It’s one thing to mount a big skull—human or animal—to the front of your car. Really, though, a good hood skull should breathe fire to truly inspire enmity or awe. Thankfully, when [Anthony] went about modifying his ex-school bus, he was sure to equip it with suitably flaming equipment. It’s dangerous, so don’t try this one at home and melt your car, you hear?
The build started with an off-the-shelf replica cow skull, in lovely flame-resistant metal. It was then plumbed with a propane feed that could be triggered by a 12-volt solenoid. This was combined with a high-voltage coil driving a grill igniter to provide the necessary initiating spark.
To go forth with flames, first, a missile switch must be flipped up and engaged to arm the system. Then, hitting the skull-and-crossbones button will send fire surging forth from the front of the vehicle. Alternatively, a wireless keyfob can be used, which bypasses the arming system—so leaving the remote in a pocket is ill-advised.
Amazingly, a former project posted on Hackaday served as an inspiration for this build. Video after the break.
“Not Suitable For Use In Traffic”? I’m sure some of us here would beg to differ, at least in some situations… ;-)
This should be wired to the ‘horn’. There are times when this would be a ‘nice’ ‘wakeup’ to the slow/looking at cell phone/etc. guy in front of you. So yeah, why not in traffic :) … as long as it isn’t a 20 foot flame thrower of course. A foot or so would suffice to get that person/s attention. Ha!
A regulator for the flame length, controlled by pressure sensor on the horn button. The more pressure, the longer the range.
Mount it on the rear of the vehicle for dealing with tailgaters. Possibly control with a radar.
Alternatively, feed it with liquid fuel. Optionally thickened. Use servo-controlled nozzle to select between wider atomized spray and a narrow stream. Use a pilot flame to ignite.
Optionally spice the fuel with something pyrophoric. Then it will ignite in contact with air, like real dragons do, something about biosynthetized diphosphane. Tradeoff between ease of ignition and safety of not having a container bursting into flame if it gets damaged. Variant on hypergols.
As in a Pro-EV, road-blocking, seated protester?
You sound triggered.
They need a safe space
You can always spot a Burner a thousand yards away
A kiloyard?
No. That would be borderline sane.
More like 25/3 football fields. Sorry, make that *freedom* football fields or something, to confuse it with actual football.
Pew-pew. ‘murica.
Anthony (the maker) here. This was heavily inspired by El Pulpo at burning man 2022!
Seems legit.
hahaha.
Does JC Whitney or anyone else still sell those “cow moo” car horns? Would be a nice touch for the admiring beer joint crowd!
I preferred to use isopropyl alcohol and an extra windshield washer pump.
Liquid fuels can be sent in a better stream and aimed and all that. We used an adapted cattle prod for the igniter.
Oh I like this as well. I’ll have to experiment with this as an option. One challenge with this design is that the flame varies depending on pressure / fill level of the propane tank.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLhWzMOccTg&t=5s
One of my favorite videos. I live in Cleveland so this should be legal here as well.