[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1469285450334085432&ei=9EhZSd_XIJHEqQK6mO2rDQ&q=steam+powered+potato+pistol]
[robbtoberfest] put together this cool looking steam powered spud pistol. Made from household materials, like a lighter and some copper pipe, this spud gun builds pressure in its little bitty boiler to expel the projectiles. It seems as though he’s using a cork to supply a seal, so why bother with potatos? At roughly 2 minutes between shots, its not the quickest, but it sure is cool. Good job [robbtoberfest].
Realy cool!!!!
he should use a layer or two of tin-foil as a seal, inside the device… tin foil, as well as being air-tight and water-tight, will rupture at a certain pressure in such a way as to remove itsself from the path of the volume of steam as it leaves the device… then there’d be no need for cork.
Cool idea, but the amount of time that you need to heat the water up is too great. How about hooking up a CO2 cartridge and having a trigger? NOW you can possibly win in a spud fight.
What is the point of the potato if he is shooting the cork?
I love it…good job robbtoberfest.
For the potatoes that refuse to seal well, maybe a dip in vasoline?
@wizzard1 and chris mcdowell….he’s using the cork because it is easier/simpler/more reusable than a metallic seal.
Nice. I like the integrated design but the pressure buildup is because of the cork and not the potato. If you could build up the vapor pressure in a chamber, then release it all at once against the potato, then the potato would fire on it’s own otherwise you would just have a potato chunk slowly eject itself from the end of the gun as the pressure builds up.
Thats pretty cool, I was thinking “what the hell?” when he only put in a few drops of water but apparantly that is all you need to get the steam.
With this half Rotten Potato its twice as Lethal.. Well at least once.
You can get the same effect shaking a bottle of Champagne and the cork blow out! Cheers! Happy new year 2009!
It won’t take much water at all because when water flashses to steam it expands into 1600 times the volume it was before.
1 drop of water = 1600 drops of steam. Neat project. Now it’s got me thinking of a way to vaporize all the water INSTANTLY. Then you’ll get a powerful gun.
That’s fast…
I can’t remember the site, but a fast way to make steam is to use a capacitor bank to flash boil the water in a chamber. The nice thing about doing that is you don’t need a pressure seal as the water rapidly changes to steam. The downside is the capacitor bank needed can be large and deadly in and of itself.
I believe it’s refered to as electro-thermal and you can find a bunch of videos on youtube.