Carbon Fiber?

Potatoes last one shot, so build reusable! Discuss ammo designs and ideas. Tough to find cannon part or questions? Ask here!
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CannonCreator
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Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:04 am

Hey, Im sure someone has heard of nanotube, but I can't find much pressure info, or any type of resistance information. I know that you can get Baseball bats, Bikes, and pipes made of nano tube. (Which for you who dont know, Its a EXTREMELY Strong metal, I cannot find were to buy it in tubes. I would figure that it would be a great material to use for metal cannons(correct me if im wrong)

Does anyone know were to ge tthis stuff in pipe form? Its a extremely hard search, But it seems well worth it, Right?
Spedy
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Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:15 am

Er, nanotubes aren't metal. They are specially made carbon crystals in the form of a tiny, tiny, tube, hence the name. I'm not sure how good the material would be for cannons. The actual tubes are nanometers across.It's pretty expensive. I think you are talking about carbon composite, as nano tubes can't really be molded to anything as far as I know. Carbon composite is also expensive, but not as hard to find, though I don;t have a clue where to get the stuff.
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Mon Aug 20, 2007 11:03 am

Haha, a spud cannon made of a carbon nanotube... I'd love to see that one. It would have to be fueled with something like methane, as molecular hydrogen would slip through the structure, and use a buckminsterfullerene as ammo.
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VH_man
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Mon Aug 20, 2007 11:29 am

haha. the thing you are talking about is carbon fibre composite, it is often used in aircraft and other things to make super-strong,-super lightweight parts............

i dont reccomend it for cannons. it is EXTREMELY expesnive (a small BB pistol with a carbon fibre chamber would cost hundreds..........
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paaiyan
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Mon Aug 20, 2007 12:18 pm

Intel Xeon wrote:Haha, a spud cannon made of a carbon nanotube... I'd love to see that one. It would have to be fueled with something like methane, as molecular hydrogen would slip through the structure, and use a buckminsterfullerene as ammo.
Haha, nice. That would be a bad bad thing. I agree, you're thinking of carbon fiber composite. I do know that it's used for HPA tanks in painball sometimes, at least to supplement the existing material anyway, I can't remember, so it can hold a fair amount of pressure.
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Hotwired
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Mon Aug 20, 2007 12:24 pm

Carbon fibre is wrapped around the chamber to make a high pressure vessel I don't believe it is capable of holding high pressure alone.

Carbon fibre tanks for paintball or whatever have an aluminium cylinder inside.
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paaiyan
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Mon Aug 20, 2007 12:25 pm

Hmm, if it's used to wrap aluminum, I wonder if you could wrap PVC in it... It would obviously work better than wrapping it in duct tape, haha.
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Hailfire753
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Mon Aug 20, 2007 12:25 pm

CC is at it again :roll: This topic should die now.

Anyways, Paaiyan, I love your new sig! Do you guys find these somewhere or do you make en up?

edit : Also, do you think PET would work to wrap a chamber, w/ duct tape over it?
Last edited by Hailfire753 on Mon Aug 20, 2007 12:27 pm, edited 2 times in total.
UPDATED MARCH '08
field-legal paintball semi
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paaiyan
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Mon Aug 20, 2007 12:26 pm

I make mine up, lol.
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Hotwired
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Mon Aug 20, 2007 12:32 pm

You can get carbon fibre tape which is supposed to be pretty tough stuff. Probably not the best way to improvise a high pressure carbon fibre wrapped thingie though.
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CannonCreator
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Mon Aug 20, 2007 2:12 pm

Spedy wrote:Er, nanotubes aren't metal. They are specially made carbon crystals in the form of a tiny, tiny, tube, hence the name. I'm not sure how good the material would be for cannons. The actual tubes are nanometers across.It's pretty expensive. I think you are talking about carbon composite, as nano tubes can't really be molded to anything as far as I know. Carbon composite is also expensive, but not as hard to find, though I don;t have a clue where to get the stuff.
OOO sry about that, I thought it was a kind of metal, But My Mistake SORRY!
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Pete Zaria
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Mon Aug 20, 2007 3:17 pm

Topic renamed and moved to Materials Discussion.

I'm too tired/frustrated to tell anyone to search before they post today....


A microscopic nanotube pneumatic sounds like a fun project.... in about 50 years when the technology is commonly available.

I seem to recall someone having built a carbon fiber combustion chamber around here or spudtech once before... I don't see the advantage. It may be strong and lightweight but it's expensive as hell and brittle (don't f**king drop it....). Aluminum would work better all-around for spudgun purposes, I think.
As to the carbon fiber tape, it's possible that wrapping a DWV chamber with carbon fiber tape would help to contain potential shrapnel but I wouldn't trust it until it's been tested.


Peace,
Pete Zaria.
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paaiyan
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Mon Aug 20, 2007 3:33 pm

Pete Zaria wrote:As to the carbon fiber tape, it's possible that wrapping a DWV chamber with carbon fiber tape would help to contain potential shrapnel but I wouldn't trust it until it's been tested.


Peace,
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Maybe someone should buy some of the stuff, seal two pieces of DWV and run an experiment.
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boilingleadbath
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Mon Aug 20, 2007 5:41 pm

For what it's worth, mcmaster carries carbon fiber for about 4$/square foot.

Admittedly, they are selling it for splatter-protection purposes, so it may not be the high-tensile-strength stuff.
Hawkeye
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Mon Aug 20, 2007 7:02 pm

It really doesn't make sense to wrap chambers unless you can reinforce the whole system. Just wrapping it around the main portion of the cylinder and then leaving the ends unwrapped etc. just leaves a weak link.
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