Making a History of Spudguns Video

[VH_man]

I would definitely mention the zalinski dynamite gun as well as the holman projector which as far as I can tell was the first true spudgun. It was intended to fire grenades, but loaded with potatoes during periods of boredom while ships were in convoy to conduct mock battles.

Thank you Very Much. If i have time left in the script, I will go into these.

No knowledge on the inventor of the Propane meter?

[jimmy101]

Any history spudguns need to start at the real beginnning. That's a couple hundred years before "joe-sixpack" got involved.

From the SpudWiki History page:

It appears that Alessandro Volta (as in Volt) built the first electrically fired combustion "spud gun" in the 1780's;

The "electric-phlogopneumatic" pistol was thought up by Volta. It was generally filled with a mixture of hydrogen and air, and then corked up. One of the electrodes was touched with one hand; the other hand touched one of the poles of an electrostatic machine. When the spark went off between them and also inside the pistol, a loud explosion resulted which violently shot out the cork. As Volta himself wrote, these experiments "stupefied the ordinary observer, caused considerable satisfaction among amateurs and those in the know, for these are experiments combining electricity and inflammable air". They responded to the double requirement, which was popular at the time, of "being showy" and of popularizing the latest scientific results.

(from [1], see also [2] and [3])

Apparently, even eighteenth century scientists enjoyed launching random things, with accompanying loud noises, for the shear joy of doing it. So spudders, when asked, you can describe your hobby as "Following in the footsteps of great scientists like Alessandro Volta". --Jimmy101

EDIT: I can't find a specific reference but I suspect Volta invented the first fuel meter (for measuring hydrogen gas).

[SEAKING9006]

Actually, I'm surprised that no one mentioned Bill Vogt. Beloved member of the Spudgunning community, and the man that the Vogt-Pattern type of pneumatic is named for. As was the case with John Browning and his Hi-Power, Bill Vogt was working on a new type of pneumatic gun before he died. Afterward, another spudder took his incomplete designs and perfected them, resulting in the Vogt-Pattern.


There needs to be a mention of him in the video.