Nice spam. Dart guy, I gave your method a try. I wrapped some masking tape around the circumference of the barrel and squeezed a 3" cap tightly on the end. The cap is tethered to the cannon. It shoots very loudly now and is much easier to "reload" since there's no need to mess about with masking tape!

I found a loose connection that was preventing the chamber fan from running. Thanks!

Now that the fundamentals are in place, I'm thinking about JSR's hybrid recommendation.

Can I use my existing cannon, with burst disc in place? Or will the threaded cleanout be a dealbreaker?

I can easily use my existing meter to add a metered amount of air.

Dart guy, I should try your idea as well, thanks!

OK, progress has been made. Put a 4" to 3" bushing on the end of the chamber, then a short section of 3" pipe. Made a burst disc from masking tape (2 layers and I'll try more eventually) and then wedged a 3" to 2" reducer on the end of that with a 2' long 2" barrel. Fires with a nice crack =) Happy ...

OK, it's built. I went with an "electronic" BBQ lighter, which is basically a baby stun gun. I wired the ignition and fan to a 4-wire modular telephone jack and use a 50 foot phone cord to connect to a remote control box. Firing the chamber open-ended with saran wrap covering the exit it makes a ver...

Technician, thanks for your post, and the illustrative videos. I've finished building the metering unit. I used a monkey wrench to remove the spout from a standard propane torch and installed an adapter to pipe threads in its place (Watts part LFA-23 for reference). I connected that to a typical air...

Do you think the ignition is at the rear to increase the tolerance to breezy weather, or does placing it there improve noise making performance? At this point I'm planning to insert the electrodes through the doublewall at the back of the chamber, providing they would clear the fan. But if it would ...

Thanks for the advice. I looked around and found some bird cannon diagrams: http://www.suttonag.com/ZonGunDiagrams.html Looks like the chamber and barrel are the same diameter, separated by an "iris" of about half the diameter. It also appears that ignition is single spark from the rear of the chamb...

Greetings! I'm returning to this hobby after a multi-year hiatus. My first foray was a spray-and-pray propane fueled cannon with BBQ ignition, two large nails for electrodes, and hilarity. Now I want to build a new cannon with the design objective being to build a very simple device using a few well...