Halloween

[Andrew_Butchart]

I've done the basics I think.  Sadly I can't sit out in the boat drinking rum and firing the cannon off at all the trick-or-treaters (Have to use the car later)  So while the rum is off, the cannon may well be used.....

[Mike Routley]

Andrew, PLEASE be careful with the cannon.  A six year old was killed in our area this past July 4th.  His Grandpa fired off a 20 year old, commercially made cannon and it exploded.  Grandpa had been doing the same thing every forth of July for 20 years. The little guy was better than fifty yards away from the explosion. 

[Andrew_Butchart]

Mike:

I understand your concerns - safety is THE most important thing for us.  That's why the cannon is never loaded with a projectile, it just makes a bit of a bang.  It's also powered by Calcium Carbide which is makes it difficult to over-charge.

[Guest ib1boatnut]

I Hope everyone's trick or treater has a safe and happy halloween.

Did you remove your pic of the canon andrew?

Well I wish everyone the best with their projects present and future.

[Andrew_Butchart]

Sorry - the server that hosts my site (and the cannon picture) is turned off overnight (long story).

[P Doug (WA)]

Andrew, did you buy or build that cannon?  I'd like to build one.  Wake up the neighborhood once in al while.

[Andrew_Butchart]

I built it out of some PVC pipe and scrap lumber.  It's powered by "BangSite" (calcium carbide) which when mixed with water off-gasses acetylene.  The BangSite is available through mail order from http://bigbangcannons.com/

It was an afternoon's project and only a couple of bucks.  There's a bunch of samples around the internet.  I set up a page for mine at http://www.floatingbear.ca/Cannon.htm

Since the barrel is just plastic I strongly suggest not using any sort of projectile.  You see some people on YouTube who've done that (search for carbide cannon) but I can't see that being safe.

[Frank Hagan]

I built it out of some PVC pipe and scrap lumber.  It's powered by "BangSite" (calcium carbide) which when mixed with water off-gasses acetylene.  The BangSite is available through mail order from http://bigbangcannons.com/

It was an afternoon's project and only a couple of bucks.  There's a bunch of samples around the internet.  I set up a page for mine at http://www.floatingbear.ca/Cannon.htm

Since the barrel is just plastic I strongly suggest not using any sort of projectile.  You see some people on YouTube who've done that (search for carbide cannon) but I can't see that being safe.

Yeah, PVC is too brittle.  Using regular PVC for air lines has caused some problems with shrapnel flying around people's shops, so I think anything that might increase the back pressure in your cannon would be a bad idea.

We used to make these out of pipe and used match heads for the load, and shot marbles quite a way.  A neighbor lost his finger to one, so our match cannon days were officially ended.  We never found the finger!