This Tampon Gun Won’t Cramp Your Style

Finally, there’s a way to get rid of those applicator-less tampons that literally no one uses while also destroying a bunch of Axe body spray. Just use the Axe as the propellant in a 3D-printed, gas-powered tampon gun.

As you’ll see in the assembly and demonstration video after the break, most of the parts in [HarambesLabs]’ modular gun design are 3D-printed. Aside from those, you just need to add a PVC tube for a barrel, a bottle that fits the threading on the body, and a pair of o-rings to make a nice, tight seal. Snap in the piezo mechanism from a lighter, fill the bottle with an Axe cloud, and screw it on to the body. If the gas/air mixture is close enough, the compacted cotton bullet should fly. The gun is single-shot, but [HarambesLabs] is working on a mod to make it fully automatic.

We love a good gun build around here, be it mostly benign or downright terrifying. This build isn’t necessarily tampon-dependent but the size, weight, and plastic covering (reducing friction) make it ideal for this particular design. Nerf darts may be another option if you can find the correct fit for the barrel.

56 thoughts on “This Tampon Gun Won’t Cramp Your Style

    1. It’s extremely hard to avoid being ethnocentrist, even when you’re *aware* that those biases exist and are actively trying to avoid them. There’s a lot of things that the US has in common with the rest of us, too (sometimes, unfortunately.) How do you know which ones are universal and which are specific until you actually encounter each case?

      And then you find out that there’s a whole other group of people who don’t wipe their bum the same way you do, even though it seems like there’s only ONE POSSIBLE WAY, and they’re just as surprised to hear about you, too.

      1. True, but I find that greater awareness of different cultures results in fewer assumptions about how other people live. The USA being such a large landmass means that few Americans need to leave their own state let alone their country unless they choose to. In smaller countries there is perhaps more awareness of the wider world.

      2. What’s the other way to wipe your arse?!
        Are you referring to the “splash (unclean) water at stuff to make it (ceremonially) clean” approach to washing prevelent in some cultures (e.g. I met it in Indonesia), or is there a (life) hack here?

        1. Front to back, back to front, sitting down, standing up. That’s two variables and four different ways to do it.

          Then there’s little handheld showers and separate bidets, Japanese techno-toilets, wet wipes, water ladles, Roman butt-brushes… Some cultures only do it with the left hand, because they eat with the right hand etc. etc.

          1. 4% is still good for some hours. My Phone (Galaxy S5) needs about 15 to 20% per day on an average day. OK, i have disabled some bloatware apps from Samsung and Google, which I never used and I did not install facebook apps. I use FB so rarely, that I strongly prefere to go to the website, when really necessary than to having a (probably) spy-app running all the time. I also switch on GPS only when I need it (to avoid generating excess data). But Bluetooth (and Wifi) is normally on, I want auto-connect when I get into my car.

  1. Take care to measure the fuel right – or rather exactly wrong.

    A pump-up BB gun has about 10 J of kinetic energy and a varmint killer .22 round clocks in at 100-150 J. There’s about a kiloJoule or more of energy in that volume of fuel/air mixture and it’s only because of the poor mixing and low efficiency that the projectile doesn’t become lethal – the one time you get it exactly right, the bottle shatters in your face – been there, done that.

    1. I did not believe you, so I did the math: But you are RIGHT :-)
      Assuming butane as the propellant: A 0,5l Bottle contains 0,1l of Oxygen which is stoechiometrically good for burning just 40mg (15cm³) of butane. But this 40mg have a heat of burning of 2kJ.
      And assuming a good efficiency (barrel) this energy should accelerate a 10g projectile to 632m/s!

      1. The limiting factor you have is the fact that all the combustion gasses in the bottle have a specific heat capacity which absorbs most of the energy.

        PV = nRT

        You may calculate the pressure rise by calculating the temperature rise caused by the combustion energy over the mass of gas in the bottle, assuming Volume stays constant, and the result will turn out – if I recall correctly – somewhere around 10 Bar (150 psi) which is around the bursting pressure of a soda bottle, but then again it will only happen if the barrel is blocked.

        The trouble is, what you have there is the average pressure after the combustion is over and everything is settled down. The peak pressure is much much higher because the burning mixture compresses itself and combustion happens at a higher pressure – kinda like pre-compressing the air-fuel mixture in the cylinder of an engine. If the local compression ratio in the flame front is 2:1 then you don’t get 10 bars but 20 bars overpressure. The pressure front compresses the remaining fuel into the back of the bottle and the pressure surges as more of the fuel is burned.

        So with a rich mixture, you can see the flame front is slow and the pressure escapes through the barrel easily. Dial the mixture down little by little towards perfect stoichiometry and the flame goes exponentially faster and faster until – Bang!

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