The Original Potato Cannon

How to build the original hairspray powered potato cannon. Takes about an hour and $30. Shoots potatoes over 100 yards!!!

Step 1: The Materials

Building Materials
-5 feet of 1.5" ABS (DWV) pipe
-2 feet of 3" ABS pipe
-A 3" to 1.5" reducer
-A 3" threaded adapter
-A 3" end cap
-A BBQ ignitor (+1 Screw)
-ABS cement

Consumables
-Cheap aerosol hairspray
-Potatoes or similar legumes

Tools
-Hacksaw
-Drill

Comments

[ebaneser]

Hacksaws are used for metal pipes but work just as well on ABS

[cbadger]

Super easy to make, loads of fun, quick construction. Great Instructable. I modified your instructions slightly. Instead of a grill spark igniter, I used a gas lamp spark spin wheel. A lot more low tech, but works like a charm. The advantage to your igniter, looks awesome when you shoot it! The advantage to mine, low cost.

[jarredondo]

Sorry, but a potatoe is a Tuber not a legume. Beans and the like are legumes. Thanks,

[taudet]

If i do this with a blow torch lighter do you still think it will work?

[harry456]

yeh, probaly melt the pipe though

[soggymushrooms]

Does any sort of aerosol work or just hairspray?

[harry456]

yeh use any flammable liqiud< e.g. petrol,haha, deodrant

[harry456]

my end cap blows off, what can i do?

[gunsnroosendael]

this is great for making a m18 recoilles rifle replica that even shoots! :D potatoes!

[jumpup_dnb_dj]

ABS????????????

[he who crashes often]

bcrylonitrile butadiene styrene. it is sold in hardware stores, and looks like black pvc

[log63]

Hey, great instructable. I can't figure out why mine isn't igniting, though. I can see a spark, too.

[Rehon]

Spark gap is too big. Decrease the distance between the two.

[log63]

http://www.instructables.com/answers/Why-the-isnt-my-potato-cannon-igniting/

[mrmerino]

Sorry, but potatoes aren't legumes. Great instructable though.

[nerd97]

WHAT TEH HECK IS "ABS" PIPE? IM JUST GONNA USE PVC.

[jdkleckner1989]

ABS is similar to PVC. The main difference is ABS has a higher shock resistance and less likely to break from repeated use. It also bonds better than PVC. You can tell the difference by the color. ABS is black while PVC is white and only costs a trivial amount more than traditional PVC. #IUsedToWorkInAHardwareStore

[NinjaOrange7159]

ABS is PVC! ABS is just another name for it!!!

[Rehon]

Actually, ABS stands for Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene whereas PVC stands for Poly-Vinyl-Chloride. Two completely different materials.

[ladieslilman98]

it didnt shoot a baseball but it worked axactly as advertized thanks

[ladieslilman98]

it didnt shoot a baseball but it worked axactly as advertized thanks

[ladieslilman98]

could it shoot a baseball with these measurements??

[ladieslilman98]

extreamly simple im doing this for a school contest nice ible

[ladieslilman98]

Cost?? total

[skyhawk127]

whats the best size for the combustion chamber coz i want a big boom and i want the potato to absolutely fly

[naruto553]

theoretically, you could do something similar to this with the ignitor from an extension lighter.

simply split the lighter, remove the ignitor, drill a hole in the pipe, put the ignitor in, test the ignitor, and seal the hole with epoxy. its cheaper and its easier for those of you out there who dont know how to modify an electrical circuit

[DRH1469]

It seems like my local hardware store is trying to make it impossible to make one.
But i found a way around it: Female screw on end cap, 50 mm tube, 50 to 110mm reducer glued together with the bbq lighter at the end

Well Done

[vbennett2]

We made our conbustion chamber longer and narrower than the plans The chamber is about 40" long. About how far along should we put the ignitor??? 1/2 way or more toward the front. Thanks

[bmaher6]

I found that 'less is more' when it comes to propellant in spud cannons, the oxygen level must be greater than the propellant, I literally give mine a short blast of lighter fluid (the aerosol type with the different sized end bits in the cap for refilling gas lighters) then leave the end cap off for a few seconds, you get a bigger bang with more oxygen, don't be tempted to spray loads in thinking it will be more powerfull, I found it just floods the gun and you have to either leave it open overnight, or get the end of the dyson vacum on it to force fresh oxygen in, I'm going to upload some pics of mine, it's an old fire extinguisher body with 40mm tube welded on the top, on the side there is a BBQ igniter for the bang, and at the back end it's got a big nut welded on the base with a bolt and wing nut to make filling easy, very powerfully as the metal doesn't expand or warp as much as plastic ones, the other thing to watch out for guys is plastic ones can blow your face across the garden if they splinter, make sure you wrap the entire thing with loads of ducktape to absorb and deflect any hot splinters of blown PVC pipe! Happy spud gunning guys!!!

[Cool reads]

I think everyone one should add some paint to their potato cannon because it makes them look so cool. I like to camo paint mine. I have painted many spud guns and its simple but just to make sure everyone knows…do not paint your gun with the combustion chamber open if you are using nodes for the igniter spark because you may get paint on the nodes and will not be able to get a spark on your spud gun potato cannon

[Rocket Rons]

Hello everyone, I have never made a potato gun using air, I have only used combustion. Can people tell me how they find air guns compared to combustion?

[imsohappy]

potatos are tubers not a legume

[danfolkes]

I tried a rutabaga once. It is such a tough vegetable it got stuck in the tube.

[tommy87]

cant my ignition to work, i used a bbq igniter. i can see that there is a spark but i cant get the butane to ignite :( what can i do?

[danfolkes]

Whenever I had this problem, I just drilled the whole bigger and shoved the end of a stick lighter into the 3 inch chamber.

This works 100% of the time.

Make sure the lighter hole is tight so flamed don't shoot out along the sides.

[pietropedropete2]

replace the bbq lighter with a coleman lantern flint/twist ignition

[magnusbuilds]

Hey Tommy,

i had the same problem when i made mine.

1. butane is harder to use than hairspray ( in my opinion because i count how many sprays i need for it to work )

2. to make the gas light you need to get the right ratio of air and gas in your gun.. you can only do this by trying and trying again.

3. remember to blow in your gun every time it fires to get some fresh air into the chamber and the Co2 out.

it will work just be patient, and remember to count how many sprays you need to spray for it to work, then it will work every time as long as you blow fresh air in every time.

my gun takes 3 short sprays and it works!.

give me some feedback.

[log63]

Same here. I am using hairspray and I know that the thing is sparking, so why is it not igniting?

[abogdanovic]

you probably have it positioned at the wrong place, maybe too close to the beginning of the combustion chamber where it gets wet. my advice is, get a stun gun from ebay called night watchman its less than $20 with shipping, it has powerful spark 100 000 volts! and you have easy on button, not like bbq lighter which gets old after a few potatoes. hook up the stun gun leads to couple of butt connectors with wires on the other side all the way to two screws that are in the middle of your combustion chamber with about 1/4 inch space between them. it never fails.

[tommy87]

thanks for the reply, ill check it out.