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A place for general potato gun questions and discussions.
couchquail
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Tue Oct 30, 2007 9:47 am

thanks everyone who posted.

being able to see where informations, not just spudgunning, come from is key to understanding.

i apologize to the members i offended, i am not a subversive working for any government and i did not come on here to make you look like an idiot. i am not a reporter, i really am a concerned parent.

feel free to continue to fill up my email, it was setup specifically for spudfiles.
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jackssmirkingrevenge
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Tue Oct 30, 2007 10:32 am

I don't think anyone was actually offended, more concerned to see what misinformation your son had absorbed and keen to rectify it. There will always be bad seeds in any hobby and while the mods do their best to weed them out, a few still slip through the radar.
hectmarr wrote:You have to make many weapons, because this field is long and short life
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BC Pneumatics
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Tue Oct 30, 2007 12:00 pm

There are a lot of knowledgeable people here. Personally, I would advise you to look for posts by some of the following members:
-Boiling Lead Bath
-jackssmirkingrevenge
-Clide
-joannaardway
-Brian The Brain
-jimmy101
-markfh11q

These people post here regularly/semi-regularly (Though Joanna is away for a year or so right now), and are well qualified to give advice.

The following people are some of the best that the spudding world has known. Any info you find written by them is worth reading (maybe twice), and again, they know what they are talking about.
-Freefall
-Mr.Plow (Neospud)
-Spudinator
-Galfisk
-Navigator7
-Clide
-DR (Beware of Dog)
-Sgort87

A lot of these guys don't post anymore, but some great info can be found here: http://www.spudfiles.com/spudtech_archive/

Also have a look out for archive posts by "Boogieman" and "Chewy", as well as whatever you can find by "_Latke"/"Burnt_Latke"

As for myself, I have been spudding for around 6 years. I am 17 now. (Wow, I have been spudding 1/3 of my life) I run a business that specializes in spudguns, and answer newcomer's questions on a daily basis. Having been through the prime days of spudding (around 2004 as I recall) I know about the history of the devices, the things people have tried with them, and their limits.

If you have any questions, and cannot find help in posts from the people mentioned above, then post a topic about it here. There are plenty of well qualified people here to answer your questions, and we will jump on anyone who is not, and decides to give out bad information. I am happy to answer any questions via e-mail. (BCPneumatics@gmail.com) It is refreshing to see a parent who cares enough to make a post such as yours, if only you had been the father of Frog Boy... we could have avoided a tragedy.

(Also, as a side note, be careful for posts by "BenStern". He has a tendency to be the least safe person around.)

(If my PM box is full, please send your complaint for not being included on the list to my e-mail)
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williamfeldmann
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Tue Oct 30, 2007 12:43 pm

Miss a day, miss a lot...

Anyway, the fact that you have come across some bad or potentially unsafe information is almost odd sounding. We do a pretty good job of jumping all over unsafe ideas, or the use of unsafe materials, builidng processes, etc.

You should be able to find multiple threads on almost any major topic by using the search function on this site. Yes, you will probably see someone make a dumb mistake, but more importantly you will see 3 or 4 members correcting that mistake.

Learning from mistakes is almost as important as listening.

As for me, I am 26 and have been building pneumatics since the mid 90s, combustions since senior year HS. I have double masters in Accounting and Mathematical Programming (go figure that combination out). I earn my money via accounting, and spend it in a fully outfitted wood lab where I make reproduction and modern furniture, mostly custom order jobs. I use a lot, LOT, of pvc and metals in my pieces so I have a lot of experience with both products. I am retired Air Force, heavy weapon specialist, don't ask cause I can't tell you, but I understand more about rockets, delivery systems, and ballistics than the vast majority of people even in the business.
Trying to figure out how to make a SCUBA first stage regulator work for portable charging station. If only that pesky job thing didn't keep eating up all my time...

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein
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jrrdw
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Tue Oct 30, 2007 5:25 pm

BC Pneumatics wrote:There are a lot of knowledgeable people here. Personally, I would advise you to look for posts by some of the following members:
-Boiling Lead Bath
-jackssmirkingrevenge
-Clide
-joannaardway
-Brian The Brain
-jimmy101
-markfh11q
I'm glad you said it that way, i allmost got offened you left me and a few others out.

I'm also glad others feel the information comes from all over. To say it comes from one place is just foolish.

So, couchquail, what are you/son going to build.
Pneumatic
Combustion
Mini
???
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BC Pneumatics
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Tue Oct 30, 2007 5:32 pm

Well someone needs and ego check! :P
Like I said, the names of all the prominent "new" members do not come to the front of my mind willingly.
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SpudUke5
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Tue Oct 30, 2007 6:04 pm

Sorry to ask this question but what happened to Frogboy?? I know it is something obviously bad and i dont want to be a prick but im just curious. And i want to know for my saftey too :)

And i guess ill post my credentials too, even though it doesnt matter. It will make me feel important 8) I am 15 years old going on 16 in December, and I live in the U.S. I currenty am attending High School and im a softmore (10th grade). I have about 7-8 months of experiance in pneumatics cannons and so far none in combustion. I plan to attend college but im not sure in a degree. And i am involved in many extra curicular activities, including this, if you want to consider it an extra curricular activities.

P.S. And i am also a triplet :D not that its important.
Last edited by SpudUke5 on Tue Oct 30, 2007 6:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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DYI
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Tue Oct 30, 2007 6:08 pm

He was part of a group of boys who had a spray'n'pray combustion and were trying to fire a frog out of it.

As near as anyone can tell, he looked down the barrel to see if the frog was in there, and accidentally hit the ignition. He had to have facial reconstructive surgery, and Joel wrote in to the newspaper about his view on the incident.

Combining unsafe construction, improper projectiles, and complete lack of any safety procedures resulted in an incident that may well be one of the most famous spudding mishaps ever.

So for your own safety, don't look down the barrel of a loaded gun and press the trigger :roll:
Last edited by DYI on Tue Oct 30, 2007 6:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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jackssmirkingrevenge
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Tue Oct 30, 2007 6:09 pm

LikimysCrotchus5 wrote:Sorry to ask this question but what happened to Frogboy?? I know it is something obviously bad and i dont want to be a prick but im just curious. And i want to know for my saftey too :)
Once upon a time, in a land far far away...
Just when 17-year-old Daniel Berry's life had found new light, he must find his way in the dark.

"It's not right, I'm not used to being blind," he says. "It's a whole new world for me and not one that I would've chosen."

Berry was shot in the face, looking down the barrel of a home-built contraption called a spud gun. When it fired a frog, it blinded him.
A typical example of people refusing to accept responsibility for their own stupidity. Spudguns don't fire on their own accord. The article should read: "Berry shot himself in the face while looking down the barrel of a home-built contraption called a spud gun. When he fired a frog, it blinded him".
hectmarr wrote:You have to make many weapons, because this field is long and short life
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DYI
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Tue Oct 30, 2007 6:16 pm

Muhahahahahaha!!!!

I beat Jack :D

On a more serious note, every single serious spud gun accident was reported as if the launcher, as opposed to the operator, was at fault. This is obviously another example of the media twisting stories. When a person crashes their car, they blame the road. We pin the blame for a lot of our own stupidity on inanimate objects.
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SpudUke5
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Tue Oct 30, 2007 6:19 pm

The media infuriates me. I say get the exact truth. As you said JSR, they dont fire on themselves. I thought this was going to be something stupid like how a guy used gunpowder in a cannon, as i recall a post on that here. And model rockets can be dangerous, but no one puts thier face infront of it and wants to outlaw it because of one accident. Media..................... get the proper truth.
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Fix up copper cannon
Fix up 4SPC
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Start Toolies piston bazooka
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jackssmirkingrevenge
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Tue Oct 30, 2007 6:32 pm

DYI wrote:I beat Jack :D
Argh! By less than a minute, and only 'cause I bothered to link to the article :p :D
On a more serious note, every single serious spud gun accident was reported as if the launcher, as opposed to the operator, was at fault. This is obviously another example of the media twisting stories. When a person crashes their car, they blame the road. We pin the blame for a lot of our own stupidity on inanimate objects.
It's a sad reflection of the direction society is taking. Remember this one? No mention that it was total disregard for basic safety and common sense that resulted in the man's tragic death. I don't want to sound holier than thou, we've all had our accidents in spite of all the precautions, and like anything in life you can't cut down the risk by 100% - but the thankfully few examples that exist of serious spudgun injuries all seem to be a result of "human error" and are incidents which could easily have been avoided.
Media..................... get the proper truth
sadly, the truth doesn't sell as well as sensationalism :roll:
hectmarr wrote:You have to make many weapons, because this field is long and short life
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DYI
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Tue Oct 30, 2007 6:44 pm

sadly, the truth doesn't sell as well as sensationalism
Well said. The real problem is that some people believe that the press is there to tell us the whole truth, but they manage to put a spin on everything they tell us. Notice the " Berry had a dream too..." part? They make it sound as though this launcher was actually responsible for taking his life. Look at Australia. Those laws are not the result of a government simply looking out for its people. Trying to pass laws as strict as those that exist in Aus. would kill a US government. And the whole reason that the people allowed such laws to exist likely stemmed from the media saying something that can be boiled down to "guns kill people".

The whole problem is that the media doesn't want the proper truth. Were it not for the fact that the most recent incident took place with a potato in the barrel, the press would have probably said it was a pipe bomb or a homemade firework, not that the man had constructed an illegal muzzle loading firearm and that his own idiocy was directly to blame for his demise.

I still wish that I could know what this inaccurate information that CouchQuail spoke of was. Most of it is corrected pretty quickly here.
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couchquail
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Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:00 pm

jrrdw wrote:So, couchquail, what are you/son going to build.
Pneumatic
Combustion
Mini
???
he's currently earning money for an advanced combustion sniper or a HalfLife tau/gauss gun cannon. he's got some learning to do in the ignition source area. he's got some crazy idea of using a magneto as a ignition source driven by an electric motor for visual effect.
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Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:14 pm

couchquail wrote:
jrrdw wrote:So, couchquail, what are you/son going to build.
Pneumatic
Combustion
Mini
???
he's currently earning money for an advanced combustion sniper or a HalfLife tau/gauss gun cannon. he's got some learning to do in the ignition source area. he's got some crazy idea of using a magneto as a ignition source driven by an electric motor for visual effect.
Would need a magnetic field pasing by the triggering device mounted in the magneto at the speed of at least 750 RPM's. And thats a low end, (small) magneto.

Some members use ignition coils and spark plugs.

If it's visual effect he wants, get a clear chamber, and mount LED's behind the mixing fan. I've seen a picture of one with a clear chamber floating around in here somewhere. Shows it firing at night. Really neet looking!

After this thread, i'm really looking forward to seeing a finished cannon from you'all.
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