Movie special effects spudgun

Boom! The classic potato gun harnesses the combustion of flammable vapor. Show us your combustion spud gun and discuss fuels, ratios, safety, ignition systems, tools, and more.
sirspuddest
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Sun Jul 27, 2008 2:04 pm

Wanna blow the house up, and have a nice fireball to boot?

Take a film canister, and fill it about a quarter of the way full with flash powder. Then, take a plastic sandwich bag, and cut the corner off of it, fill the cut off corner with a bit of gasoline, and stretch it over the mouth of the canister and put the lid back on.

To safely detonate it, take a small piece of a carbon mechanical pencil refill rod, and attach two wires to it, and insert it into the canister vi a hole drilled in the side. When you're ready to detonate it, attach each end of the lead to opposite contacts on a portable drill battery.

That's how some of the movie guys do it, minus the ghetto detonator.
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starman
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Sun Jul 27, 2008 2:21 pm

Good info. Estes rocket ignitors a little more reliable and safe....

Probably borders on passing the no-discussion rule re. powder/explosives....but no spud gun usage was mentioned in association.
sirspuddest
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Sun Jul 27, 2008 9:28 pm

starman wrote:Good info. Estes rocket ignitors a little more reliable and safe....

Probably borders on passing the no-discussion rule re. powder/explosives....but no spud gun usage was mentioned in association.
Yeah, Estes ignitors would be awesome. Didn't even think about those. Good idea.

I was hesitating on posting it, but like you said, I didn't mention anything about firing it from a spud gun or anything, so I figured it was safe to discuss. Also, it doesn't involve an uncontrolled explosive (like with a Drano bomb).

If any mods object to the info being up, then I'd be glad to take it down.
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