Home Depot Hovercraft Build / Leaf blower hovercraft

all safety has gone out the window we got a deadline there's a more easter coming i gotta get this thing working you gotta work now we've got a wire three on this side three on that side maybe don't solder things while it's on this thing is gonna be interesting one two three [Music] i'm zachary fowler and you're watching fowler's makery and mischief all right we are here at home depot this time for the hovercraft build i've been mentioning this a couple times got chris with me you see where i live here on the coast of maine the ice takes longer and longer every year to firm up to be safe for ice fishing but up north the guys are posting pictures in december nailing fish making me super jealous so i tried but i fell through and then i fell through again so i thought what if i made myself a hovercraft out of leaf blowers like these ones i've been seeing on the internet of course i'd make mine a little bit bigger add quite a few more leaf blowers and then i'd be able to scoot out under the thin ice turn it off sit there open a hatch in the center drop my line down do some early season ice fishing when the ice wasn't safe and possibly even cross open water to safe ice to places i've never been able to get to before so let's see if we can get some leaf blowers i already stopped at job lots and bought two air beds and that's my gonna be my bladder yeah let's do some shopping whoa hey hop in one of those fifty-five gallon let's see how big it's my new car that's the 2.0 tote float i could totally we will only need four of those kayaks that way no well i always wanted a boat this morning those things are huge yeah i've never seen this we'll have to have to try and have a kayak like build something like kayaks and racing this year there we go i found it you can see that look at look at there it is we just need that's that's a little blower we need 45 of those 800 bucks this is a digital smoker that you can hook to your phone i got one of these coming but not traeger from z grill and they're sending me once but right now you're distracting me we got chainsaws hedge trimmers oh we're getting closer there it is there it is six of these is that it what do you do with six leaf blowers after so you're done with this project well you're gonna have one clean lawn aren't you who says i'm never gonna be done with this project that's true i'm gonna use this thing every year one two three that's it we need one more oh there it is right there should i go for it you want it there we go that's six thank you sir this is getting expensive not as expensive as the tote float so far right everybody's questioning why we're buying this many leaf blowers it's like we're starting chris is like we're starting up a landscaping business fowlers make green everything blows [Laughter] is that inappropriate get your hardware we need some washers and screws and fender washers why is there big washers with little holes and little washers with big holes but no big washers with little holes fender washers [Music] that's what we need a hundred [Music] my face [Music] [Music] oh all right there it is over a thousand dollars already and we're not even in the water yet and hopefully we won't because that's the whole point of this whole thing right uh we might not have room you're gonna have to walk home here [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right now to my barn where we're gonna do the work place is looking good it's all emptied out for the construction to turn this into my future studio and check out a couple clips here this was all big deck in here and all this junk was in here got torn out now it's a big open space for now and soon soon once the construction down below underneath here is done all of this side of the barn will be bushcraft studio and there'll be a and door in there to the editing rooms and editing suites and then website shipping and handling stuff over here spiral staircase that goes down to the workshop and on this end i'll have uh the bushcraft desk all made out of sticks and then over here will be like some logs and uh stuff for like an anvil with different hammers on the wall for testing products out and their durability that stairway will be gone because we'll have that spiral staircase and in this corner will be knife throwing slingshot shooting targets and then over here will be a fire starting section with an exhaust chimney so we could have fire starting races when we have the late night show bushcraft show you know we'll be able to have guests on in the guest chairs and they come in just like a bushcraft letterman show kind of thing but fowler's bushcraft show but enough about that you're here because you want to see a hovercraft built we got all our parts and pieces now i just got to figure out what in the world i'm gonna do with them no matter how big or how small they are there's only really three different types of hovercraft first is the hovercraft or the fan or blower mounted in the deck that fills the open skirt providing the lift for the hovercraft and it also has to have some sort of a second fan that provides the maneuvering the second type is very similar to the first except for the propulsion fan has a scoop at the back that captures some of the air to fill the skirt to provide the lift for it as well as the propulsion the first two with the open skirts are the best but it requires a large volume of air so despite the leaf blowers claims of gaslight power they're not that powerful and to make the most of that power i'm gonna have them blow up kind of an inner tube with the majority of the holes facing the inner cavity creating the lift i need as the air leaks out underneath that inner tube all the way around the edges making it greasy and able to move with almost zero it's so resistance up here [Music] [Music] so oh you'll see here we take that let's uh let's open them up i know right that's not what no that's the charger oh man please i'm able to all right let's see if this works first just sitting in it oh just under one [Applause] [Music] hole we turn this into a game you gotta go around ten times and then run across the room without falling through the giant hole it's high stakes oh yeah here we go [Applause] now get up and run towards the hole [Applause] down the stairs let's try a roll on plywood grab the uh this other piece from what i saw with somebody else in one of these that they got three pounds of pressure of push so the hovercraft on flat things with very little resistance and pushing against the ice and or water as we try to go up with water i'm thinking you know 10 pounds or something maybe these are a little bigger [Applause] not confidence inspiring but this isn't exactly what i want to do like in the end it's going to have an angle cut on them and they'll be uh closer to the thing so they'll be like this and they'll be blowing with an angle cut so that more surface of air is being pushed against the ice and against whatever you're pushing against but i did also think that the possibility is i might actually need four of these to for thrust because i have a feeling like you know one of these will blow things up blow the inflate the whole mess pretty easily but we gotta put it together and find out let's let's see how it does it inflating things here come here noah let me see here yeah oh gosh that's so cool [Music] so it's enough to inflate noah will it be enough to inflate us i'm gonna finish my lighting and then i can start building it [Music] [Music] huh that one's going to puke on the last one now it's moving there we go all my lights are up a little distracted oh man that's so awesome i am never gonna sweep my car off again and then got a little distracted again that is so much faster than shoveling it's awesome i'll never shovel again now i'm back on it day three let's see if we can get this hovercraft built [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's like those all those strings from inside coming back to bite me would have done better if i just started with my own material and sewn my own bag i have to take it back to the drawing board as far as the bag's concerned and stitch this whole thing together or something it's late i'm tired i'll think better in the morning all right we're gonna prank noah hey noah what are you doing oh my gosh hey you missed you missed some stuff there all right i gotta get back at it stop messing around these things are fun though i don't even know if you can hear me those things are so loud like little jet engines i wonder if those are propelling maybe clean up my workspace that might have been a bad idea [Music] there we go so after dreaming about it all night and how to fix this i think i need to tighten up my bag and add more holes to the bag underneath which means i gotta undo a lot of the work i did yesterday and i'm not gonna be able to i thought this was gonna be like a a six hour build and then i'd go out and goof around on it and then i can make a second video of making it work even better and already this has taken i know i've been on this for like 14 15 hours but uh nothing ventured nothing gained let's see if i can make it fly [Music] holy cow look last night when i was so bummed and it wasn't working i never cut the plastic out that was not inflating i only was running on three of these so who i i don't even know what what could happen if i get a fourth one going right now that's like hope renewed a new hope everything's perfectly all right now we're fine we're all fine here now thank you how are you in my rush to get away with making this version one of the hovercraft i thought because i had four leaf blowers i didn't necessarily need to tape my bag together that the little seams would leak a little bit of air but being that the ones that were online had one leaf blower to lift one person i thought four with some leakage wouldn't be a big deal so now i'm going back through and making plywood plates to lock down the underside of the bag and then i'm going to trim down the excess of the bag where it overlapped before then flex tape it so the air only comes out where i want it to [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] my [Music] watching [Music] my experimentation that day revealed that the bag was very inconsistent with its taped seams and so most of the air just leaked out wherever those tape seams were but as i added more holes it started to slide around more smoothly so by adding a ton of holes to the bag wherever the bag made contact with the ground it made it work just like an air hockey table now i just had to wire it up and give her a go pick a line right here uh give her a cut and then and then warming it and you can strip it back in both directions all right let's do it of course the electric will take to get them stripped off and tied in so they're basically we need to get a second one in line set up so you got one of those taken apart yep they're all ready i think we've voided the warranty on these i'm gonna have to sell them slightly used uh wiring questionable use at your own risk after we put these back together maybe don't solder things while it's on pro too let me see if there's juice now 40 dc volts this is what we want because that's what these batteries are so it's not doubling the voltage right no it's not doubling the voltage so we're getting that's all we're good but yeah but these wires are pretty thin it does because if if they're too thin then the amount of current that travels through them will warm them up there's a nail in that or something i think it sucked some of the yeah no it just sucked in some plastic pieces of wire so we got it working now we got a wire three on this side three on that side and then four on the tiller handle so we can flip the switches i can flip these with my toe if i put them here this thing is gonna be interesting [Music] [Music] [Music] all safety has gone out the window we got a deadline there's a more easter coming wicked heavy snow i think we're going to get quite the thump on the front end of this system they're coming i got to get this thing working before the end of the day and film before it gets snowy and too dark hopefully we get it [Music] literally down to the wire and chris is making wire too short now we just had to miss communication of where we thought we're gonna put the switch what we've got here is failure to communicate so i had to extend the wire this nor'easter i could feel it the pressure change bearing down on me my finger that i almost cut off years ago i could feel the pulsing starting to begin the storm is coming and we got to finish this yeah just now all right yeah tape them not even have to speed up the rate that he's working out it looks like he's working on fast forward [Applause] [Music] i guess he's got him [Applause] all right somebody come and hold this oh come on sorry john oh nice yeah bring the tiller over slip right on there and put an outboard on all right all right chris hold the uh hold it down it's all she's got we're giving it all she's got captain we're going to the moon there oh that looks so sick just do the two outside ones that's kind of cool they'll have to do either it'll work or it won't right now oh we shouldn't do this just yet because we don't know where that needs to sit on the ice but we're good we know it's going to work we got the screws for it we're ready to go to the ice all right keep holding it everybody all right slide that off of there ready to go downstairs yep take her out to the truck all right car whatever you got to know yep go no go yeah noah chris you want to bring a bag up tools and stuff bring some stuff that you think we might need into a box right there yep is it heavy i mean yesterday i was flipping it oh go slow watch out the airbags almost caught on those nails one second you're pulling me down sorry chris yep all right keep going it was a hard step i love being in the middle when it comes to carrying stuff there we go all right we gotta probably not uh you can go how about go all the way to the front there we go yeah i think it does perfect barely we did it she's in step one step one i put all this time in and i'm like yeah one strap you know that's good it just you know all the excess around that [Music] [Applause] [Music] good thing it didn't actually need strapping nothing but a half to twitch wait did we almost lose the ratchet strap it wasn't even connected oh cool cool sitting there zach do you want to work on it up here no let's put it right down onto the ice whoa whoa whoa all right go ahead i should start right on this hill get a running start [Applause] what do you what do you ladies think i think that's so cool i'm gonna i might even just walk on it so girl oh that hat has built-in goggles you got built-in goggles let me see the big boys cool and you look like spider-man [Music] all right short screws now i do need it but um like two of them to mount this there we go all right now move just right this okay to stand on yeah i don't think so we'll find out make sure we only put six of the cut ones on these do you want the same they have to be the cut ones that go on here yeah all right predictions everybody oh she's gonna work she's gonna work what do you think sparrow is it gonna work yeah how's that snow if it doesn't work it was a waste of time when you have a youtube channel it's never wasted yeah i mean it's to share your learning process what did uh i uh einstein or what those guys say just learned a hundred ways not to do you got it we'll go with that because my failures are what made me who i am today i didn't really fail all those times i tried to invent the light bulb unsuccessfully all i did was find 10 000 ways that don't work i think we're starting the batteries they're in the no you can't use that one can't use that one oh okay all right dear jesus help this to work really good and to be super fun in jesus name amen amen all right here we go moment of truth you want to flick it on abby go on the other side you turn on the other one okay all right you guys not to hop on this time i'll let you have a ride on it after i try it after all dad's work go ahead flip the switch hold it one two three go [Applause] it worked [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so [Applause] so classic hot switch situation yeah yeah man oh my goodness you're already moved i know it was still i kept going and stuff like glare if this was so good if this was glare eyes i could have kept going i was thinking like the biggest problem is is the propulsion we're like we're not we're not getting enough push forward it glides along just fine but it just doesn't have enough grab with four of them blowing on the snow yeah you're standing on it like i feel like if i had a fan that was on the back of this thing yeah i'd be ripping across this lake one of your subscribers not one of my subscribers a fan i mean a fan like a twirling fan you know oh cool girls look at the bald eagle it's coming for you over there there goes above the tree so there's a majestic video clip right there that will definitely make the cut for sure are you guys ready for your run you been practicing yeah they call me peter mckinnon [Applause] my [Applause] hey i smell hot electrical [Applause] [Music] i think we should take it like over that hill or something what do you guys think of that that was awesome pretty cool even though it had snow in my face a few times it was awesome what do you think sparrow she's up here making the snowman doesn't even know what's going on what are you doing how'd you like your ride nice yeah fun you know but i know she's actually impossible for your life i like making alden never said nothing why i like funny things because i i bet tons of people are inspired by you as you grow up [Music] all right let's get some b-roll [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] something about going that way nope [Music] oh all right that's it that's all she wrote the switch burnt out the uh so we had to pull the batteries on the back we got two runs of batteries what do you think we got time wise we've probably been out here running this thing for 30 minutes uh yeah so we got both with two sets of batteries yeah so she's got about a 15 minute run time just like a drone i almost think it would do better on open water because there'd be like no resistance to the snow piling up right yeah but i just don't think that that's the case i think that water would get up into the holes even with the air pushing it out and then you'd no it's causing we now we got to test it we got to test it open water next test stay tuned open water during the winter time because you'd actually have more push because these would be pushing against water or instead of just pushing against electrics you get more push back the electronics might not like all the splashing but yeah how long would they last this might need to be covered we really got to test it i mean that was the whole point of this thing right from the beginning is to be able to cross this is why we're down at 7 tree i wanted to cross that open water out there to get to the other side of the lake where better ice fishing was all right in conclusion uh did i meet my goals did i achieve what i set out to do yes uh did i manage to do it with what i initially thought to no i took four more leaf blowers than i thought it would and the bigger problem was the propulsion these just weren't powerful enough to really put me up to any sort of speed even though the six of them was enough to make it greasy and slide around really well these just don't have the push i needed but after watching peter shreepole's channel where he does a fan power just a regular kid sled i think it's more than possible to get that same kind of unit put it on the back of this and be able to have the lift i need and the fan power to really whip around the light fast with a fan i would be able to get out accomplish uh crossing someone or get to the other side of somewhere park and ice fish a bunch and get back i think more than safely knowing that it has a short range i'm not going to go take a weekend long trip on it leave in the comments below should i try to cross that open water or maybe take it for a little run out on the ocean just the way it is now do you think it'll float or i'm gonna need some sort of other power system or more blowers i mean it floated really good on the ice one other thing i definitely have to do for a 2.0 is waterproof my wiring and find the right kinds of switches i don't really know anything about wiring except for when i hooked two wires together by process elimination i got these all the work on one switch but as you saw when we were out there she fried i think the best part of all this is just how much i learned doing this i learned a ton of things not to do but i learned a ton of really neat things about how all of this is going to work and i'd really love to do a 2.0 maybe even a 3.0 4.0 at some point down the road and having a really awesome rig a floating magic carpet where to have this capability of getting out on the water during those times a year when it's not hard water yet and she's still not just just wet water kind of nailed it but i did end up spending way more than i meant to with the four more leaf blowers and batteries a second battery pack for all these so we didn't go out and then get one short run time out of it and then have to come back and charge them meant i spent around three thousand dollars all together on this whole project yeah i think that pretty much covers it if you're thinking of anything that i'm missing leave it in the comments below and thanks for watching guys be sure to subscribe because we're almost at a million subscribers hoping to hit that soon i'll see you guys in the next one fowler out what do you do with six leaf blowers after you

Channel: Fowler's Makery and Mischief

Views: 650,508

Rating: 4.8308034 out of 5

Keywords: fowlers makery and mischief, fowler survival, fowler, survival, fowler survival challenge, survival challenge, catch n cook, catch and cook, catch clean cook, home depot hovercraft, leaf blower hovercraft, leaf blower hoverboard, leaf blower how to use, hovercraft, hovercraft homemade, hovercraft build, how to build a hovercraft, home depot

Id: v8TwVVa6pAo

Length: 48min 41sec (2921 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 05 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/ffoowwlleerr]

I made this so i could ice fish thin ice !

[u/joehizzle]

Haha that's awesome! Can I have a leaf blower?