Potato Protection

[Little Otter]

Is it legal to have a potato gun mounted on your boat?

[Steve Rust]

I recently saw a modern version of this made out of PVC pipe. A far cry from the ones I had when I was a kid back in the late sixties. We used soda pop cans (they where a bit more robust then) taped together with the ends cut off, excepting the bottom can that had holes punched into the lid instead. We shot tennis balls instead of potatoes. It seems funny now when I look back on it that our parents did not seem to find anything wrong with us playing with lighter fluid and exploding stacks of pop cans.
You got me thinking. Open season on those annoying jetskis.

[Starbuck]

LO, you sure have brought some life to this forum.

I don't think it's illegal to mount a potato gun on the deck of your boat, per se. But you might get into considerable trouble, depending on how you use it and who complains to whom about it.

[lannen]

When I was a kid, mid 1960's, we got hold of an old drive shaft. We cut one end off and drilled a fuse hole in the other. We opened up a bunch of M-80's and dumped the powder into the drive shaft and used one of the fuses in the hole.

We jammed in a rag in and shoved it down a ways with a broom stick. We added some assorted nuts, bolts, nails, screws... just stuff lying around, and another rag.

We took it to the park one evening to test fire our new cannon. I guess in the mid 60's in Milwaukee it was not all that unusual to see a pack of 12 and 13 year old's heading to the park with a rusty drive shaft.

Well, long story short... our parents had to pick us up at the police station again. We never imagined that it would do that much damage to the park custodians tool shed.

Anyhow, you seem like the kind of person that would enjoy this...

Dangerously Fun

[bobnlesley]

I presume your potatoe guns work on a similar principal -powered by hairspray with a piezo switch trigger.

I gave the latter away (no space in the cockpit locker) and a friend and I had a great cruise down the west coast of France, firing the occassional broadside at each other, at the cost of a few stains on the sail.

The plum gun was finally discarded in Rome when the back blew off the breech (Italian hairspray must be high-octane)

The only 'problem' we ever had was in demonstrating it whilst in a marina in central London following a boozy Sunday lunch, when we were forced to duck for cover as several police vehicles arrived to investigate the explosions.

[FreeSail]

When I was a kid, my Dad bought me an all metal potato gun. I use to press the barrel into a potato to get a plug and then it was fire. It hurt too, I loved that toy.

[Little Otter]

lannen thanks for the link it's great! what if you used the gun for protection against prowlers? hmmmm..... sounds painful for them don't it

[sluissa]

It is worth mentioning that in some places potato guns are illegal.

[TaoJones]

Originally Posted by sluissa

It is worth mentioning that in some places potato guns are illegal.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives doesn't consider spud guns illegal, but there may indeed be local ordinances against them.

A lot of the stuff we played with as kids would probably get us thrown in jail and charged with "terrorism" these days, but c'mon now, spud guns are as American as, well . . . guns!

TaoJones

[Little Otter]

Originally Posted by sluissa

It is worth mentioning that in some places potato guns are illegal.

What if it was a large pneumatic spud gun?

[Chiroeurope]

The Gaussian rail gun was something I played with years ago. Than there is Tri Chloro Iodine which is a lot of fun and Playing with liquid ether and glycrine are also fun but you know you can't do that these days and some of the books you used to get are hard to get copies of these days.

Than again the wife points out that 'tato guns firing bean bags and powered by CO2 fire extinguishers is also fun. It was also fun to play with metallic Sodium and water drums (oh what you used to be able to play with in Junior High Chemistry class)

You know this could legally solve some interesting problems

[Dave the Canuck]

Just joined your forum yesterday and, well, it seems I've come to the right place.

[Inthewind]

Be careful with these things they can kill you. Looks like fun.

YouTube - The Last Potato Cannon

[ssullivan]

I have to agree... Little Otter is making the board more fun.

It may be a shame to admit, but I had an 8' PVC potato cannon in college. She was powered by Aqua-Net hairspray. The distances it would travel were ridiculous. We even tore some clapboards off a house firing at it.

Once, there was a kid named "Bear"... we were ran out of potatoes and anything else you could cram into the cannon, so Bear's roommate decided to be kind of mean (but in a funny way) and take a teddy bear from Bear's room and stuff it in the cannon.

The teddy bear flew right over a house and landed on a gas station roof. ha ha

That PVC potato cannon provided hours of enjoyment and entertainment. Forget installing a plasma TV - for the same weight you could have all the entertainment of a potato cannon!

[Little Otter]

thanks yall this is an interesting thread day before yester day I made a 7' potato cannon that is powered by engine starter or right gaurd or WD-40, it is hillarious there USED to be some birds that came from the lake to eat the fish in our pond the key word is USED TO BE, I found that a block of ice is great for shooting hard trees with cause it sends shrapnel every where