4" to 2" let alone a 4" to 1" so i went with 3" to 2" and it fires FAR with carberator cleaner. im making a new one anyway, probably the same design with a smaller barrell. if anyone could explain a chamber fan and a propane injection system plz lol
spudshot
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Tue May 17, 2005 11:36 am

well, a chamber fan is just a small computer fan (computer fan because they have brushless motors and dont create sparks) that is hooked to a battery supply through screws tapped in your chamber wall, you put the fan in your chamber, and after you spray/inject your fuel you close the chamber and turn on the fan for about 10 seconds to mix the fuel with the air to help the combustion.

a propane injection system consists of numerous pipe fittings to make adaptations, a propane tank and modified propane torch head, a regulator, and a meter pipe with 2 ball valves, one on either end of the meter pipe.

for alot of good information check out everything on http://www.burntlatke.com
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