Good technical examples & articles

This page is to be filled with the cannons generally considered good technical examples on the forums, or those that people just tend to like. And the articles that are worth your reading time.

Obviously this page is under construction, somewhat subjective, and most definitely incomplete, but it's here to help a newbie get themselves well aligned with what spudding actually can be.

VERY IMPORTANT RULE

Most of these topics are fairly old. Please do not post in any topic that you are linked to from this page unless you have a VERY important technical question that is not answered anywhere in the thread.

Asking for plans in any one of these threads will cause you to become prematurely bald. If you are already bald, you don't want to know what becoming bald again after you are already bald does to you.

ADDING TO THIS PAGE

• Please put cannons in the right category, and alphabetically by user. (This is to prevent any "This cannon is better, so it should be higher up" edit wars.) Articles have no particular order of preference, but try and add them to the right category.
• Avoid adding a really recent cannon unless it's a very good example.
• Don't add your own cannons, because that's just big-headed. I know I (Ragnarok) did it, but I'm a self confessed hypocrite.

Cannons

Pneumatic

• Old Bessy Sureshot, by AdiabaticManiak. Not the most sophisticated cannon, but one of the few lever action ones.
• 4.2 Inch Mortar, by biged. A very well built replica WW2 mortar.
• Sawn-off riot gun, by Brian the Brain. A cannon that has inspired a great many people.
• Mr Porter, by Brian the Brain. What happens if a 2" porting piston valve and 500 psi come together.
• Old Shatterhand, by Brian the Brain. An exceptionally well made multi-shot hammer valve cannon.
• S400, by Chaos. Good looking, well built, and a good performer. 'Nuff said.
• GB Semi, by Clide. Self loading Golf ball gun. Good demonstration of a blowforward loader. Also notable for the HEAR valve.
• Portable burst disk cartridges, by Davidvaini.
• SCTBDC, by DYI. Big-ass pneumatic.
• Mini Piston Gun, by ethal1222. A good lesson in compact building.
• Copperhead Prime, by Hotwired. Good example of a simple, yet functional design that has inspired imitators.
• 6mm Burst Disc Pneumatic, by Jackssmirkingrevenge. Demonstration of the effectiveness of high pressure and a good valve.
• RevoSemi, by Keep_it_Real. A great example of a simple loader.
• HEAL, by Ragnarok. Because I'm a shameless self-promoter.
• The SWAT, by schmanman. Just a very large pneumatic.
• Gort's Golf Bag, by sgort87. A portable pneumatic cannon hidden inside a golf bag.
• The Eclipse, by Solar. One of the best produced cannons this forum has seen.
• XM2, by wngovr. Beautifully built cannon with an integral pump.

Combustion

• Revolver X, by Boogieman. Well known combustion, good demonstration of speeding up shooting.
• 57.5mm Oxymortar, by Caffeine. One of the very early examples of machined cannons.
• Small Pistol Grip Combustion, by CrashTestDummy II. Demonstrating that simple cannons need not look it.
• Mk2 Rotary barrelled Combustion, by Critical_Al. Very well made "Rapid-fire" combustion.
• Taternator II, by Dumbascii. Taking combustion and just throwing overkill at it.
• Wood Combustion, by Eddbot. Not so serious, and not the world's best technical example, but worth a look, because most people like it.
• The BL520, by jagerbond. (Reviewed by PCGUY). A well thought out and built cannon from Spudfiles' sponsor.
• The Gauntlet of Clara Ann, by Radiation. For having one of the most grandiloquent cannon names on the forum.
• Blue Flame III, by Sgort87. Again, demonstrations of improving rate of fire.
• Collapsible travel combustion, by Sgort87. Neat concept for a telescoping cannon.
• Proton Pack, by Sgort87. Backpack based chamber, sometimes considered for a cannon design.
• 12" Diameter bucket launcher, by Sgort87. He does a lot of good combustions. Also, adventurous sizewise.
• Triple Thunder cannons, by Starman. Neatly built, well known and good performers - they had to make the list.

Hybrid

• BACH, by Daccel. Although not finished, this is one of the most viable methods to speed up hybrid operation.]
• HPSCL, by DR. Often known as the Gen-II tank, an early example (reposted here) of developments in hybrid fuelling.
• Piston Hybrid, by Fnord. A demonstration of an alternate hybrid valve.
• FEAR, by Killjoy. Just a big ass hybrid. Former holder of the spudgun velocity record.
• HyGaC20, by Larda. Current holder of spudgun velocity, and preignition mix pressure records. Also nice to look at.
• The Cobra Venom, by Moonbogg. A record of the production of a high quality machined hybrid.

BBMG/Strafer

• Deathray, by Brian the Brain. Simplify, and add pressure.
• RC-P240 Vortex cap BBMG, by Imortal87. A good method of adding magazines to a BBMG.
• 6mm Semi by Jackssmirkingrevenge. Not so much a BBMG, but absolutely great for learning about blow forward loaders.
• "I has full auto", by Jackssmirkingrevenge. Jack finally builds a full auto pulsed BBMG after... I've forgotten. A long time, either way.
• Ultimate Inline Mk IIIi, by Neospud. Showing you how a BBMG should be done for practical field use.

Mini

• Pneumatic Pengun, by Jackssmirkingrevenge. For being one of the first examples of less ghetto minis.
• Keychain Pengun, by jor2daje. Nigh on minuscule, and with a mini pump
• Mini Keychain, by jook13. For being the first keychain spudgun.
• 300 WinMag Coax, by jook13. A gun... inside a bullet.

And thus we prove that success in Minis depends on a username starting with a J.

Other

• 28.8kj Electrothermal cannon, by Larda. Cannon powered by plasma. Somehow even more impressive than it sounds.

Articles

General Forum

• A VERY worthwhile read on spudgunning and the forums. A read of this will get you pretty up to date with the forum's workings.
• A spudder's tale. Not essential reading, but nice anyway.
• Posting images a step-by-step guide. How to post images on Spudfiles properly.
• Rules. Main forum rules.
• Explanation of rules that sometimes raise questions.
• Posting Etiquette. Posting rules for the Spudfiles forum, differs from the main forum rules.
• Why aren't my questions being answered? For if you've asked a question, but you're getting responses like "Do your own research".

Forum In-jokes

• How to deal with frustration. The famous *facepalmheaddeskcombo* explained.
• The Flaming Pink Elephant. A metaphor for the forum's innuendo, as this is what it is as subtle as.
• Spudfiles Forum Jokes Worth a read, to help you gauge the forum's sense of humo(u)r before you misinterpret something.
• Tools redefined: What tools really are.

Safety

• Things not to do. A list of accidents people have had, and in many cases, how it could have been avoided.
• A tale of shooting yourself in the face. Again, more accidents.
• Predicting if your cannon's recoil is likely to be dangerous. It is inadvisable for a hand fired cannon to exceed 100 ft-lbs (135 J) of recoil, and even this will be unpleasant.

Construction

• How piston valves work. An explanation of what is arguably the best valve in spudding.
• High pressure compressors. How to adapt fridge parts into the spudder's high pressure solution.
• A solution to rifling. How to rifle a PVC barrel.
• How to make a cannon with 2" piston valve. How to make a 2" piston valve.
• Solvent Welding Course. An online course on how to solvent weld PVC correctly.
• Suppressor Tutorial. Quite a long video, but lots of information on suppressor (or silencer, if you must) construction.

Projectiles

• A fairly interesting thread on projectile shape vs. drag. It's a bit incoherent at times, but worth the study.
• A theory on dart development.

Aesthetics

• Making a stock for your launcher? This will be worth some reading.