Air Cannon Build

hi there and welcome to wasa woodworking on today's episode we're gonna be building a tennis ball cannon this is basically a air cannon that you see sometimes that sporty mist where they shoot t-shirts out of we're gonna using just shoot to this balls and ping-pong balls we're choosing those two because they happen to fit the size PVC just about right so that's we're gonna do so watch how it's done okay so just going through the supplies and what we have here this is a four inch piece of PVC schedule 40 along with a cap and along with a four by two reducer after the reducer you have a two by one bushing and we'll go right in there piece of pipe one inch pipe elbows that are all schedule 40 and then a 1 inch threaded adapter fitting that will go into this sprinkler valve the sprinkler valve here have taken it apart because this piece has to have a hole drilled in where this will go and then this will act as the trigger normally there's a device here that goes on and this is what allows the pressure to the downstream however in this case is just kind of bent out through this which will allow you to do without having to use electricity and these are the four bolts that actually hold that together then it'll come out 1 inch adapter 1 inch pipe and here's a 1 by 2 bushing going into a coupling into a pipe and I've actually arranged them I got a couple different ones i have these probably screwed in different ways I got a 2 inch you got a inch and a half same thing coupler bushing and then adapter and then we have inch and a quarter that is straight into a threaded fitting and then of course one-inch straight in I don't know which one of these I'm going to be using because a tennis ball does not fit in a 2-inch and it is way too big in a three inch so I gotta figure out what I'm going to be shooting with it in order to thread this I took a piece of pipe I'm actually using that as a tap to make the threads which works not really well so now I've taken I've screwed it in and now I have the trigger trigger mechanism see how it's gone in there this is a switching mechanism that allows it to dump the pressure from underneath here through that hole out that little hole since I'm going to be dumping out here I don't need either of those so this whole thing needs to be filled up and the easiest way I know to do that is to put some stuff in it and then fill this up with epoxy so that is what I'm going to be doing okay tasing taking a 16-pin nail which I have a thousand of them and make great stir sticks I will take this and I don't want to mix it up epoxy in there it is all hardened up and that little hole is completely sealed so we're going to assume that that's going to work just fine [Music] for the eighth inch hole that the Schrader valve needs I actually have a tap for that so I start by drilling and I put the tap in the drill press so it goes to nice and perpendicular and that works out well so I'm gonna speed right through this to show you and then all I have to do is now take the Schrader valve and insert it and tighten it up and it doesn't even really need tape it seals very well so now we're finally getting to glue this up here everything's ready and you don't see the purple on it that is the primer that I'm using with the PVC glue and it's a good practice I'm doing it on here and then I just start gluing it all up man it doesn't take very long but I'm doing this in five times speed just to show me racing through it and mixing no I'm finished no I'm ready let's take it out and we'll put ten pounds of pressure see what happens that's amazing okay it whenever the fence for a ping-pong ball this is currently the way the gun looks I've taken a added a barrel it's a two and a half inch schedule 40 so you're gonna want to write that down a green dot tennis ball slides down very nicely down it regular tennis balls a little tight so that works out well and so now I'm gonna make a piece of wood that holds these two pieces together and then I'm gonna make a mount off that they'll allow me to tie it to a sawhorse so that I can actually position it the way I want it for shooting so seems like an easy stand to use instead of having to develop a tripod just for that so that's what I'm working on right now this shoots a long way is this got a piece of plywood you know if that's gonna be easy to see if it's really not but anyway it's got two circles on it and it shaped the look around outside and we want to use that to hold it together so now I'm gonna go cut that out all right so I have finished making this little frame for it and here's the neat thing is I've attached the frame to a handle so I can adjust the angle lock it down my plunger that I use for pushing the tennis ball in is measured out so I can use that and close in and it was just a matter of pulling the trigger so I guess I'll probably do it this way so I can have that up and so now we can see everything so we're gonna go outside we're gonna shoot send these off and have a little fun now that I can do this and we'll see take some video to see how long it takes for the ball to go up and hit the ground and then we're gonna use a little bit of physics to determine how long the ball or how high the ball actually went so we're gonna run through that with my help my son so we'll do that in just a few minutes 25 pounds thirty pounds forty pounds it's higher than the tree 40 take two here we go boom 50 is floating so I hope you've enjoyed watching this episode I've had a lot of fun making this and a lot of fun shooting it in the backyard and out in the front yard and even had the family this morn trying to hit the tennis balls back after I was shooting him with it charging about 250 pounds so if you liked it give it a thumbs up put your comments below and subscribe today I'll see you next time I'll also woodworking you

Channel: Stephen Wassell

Views: 149,937

Rating: 4.8763905 out of 5

Keywords: air cannon, air rifle, pvc, tennis, ping pong, ball, wassell, woodworking, pvc gun

Id: n-XTzBDJFqE

Length: 9min 1sec (541 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 05 2017