Homemade Air Cannon (Shoots Over 100′)
| Latest Update: September 8, 2009 View Comments |
I will start out by saying that the potential for serious injury, even death, is possible should this device rupture or explode while under pressure! While certainly safer than similar devices using flammable liquids to create launch pressure, great care must be taken to assure all glue joints are properly prepared and have had time to completely cure before attempting to use the cannon… Even then it is possible for the device to fail at any time and I accept no responsibility for damage, injury or death caused by the use of this device. With that said, the components needed to construct the Air Cannon include: You will also need a saw (or something to cut the PVC pipe), some thread tape or ‘pipe dope’ and something to fill it with air (a small portable compressor with a pressure gauge would be my choice). Additionally, we use the bottom of a plastic tennis ball container to act both as a guide and seal. It fits almost perfectly into the PVC pipe and when inserted open end first (or down) it is a nice platform for the object being launched to sit on. We have also found getting the inside of the ‘barrel’ wet helps to avoid things binding up as they are launched (if you do not wet the inside of the barrel water balloons will normally burst instead of being launched).
ABOVE: BELOW:
The pictures give a good visual on how this thing is put together, but here is some other helpful information. We cut 18″ off of the PVC pipe to use as the tank, using the PVC cap on one end and the reduction adapter then the threaded adapter on the other. The remaining piece of pipe received the reduction adapter and threaded adapter on one end and nothing on the other. Everything was cleaned with PVC primer and then carefully glued together, being allowed to dry overnight. We then assembled the valve section using the pipe fittings as shown above and threaded the tank section and barrel section onto it. To increase the safety of this device, it would be possible to construct the entire tank section from steel pipe fittings. 3″ or 4″ steel fittings and adapters down to 3/4″ could be used in place of the PVC tank and would eliminate the potential for the glue joints or PVC pipe itself to fail under pressure. I recommend wearing safety glasses and testing at low pressure (say 10psi), then slowly increasing that figure to a MAXIMUM of from 60 to 80psi (ours holds at 80psi, yours might explode in your face for all I know, I am NOT suggesting these are safe pressures). Anyway, this cannon, when using the ‘tennis ball container’ seal and a launch angle of about 60 degrees, is capable of launching a full 20oz plastic soda bottle well over 100′ up into the air. Needless to say it has some serious punch and if the object being launched was to hit a person the results would assuredly be undesirable, so PLEASE use caution and common sense should you decide to build and use the device.
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WARNING: This Device is HIGHLY DANGEROUS – Use this Info at your OWN RISK!
