Potato Cannon safety
After the last post I had some people asking me if potato cannons are dangerous. They sure are if used without caution. These are some basic yet important safety measures I put together in order to keep myself safe. I’ll explain as I go through, knowledge is in fact the best safety.
-Use thick high pressure PVC or ABS tubes. Those can stand pressure many times greater than that caused by an explosion of a mixture of hair-spray and air. If you want you can wrap the combustion chamber in tape, but it’s basically impossible for high pressure tube to explode with a hair-spray explosion.
-Do not spay large amounts of fuel in the chamber. Despite what may look obvious, that won’t cause bigger explosions nor greater shoot ranges. It will in fact result in smaller explosions. The combustion is a chemical reaction in which both fuel and oxygen are combined into other gases. By inserting too much fuel in the chamber you’ll create an unbalanced mixture that will consume the little oxygen faster, therefore causing a smaller explosion.
If the oxygen runs out to quick, only a part of the hair spray will burn. Then, when you open the chamber after a shot, you will provide it the oxygen it needs and run into the risk of another explosion outside the cannon.
-Never play around with the ignition device. It should be used strictly to fire the cannon in a controlled way.
-Never look into the barrel or the chamber. If you need to fix something inside the cannon, don’t do it during a firing session.
-Never point the cannon at anybody even when it’s supposedly not loaded. Stupidity is not the way to go if you want to be safe.
-Always store your cannon unloaded and with the chamber open so air can flow into it. Testimonials exist that people accidental ignited old fuel that was left in the chamber or other gases released from the PVC cement or other chemical products.
-Be aware of uncontrolled ignition sources like cigarettes and light buttons. Since the cannon is made of plastic you need to be careful as it can create static electricity from friction with clothes which can lead to sparkles.
-Do not experiment with unknown fuels, you don’t know what can happen.
-Do not experiment with oxidizing agents. A home came cannon is not the kind of equipment to be used with such combustions.
Besides these there are other good practices that I can’t think of at the moment. In the end the most important is to have good knowledge on what you’re doing and use your common sense.
Be safe, potato canons are fun.
Tags: potato cannon, potato gun, safety, spudgun
