41 replies to this topic

[Sponge Nerfer]

Ive done it!! Well im doing it.

For quite a while people have been talking about building a humongous, emplaced (pretty sure thats a word) nerf cannon and wheather or not it would be practicle for a nerf war. I have decided that it is not practicle at all, but began to build one just to say ive done it and to have fun shooting foamy death several hundred yards!

I believe that the closest we have come to this was with general-primevil's le bloody cannon. This was true genius, but I must say that I believe I have taken a step further in the massive, homemade, nerf gun world.

The current length of my gun is 8.5ft and will stand around 2ft off the ground. The main tank is a 4ft section of 4inch pvc, this is not including the other five feet of 4inch pvc that will be the legs of the gun, not created yet. I am using, regretably, a ball valve. However I did modify it a bit! Using two bolts I was able to get a roughly 1ft long piece of wood attatched to the ball valve, this gives me more leverage alowing me to open the valve a bit faster and with more ease.

Today I did all that I could, the main tank is attatched to the modified ball valve which is then attached to the barrel. Also I used a 4" T pvc fitting that will allow me to add the legs to the rest of the gun. Hopefully tommorow I will get to home-depot and buy the rest of the things I need to complete the gun. I am sorry that the description I have given you is not very good, when I finish the gun I will give pictures.

This is an introduction to my project, I would love lots of feed-back so you guys can help me out and give me suggestions. All responses are appreciated!

-sponge

[six-five-two]

Don't forget about Ryan's "First Homemade" it shoots Titan Missiles 300 feet..

[blinkycc13]

Interesting, but complementing yourself is generally extremely erotic (especially when you have no results or pictures at this point). Are you planning on using an air compressor? I hope you don't plan to pressurize that with a bike pump.

[bigbob]

I calculated that your air tank will be 678.24 cubic inches, and ryan201820's was only 60 cubic inches. For releasing all of that air at was once, that is a little bit of overkill. If you are going to do this I suggest having two valves, and two tanks, one for firinf, and one for holding multiple shots. Also, ryan201820 said his took about 50 pumps of a large bike pump to prime the tank. To prime yours to the PSI of ryan's it will take 550 pumps from a large bike pump. So basically you a re going to spend a couple hours of hard work to prime the gun for 1 shot. Unless of course, you have an extremely large and powerful compressor to fill it with air. I notice that you said "foamy death", and with this gun shooting stefans made of some extremely strong foam or even wood, it might break the bb out at extremely high speeds, almost as powerful as a real gun. Even with a mega missile it could break somebody's neck if you hit them in the head. Not trying to bring down your hopes, but that actually could cause "foamy death" if you think it through. And that would not be a good thing. You would be saying for the reast of your life "I killed somebody with a nerf dart.". I think you should reconsider this gun before continuing building.

[elf avec gun]

Do a mod like the one Jake the snake did to his titan, he multi barreled it, It would be awsome to see like 300 + darts fired simultaniusly from one gun.

[Ryan201821]

I calculated that your air tank will be 678.24 cubic inches, and ryan201820's was only 60 cubic inches. For releasing all of that air at was once, that is a little bit of overkill. If you are going to do this I suggest having two valves, and two tanks, one for firinf, and one for holding multiple shots. Also, ryan201820 said his took about 50 pumps of a large bike pump to prime the tank. To prime yours to the PSI of ryan's it will take 550 pumps from a large bike pump. So basically you a re going to spend a couple hours of hard work to prime the gun for 1 shot. Unless of course, you have an extremely large and powerful compressor to fill it with air. I notice that you said "foamy death", and with this gun shooting stefans made of some extremely strong foam or even wood, it might break the bb out at extremely high speeds, almost as powerful as a real gun. Even with a mega missile it could break somebody's neck if you hit them in the head. Not trying to bring down your hopes, but that actually could cause "foamy death" if you think it through. And that would not be a good thing. You would be saying for the reast of your life "I killed somebody with a nerf dart.". I think you should reconsider this gun before continuing building.

Bigbob hit the nail on the head. Your tank is way too fucking huge.

My gun is still not practical but it only takes about 3 seconds to fill it up with the air compressor. And it's a huge air compressor. To fill yours it will take 10 times longer. And that is if the air compressor you have is big enought and can fill the thing in one shot. If you don't have an air compressor that is at least 3 gallons, it is going to cost you hundreds of dollars to get one.

I haven't yet mentioned how much the parts are going to cost you and how big this is going to be.

Your wasting time and money.

[DTReaper]

If I were to make a cannon of death I would have PVC that fit around a poolnoodle and then have one section in back of a bunch of stefans and one in front in the barrel. So that way when it fires you get alot of stefans flying everywhere and therefore having a better chance of hitting someone with the emplacement so that way even if you get only one shot you will have made a kill or two.

-DTR

[Sponge Nerfer]

Woah, thanks for all the feedback even though much of it is negative.

Blinkycc13: I am sorry if I seemed to pat myself on the back, I did not mean to come off in that way. Also, yes I am using an air compressor.

Bigbob: You have a good point, but I suppose I did not make the idea of this gun clear enough, I would never even point this thing at anyone at any time ever! I realize that this is going to be ridiculously powerfull and take for-ever to pump up even using an air compressor (which I plan on doing). The gun is not to be used in a nerf war, but simply as a really cool toy! I dont know about you, but to me having a cannon capable of launching foam hundreds of yards sounds like alot of fun when used safely. Here at spudtech, stuff like this has been done before. This is where I got my insperation, I think that if this guy can pull it off, I can at least manage something a bit like what he has done.

Ryan: At the beginning of your response you basicly agreed with bigbob, but tword the end you said I was waisting time and money. Money, this project will cost me a total of 50 dolars to create, thats only ten dollars more than a longshot. How? At my local home-depot they sell adverage 4" pvc for around 22$ for ten feet, but they also sell this 4" pipe called american 4" pvc sewer pipe for six bucks every ten feet, not bad. The guy at home-depot showed me how I can convert this stuff to normal pvc alowing me to use it without any trouble. All the huge 4"pvc fittings are also made of the sewer pipe and cost 2-3$ each. As far as time, heck its a hobby I like spending time on it.

Tommorow I will get to home-depot and finish this project, pics will be up and this will be done. I am big-headed enough to say that I am confident this will work out.

-sponge

[Pineapple]

Here at spudtech, stuff like this has been done before. This is where I got my insperation, I think that if this guy can pull it off, I can at least manage something a bit like what he has done.

That's probably the smartest thing you can do, as well as to visit Spudfiles.com. Those are extremely comprehensive sites giving all the dos and don'ts of spud gun making, which is basically what an oversized Nerf blaster (air powered) would be.

At my local home-depot they sell adverage 4" pvc for around 22$ for ten feet, but they also sell this 4" pipe called american 4" pvc sewer pipe for six bucks every ten feet, not bad. The guy at home-depot showed me how I can convert this stuff to normal pvc alowing me to use it without any trouble. All the huge 4"pvc fittings are also made of the sewer pipe and cost 2-3$ each.

I just want to make sure you don't blow yourself up...so here goes.

That "inexpensive" so-called "PVC" makes me uneasy.

Make sure that you are getting SCHEDULE 40 PVC pipe in whatever diameters you desire. And schedule 40 costs about what you were going to pay for that 22 dollar segment (10 foot length is standard).

You don't want to confuse SCH 40 with either cellular core PVC, or ABS sewer pipe. Both are cheaper, both are noticably lighter, both are much less pressure-tolerant than SCH 40.

The price thing is what set a yellow/red flag up in my observation. When you go to Home Depot, pick up the pipe you're interested in and compare weights with the SCH 40 PVC. If it's considerably lighter, chances are that it's cel core PVC or ABS sewer pipe.

Neither of the two are pressure rated. SCH 40 PVC pipe is pressure rated to either 200 psi (thinwall), 400, or 600 psi, all of which fall within ranges of typical air powered spud shooters. All fittings for SCH 40 will fit the ABS or cel core PVC, so it makes it that much more difficult.

I'm curious as to how the store attendant was going to show you how to "convert" the pipe to "normal" PVC. Do share. But be careful before you buy. It's that important.


-Piney-

[Sponge Nerfer]

Well piney, I must say you have a fair point. I did use this pipe before, but never pumped it up with a compressor before. The stuff seems pretty sturdy and I will be only pumping it up to around 20psi, due to the massive volume of the tank with a low pressure I think I will still be able to get very powerfull results. It may be a little risky but I think that the worst that could happen is that the thing breaks and the gun doesnt work out. As far as converting this pipe to pvc, the guy showed me a fitting that went from 4" funky pipe to 3" pvc pipe, then from there I work my way down to the 1.5" barrel that I need. I was amazed that they had this part, usually things like that just dont happen in home-depot.

The gun would have been completed today but (of course) home-depot didn't carry two of the pieces that I need so I held off on finishing the gun until I can get my hands on those parts, maybe a week.

Later today, when my dad gets home with the camera, I will have pictures of the progress I have made thus far in hope to show you guys how this thing is comming along.

-sponge

Edited by Sponge_Nerfer, 26 October 2006 - 03:28 PM.

[Sponge Nerfer]

I am very sorry to double post but it turns out that my dad did not have the camera, it was acually at home so I have some pictures that I would like to show everybody.

Here they are:

This is a picture of the overall gun so far:



This is a picture of the gun next to my bike (full size) to give you an idea of size.



This is a picture of the lever attatched to the 1.5" ball valve.



Here is the the tank



And here is the barrel



Thats what I have done so far, and is acually most of the gun. The only other thing that needs to be added are the legs and when they are added the size will greatly be increased.

P.S. This is my first time posting pictures, if they did not work please help me out!

-sponge

Edited by Sponge_Nerfer, 28 October 2006 - 08:20 AM.

[Retiate]

I dunno if it's just me but your pictures aren't showing up.

[six-five-two]

I dunno if it's just me but your pictures aren't showing up.

Same here.

[Meaker VI]

It may be a little risky but I think that the worst that could happen is that the thing breaks and the gun doesnt work out.

I'm going to re-emphasize what Piny said earlier in that you need to be very careful in how you go about this. If your PVC doesn't work properly, it will not merely "break," it could well explode and send shratnel everywhere. I'm not positive, but sewer PVC pipe might be the stuff that is just gravity rated and cannot hold any kind of pressure. In short, it could break at any time, with or without warning. Do not risk serious injury or death for the sake of a rediculously large nerf cannon.

[Sponge Nerfer]

Meaker: Ok, when I go to home-depot again I will look at the pipe and its psi rating. If it will not work at the psi that I am looking to use than I will tr to do this using different means.

Pictures!!! please help me, according to you guys they aren't working. I have done a search and found a post from which I used the directions to no avail. Please tell me what could have gone wrong so I can try to show you guys this gun.

-sponge

[Pineapple]

Pictures!!! please help me, according to you guys they aren't working. I have done a search and found a post from which I used the directions to no avail. Please tell me what could have gone wrong so I can try to show you guys this gun.

-sponge

Okay, I right-clicked your pictures and found out, twice, what happened.

1st try; you used "nerfhaven.com" as a site. Unless the pictures are hosted there, they won't show.

2nd try; it appears you're trying to use image tags with the names of the pictures as they are, on your computer. They might show for you, (doubt it), but for the rest of us, we have the nice "IPB image" words.


There are tutorials, but the best and easiest is to go to one of these sites...there are tons of online photo hosters now, but these are the most popular:

Imageshack.com

Photobucket.com

And my personal favorite, Pix8.net

The sites will show you how to upload your pictures from your computer to the site. The site will then give you a URL address you can insert into the photo brackets, and then the image will show on the page you post!

Basically, it's an online place you can leave pictues, uploaded from your comp, that you can use in posting on forums, your myspace site, etc. etc.

The free ones have some limitations, namely how many pictures you can store on their site. But usually it's enough to post a couple on discussion forum boards.

Hope that helped. Post em! But make sure you keep the picture size down!


-Piney-

[Sponge Nerfer]

Thank you so much piney!! I finally did it. The pics are working for me and are probably working for you, please comment on what you see, today I might get to home depot so more progress will be made on the gun. Thanks for all your help with the pics.

-sponge

[SHADOW HUNTER ALPHA]

You were right, sponge. Once the bipod legs are on this thing, it's gonna be HUGE. I don't know how big your bike is, but if it's the same size as mine, then the gun might very well be the length of a pick-up truck bed. A suggestion to you for your bipod or whatever legs you'll get: make sure they can fold up towards the gun and inwards so that they can be carried easily. (I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you make a bipod, make sure the legs have a flexible joint near the gun that allows them to be folded up to meet the body of the gun. Then, make sure they can fold themselves inward so they just look like twin tubes beneath the barrel or tank.) This is just for practicality should you have to move this thing around your house. It would suck to get this awesome gun built and then have the bipod snap off when you go to move it.

[Sponge Nerfer]

Done.










Tell me what you think.

-sponge

Edited by Sponge_Nerfer, 28 October 2006 - 02:58 PM.

[DTReaper]

Ok I have three things to say; first what kind of ammo will be used in this gun. And second I don't think the barrel is long enough for that size of air tank. Generally what I have hear is that the volume of the barrel should be about a fourth the volume of the airtank. Third that thing will take forever to prime if you are using a bike pump.

-DTR

[elf avec gun]

By the width of the barrel Im guessing that he is using squirels, small children, or megas as ammo.

[SHADOW HUNTER ALPHA]

Maybe you should hook up a battery-powered air compressor to a one-way valve on the tank. That would reduce priming time by a hell of a lot. Otherwise you could be stuck there for ten minutes trying to pump that tank up. Also, as long as that gun is, I don't really think you could fit a longer barrel on to make it the appropriate size, if what DTReaper says is true.

[Sponge Nerfer]

Ok, thanks for all of your comments but you guys still dont completely understand what I am trying to do here. The amount of time it takes to prime the tank does not matter to me. It is not going to be used in a war so rof does not matter. I simply went for power and for having a really fun toy. I am going to test it out today so I will know if it works and I can tell you how long it takes to prime. I am using a compressor that is powered by my dads car. It will probably take 5-6 minutes to get this thing primed. As far as what I am going to shoot, I made the barrel removable so I plan on shooting many things such as, ballistic balls, titan rockets, and potatoes. Today should be alot of fun because I will finaly get to shoot this beast.

-sponge

[SHADOW HUNTER ALPHA]

That was pretty smart making a removeable and interchangeable barrel. Make sure you tell us exactly what you shot and how far it went, plus the angle you fired it from (straight forward, 45 degrees. doesn't have to be perfect, I just wanted to know). Also, if you have an imperfect fit in a barrel, such as a potato, then shove a wad of cotton or a piece of carpet foam down the barrel first to equilize the pressure distribution (like a kind of half-sabot).

You're right, though. That thing does look really fun to shoot. Just don't aim at anything made of glass or anything that wants to continue living.

Edited by SHADOW HUNTER ALPHA, 30 October 2006 - 05:17 PM.

[Sponge Nerfer]

Augh, I am so bumbed out. The tank was too big. You guys were right, and im just a stupid ignorant kid. Sorry for not listening, I was just so sure it would work and so swept up in the whole thing that i didnt think. Now I would really appreciate it if you guys could help me, I couldn't get the tank up to one psi with the compressor that I had. I took of the legs but still the thing just wont get to any pressure. What do i do???? I want it to keep its massive really cool size but I want it to work even more. Please help me.

-sponge