So, Who influenced you to start spudding?

[Gippeto]

I suppose some of the work by John Bowkett on large bore air guns piqued my interest. Searching for information, I found this site.

I knew about hammer valves and had seen a combustion, but had never seen anything like a piston valve before. I had to have one!

I searched around the site, figured out how to build one and built the marshmallow gun. Then I started the co-ax, and joined up soon after.

[Pyro Ninja]

I always liked things that destroy other things.
Living in a gun free household made me ambitious to make things that could launch projectiles.
It started years ago (when I was around 6-7 yrs old) I made glove guns, later years at the start of highschool I found various videos of these amazing contraptions called "potato cannons".....then I made a mini etc etc etc

[brogdenlaxmiddie]

gosh, i miss those FIBlack3DBlue days... :/

[n-strike]

I started spudding because I started to like Nerf guns around 2002, and I only started making Nerf guns early this year. Then, I decided that foam darts just are not gonna cut it. And that is when I discovered...SPUD!

[PCGUY]

I was maybe... 13 at the time. On TechTV (now G4 here in the US) they used to have a show called The Screen Savers where they would show all kinds of awesome computer related things on TV, take live calls from people that needed help, etc. One day they had the author of Backyard Ballistics on the show where he showed a very simple, tee based cannon (a 3" section of pipe where in the middle it had a 1" ball valve attached to a 3" tee through an adapter, then a 2" barrel off the ball valve) and they showed it in action. I loved the idea and headed to Google to find out more.

The first website I ran into was SpudTech. I registered on the forum before SpudTech actually had a "real" forum (it was some free forum with ads all over the place). I learned a bit then finally made my own "tee" cannon and loved it.

SpudTech moved to the forums that some of you remember, and I moved with it. Soon after I realized that people kept advancing with their cannons and posting them, but there was no easy place to just go view them all. That's when I started SpudFiles (was The Spud Cannon Database back then). I asked people if I could feature their cannon on my website, and I would take their pictures of the cannon and write up some stuff about it based on what the builder told me about it.

I kept talking on the forums, building, trying to help people, etc. I also kept getting more and more cannons in "The Spud Cannon Database".

Eventually I became a moderator on SpudTech. I kept advancing SpudFiles to the point where it finally got the name SpudFiles. For those who remember, SpudFiles used to be a LOT different! It wasn't a forum at all.

More time passed, I became a global moderator on SpudTech. SpudFiles also grew. SpudFiles finally became a forum because I decided this is the best way to allow people to post their cannons for show and discuss them as well. Then I became an Administrator of SpudTech and SpudFiles kept growing at the same time. Finally the day came of SpudTech closing and all attention was put onto SpudFiles.

Now I am 19 so I have been doing this for about 6 years now. The rest is history 8)

[judgment_arms]

... and do they know how much your "pluming" skills have increased?

Hay, that’s what we can do when anybody asks us what were doing with all the pipe and stuff: we tell ‘em we’re “Plumbers”!!!
Sorry, a bit off subject…

As for what got me started… probably paintball, but I don’t remember for sure…

You know, I got to thinking about it and this is what got me into air connons:
When I was 12-13 they had pumkin’ chuckin’ on TV and I saw this:

here's the homepage for the cannon:
2nd Amendment

That’s when I knew I wanted air cannon.

[Skywalker]

So my brother got into it first, when the nice old man who runs the local hardware store got him started. He (the store owner) told how he had built a potato gun and fired it, hitting the tin roof of the lumber yard nearby. The owner of the lumber yard came out waving a white hankerchief to surrender! And apparently, the hardware store used to sell potato guns until the police decided it wasn't a good idea ...

Anyway, so after my brother built his first combustion, I got online (here and spudtech) and got started.

[starman]

Now I am 19 so I have been doing this for about 6 years now. The rest is history 8)

Man!! Do you realize you have been moderating spud related web forums for about 1/3 of your entire life?

[taytayswims]

i was in seventh grade and a science teacher was showing his class a gun he made

he made a spray and pray type and i thought it was the coolest thing in the world!!!

then in my junior year of high school i was on youtube and i found a vid. of one and i remembered how cool they were so i decided to make one for my self

[Spitfire]

I saw one at a friends house and was like cool. Now i have one of my veryown.

[rcman50166]

Wow. Now that I think of it it's hard to remember what caused me to start. I guess I've known about potato guns and how to build them for a long time but when your 7 years old it's hard to get your hands on anything. My first was actually pretty simple. Really simple actually. I built it out of a single tube of 2" diameter pvc. It was about 4 ft long. I stuck it into the ground drilled a hole in the side and that was it. There were no fancy end caps or chamber to barrel reductions. I shot apples and potatoes out of it. I fueled it with hair spray and lit it with a lighter.

My first potato gun that led me to here was inspired by a youtube video that some of you may have seen. It is a red and black under-over combustion with a huge chamber, probably around 8" in diameter and a 3" bore. The guy shot the top of a tree off with a 400 gram round and it had enough kick to through him to the ground. My response to that video was quite the opposite. I built a small $7 mini using a pen barrel and a chapstick chamber. It was my first to use an actual electric ignitor with spark gaps made from two thumb tacs. It was not very impressive. Shooting the cap off the end proved to be significantly louder; probably on the magnitude of a party popper. My first real, full sized potato gun came from inspiration from the same video. You all know it as the "Sarge".

[PCGUY]

Now I am 19 so I have been doing this for about 6 years now. The rest is history 8)

Man!! Do you realize you have been moderating spud related web forums for about 1/3 of your entire life?

Wow, I guess so 8)
That is a long time!

[jm82792]

When I was 10 saw a spud gun then 2 years ago googled for plans(I was 13),used crappy plans fixed them and now I want more power

[Hydra]

It was actually irwinners (singularity) 25mm Pneumatic Sniper Rifle that got me into it. He posted it on instructables.com and then i saw a couple of other ball vlave pneumatics, so i made a ball valver then a sprinkler valve cannon.

[THUNDERLORD]

Where would I start? Geez I am a Shootist...
I've owned air-guns since age 8. Got new ones every year too.
Owned archery stuff and all sorts of things that shoot projectiles including slingshots too.(Favorite thing Projectile shooting).

Long story short, Age 13 I was the "Man of the house" so I became obsessed or had compulsion (how I've explained it to girlfriends) to man -sized weapons.

Wanted to become a police type career then, so I studied/read every firearm type material I could get my hands on from a young age as well as riding in thier cars even.

Around Age 15 I was harrassed by police sometimes while going to music concerts or in the street so I decided that's not what I wanted to be part of.

I also had a wierd friend a few houses away who gave me my first combustion (about 18 years ago).
He and Myself caught (some) Bad pyro-technic charges when I was 15.
(Another reason why I respect the rule here).

I worked for a machine shop after High School. One job they had was on the Stinger Missile. They lost that contract.
Although I was not directly involved, I was "Layed-Off".

Age 20, I worked for a (Great)gun store and got my FFL liscense. So I was selling handguns but too young to own one.
Got mad at my boss one day and quit though.

Age 21 I joined the army. And signed up to be an Airborne Ranger.
I told the recruiter about my Juvenile record and he instructed me what to do and said, " You're not a saint Geez, just don't take a job with a top secret clearance"

I went to basic training and AIT and then Airborne school in Fort Benning ,GA.
Since Bosnia was going on then (Hot), A bunch of us were sent there.
When they did a "Top Secret" check, My papers were messed up so I was stuck working for the Airborne school.
I was trained in all basic infantry weapons(m-60,SAW, M-203, grenades, claymores,Berretta 9mm, M-16 etc.).

My specialty was the Dragon missile (anti-tank).
For example, the AT-4 is 12 Lb.s Mine was 68 total. 38 lb.s missile, 10 lb.s tube and 20 lb.s with night sight.

I did 2 years service on a 3 year enlistment and got a "General discharge"
Not honorable or dishonorable, just a waste of time.

After I got out I was at a carnival and loved to pay to shoot the bb machine gun called a shooting star.
So I copied the name down written on it ,
and promptly looked it up in the internet and found spud-tech and eventually here, The greatest Spud forum of all time.
Where I found the combination of all my life interests besides motorcycles and aviation and of course women.

Maybe I'm going through early "Mid-life crisis" because I love spudding and Heavy Metal and lots of things that make life as a man beutiful again.
But I love it. 8)