Talk:Potato cannon/Archive 1

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Existing talk

Spud guns which are not compressed-air-powered

I moved this discussion here from User talk:Anthony Appleyard: Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:47, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • The move of Spud gun to compressed-gas-powered gun was inappropriate. Many spud guns don't work pneumatically, but by combustion. Please undo. Rracecarr (talk) 16:41, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • What sorts are these? How are they powered? Best describe them by editing page Spud gun. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:49, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Regrettably, I have reverted the enlargement of page Spud gun, for reasons stated in page Wikipedia:Content forking. If pneumatic and non-pneumatic spud guns (in the cannon sense) have similar valve systems and construction details, apart from the power source, then spud guns (cannons) cannot be easily separated from compressed-air cannons used to fire other things more practical than potatoes, and people wanting information about such more useful compressed-gas-powered cannons are unlikely to look in "spud gun", which to most people means a child's toy pistol as in Image:Spud Gun.jpg. The text being discussed here can go in either file but please not in both. As regards whether combustion-powered cannons belong in here: the combustion produces compressed gas, so the cannon seems to belong in page compressed-gas-powered gun. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 18:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
According to your argument, since burning gunpowder creates compressed gas, all firearms are compressed-gas-powered guns. So should we eliminate that article too? Also, I strongly disagree with your statement that to "most people" spud guns are the little toys. I think to most people, it means the larger guns that shoot whole potatoes. Rracecarr (talk) 20:10, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • In the explosion-powered guns described in compressed-gas-powered gun, the power source always seems to be a (rather weak) explosion of gaseous fuel, not of petrol/gasoline or solid explosive. Reading this page is the first time I have heard of cannons firing whole potatoes, but I have seen plenty of the little pistols called spud guns in children's hands and on sale in general stores. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 21:37, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
I believe that you had never heard of spud guns before. Nonetheless, rest assured that there are quite a number of people who build and fire them as a hobby, and they call them spud guns or potato guns, not compressed gas powered guns. I have heard "spud gun" used to refer to the cannons far, far more than than to the little toys. But neither of our bits of anecdotal evidence is worth much. I realize that cut-and-paste is not a good way to move pages around, but I don't want to undo your work, and I definitely think the "spud gun" page should talk about pneumatic and combustion cannons. Also, see spud gun legality. Notice it's not called compressed gas powered gun legality. Rracecarr (talk) 12:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
  • The trouble with calling the cannons "spud guns" is that:
    1. The weapons described in Compressed-gas-powered_gun#Practical_uses / Spud gun (cannon)#Practical_uses are unlikely to be called spud guns, and they are described in the same article; and there is no query about their legality.
      • Inclusion of the FN 303 in this section is beginning to shade over into the topic of Paintball gun.
    2. "Spud gun" may mean the cannon to enthusiasts for making them, or to people who know such people; but to me and likely to very many others "spud gun" means the child's toy.
    The text "A larger gun used to fire a whole ..." in page Spud gun is not content forking but a stub-and-pointer.
    Anthony Appleyard (talk) 13:26, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
  • This matter was in spud gun, about (1) the small child's toy, and (2) large cannons that fire potatoes; but with time and editing the subject spread away from that topic to compressed-gas-powered weapons / devices which fire other objects and are never called "spud guns". Anthony Appleyard (talk) 13:39, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
  • The page is now in Spud gun (air cannon). Discuss moving it to Compressed-gas-powered gun. Another page involved in this is Spud gun (toy). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 14:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Just to make the history clear (at least for me, following move histories is very confusing)
For a long time (years, haven't checked exactly) there was a page called spud gun (or, for a while spudgun and Spud Gun and who knows what other variations) which had a tiny blurb about the child's toy, and for the most part concentrated on pneumatic and combustion powered hobby cannons. Then Anthony Appleyard moved the article to Compressed-gas-powered gun, giving the reason that other things were fired by these cannons besides potatoes. I opposed this move because the fact that you can shoot onions with them does not change the fact that they're called spud guns.
I wrote AA a message asking him to revert himself. He did not. Since I am not an administrator, I cannot move pages properly (ie with their histories) if the target name already exists. So I simply restored the spud gun page to its former state and left compressed-gas-powered gun alone (which meant that largely the same content was included in both articles). It sat like that for maybe a month.
Then AA reverted my restoration on the basis that content forking is bad.
I tried another idea: move the main article to spud gun (cannon), with spud gun a redirect and at the top "For the toy, see spud gun (toy)." But AA reverted me in the process.
I tried again, but since spud gun (cannon) was no longer available, I moved the page to spud gun (air cannon). That's how it sits at the moment. Rracecarr (talk) 14:47, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
The introductory line to the section you reference above is "Although spudguns are created and used for the purpose of recreation there are other devices which work on identical principles in many other fields with more serious uses." It is a small part of the complete article, and with that intro line, it fits in perfectly in an article about spud guns. *Just because the article has one small section on related devices does not mean the name should be generalized, in my opinion. Rracecarr (talk) 15:07, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
  • OK OK, perhaps the FN 303 does not belong here. Or we need to point to a page more generally about compressed-air-powered guns, or write such a page if it does not exist. The central theme here seems to be wide-caliber low-powered guns, often home-made. If they are much used for other things more useful than firing potatoes about, they may need to be renamed. Otherwise, OK, perhaps put it back in Spud gun (cannon). Are there compressed-air-powered guns (wide-caliber or not) used to fire a weight trailing a line or a net or an explosive projectile? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 15:11, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
It seems there might be: [1]
Never mind, I think that's a rocket. Rracecarr (talk) 16:26, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

References?

8 of the 12 "references" are from the same website, "spudfiles," I'm curious as to whether that's a legitimate "source." Rhesusmonkeyboy (talk) 19:48, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Spud guns are a load of fun. It's a weakly commercialised hobby due to be quite frank the whole issue of launching massive projectiles with high energies, thus the small number of sources with well known names attached to them. Spudfiles is the largest spudgun forum in the world and it's where you're most likely to find the best and/or most powerful examples in the hobby. Evidence for the sources is mostly in the form of pictures, video clips and written data from the creator, formal verification is very unlikely due to the dubious or downright illegal nature of the cannons, the cannon dimensions or their muzzle energy in their creators country.

A prime example is probably the most powerful spudgun I'm aware of which is a 20mm hybrid using up to a 3000psi mix of fuel and air - 3000psi BEFORE it gets ignited. The current guess is that the resulting muzzle energy is about that of a .50BMG. Needless to say it's not legal in the makers country and getting a respectable source to verify it would be tricky. The proof however is the shown video footage of firing, of chronograph readings, data on the machined parts etc. Which is about as good as it gets.

Mortus Est (talk) 13:56, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

My edit

I added a "cleanup" box. I feel this article could use some grammatical cleanup as well as elimination of lay terms and abbreviations. I hope the article will flourish.

I've overhauled the page for clarity and correctness. --BoilingLeadBath 01:42, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

dimensions?

could someone get some dimensions that people can use?

I don't think this is quite the place - and the dimensions are a bit too variable anyways.
Regardless, I stated this size range in my new edit. --BoilingLeadBath 01:42, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Article tone and style

This article is not in line with what should be in an encyclopedia. The should not contain advice to the reader, and should not make judgements on anything. I have removed a few of the most blatant violations of this from the Safety section, but much of the article needs to be changed in this way as well. The article currently sounds more like a guide to building Spud guns than an encyclopedia article. Perhaps the guide information should be moved to Wikibooks, and removed from here? --Philosophus T 07:27, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

True, but many inexperienced spud gunners might come to this site, and decide to build a device without proper knowledge. I think essential safety precautions should be mentioned, but in-depth how-to sections should be removed. Kyrin Blair 13:38, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

This has been discussed in a variety of articles, especially medical articles. It has been decided that we shouldn't have disclaimers, warnings, or advice on such matters, but I am too tired to find the reference for that right now besides everyone on IRC telling me it is so. Some of the disclaimer can probably be added back in as descriptive text, but other things can't - for example, we cannot assume that the reader doesn't intend to injure someone. --Philosophus T 15:14, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
That's a good point, I never knew about that unofficial policy. I guess it's still better than stuff out there like the anarchist's cookbook. BTW I've only had a Wiki account for a couple weeks now, so if I make novice mistakes like that just correct it, I won't be offended. I generally learn faster by mistakes anyways.Kyrin Blair 14:24, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Notice

I decided to be bold and to remove a comment on the talk page. Why? Because simply Wikipedia is not a manual and Spud guns can be EXTREMELY dangerous. They should be considered as loaded fire arms at all time. Wikipedia is not the place to ask question about spud guns, or anything else like that. If you need information, please follow the links in the article or search on google. A lot of sites have interesting forums that can help you. --Deenoe 21:30, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

"Wikipedia is not the place to ask question about spud guns, or anything else like that." Ref desk anyone?
Yes, Ref Desk sure, but not an article's talk page.

Hmm...

Down where I live (Australia), what we call spud guns are toy handguns that shoot bits of potato via air pressure. Does anyone else know anything about this? oTHErONE (Contribs) 10:11, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Seen them, used them. You may know these spud guns as "citrus canons". ViridaeTalk 13:13, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I always knew then as lemon shooters. Also whats with the bit about them being legal here? That's not right I'm shure, unfortunatly I do not have a source.

Thanks. :D oTHErONE (Contribs) 16:42, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, here in England spud guns are the little kids toy pistols as well. In all my 30 years i've never ever heard of these giant cannons as spud guns; seems a bit weird to me. --90.206.122.170 (talk) 11:43, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's primarily an American term. As the top of the article says: For the child's toy which fires small pieces of potato, see spud gun (toy). --McGeddon (talk) 11:45, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

A bit of questionable truth

1) Is embrittlement really an issue? It was my understanding that this was an issue with storing hydrogen gas at a few thousand psi - and it would really surprise me if casual contact with mixed gasses was enough to noticably weaken the steel. --BoilingLeadBath 01:42, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Critereon for inclusion?

I've written something of a muzzle-velocity "estimater" for combustion spudguns. It's accuracy (probably, I've not got that many test cases) isn't on GGDT-like levels - and that's for it's most aplicatable case... but it's out there.
Would it be acceptable to link to my EVBEC? --BoilingLeadBath 01:42, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

We of the spudding community have a rather comprehensive "spudwiki" going... but I see you've removed the link. Would you reconsider it? (I realize that you only link to "well developed" wikis... but (IMO) this counts. There's not much more we can add.) --BoilingLeadBath 01:42, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Sound barrier?

I didn't want to delete this section, in case I'm way off base, but these claims of supersonic spuds seem slightly suspect. How is this possible? Wouldn't air resistance cause the potato to decelerate as soon as it left the barrel? I liked the article, but this part struck me as hard to believe. --Bongwarrior 09:22, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

It's possible, but I don't think anyone actually shoots potatos out of those.Superbum4 04:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

It is entirely possible. The potatos do decelerate very fast at those speeds, but none the less, they have still exceeded the speed of sound for at least part of their tragectory, which still qualifies as breaking the sound barrier. I'll go back and add links to some proved examples. --RagnarokEOTW 11:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Pictures/diagrams?

I think more pictures would greatly benefit the article, as it currently is we have one very basic pneumatic demo and a stamped metal spud gun which is not actually a significant part of the article. One good picture for each cannon type and possibly pictures of the less well known valves: QEV valves and custom valves. Mortus est 18:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Excellent idea. I'll add some images, if I can find suitable ones. --RagnarokEOTW 11:53, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Sprinkler valves

Just for future reference, sprinkler valves are not "solenoid valves." Solenoids are used to actuate the valves, but the solenoid is not the valve itself. They are commonly called solenoid valves, albeit incorrectly. Silence(water) 02:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, they are generally called solenoids because the solenoid is one of they key parts of the valve, because it actuates it. If someone was to go to a web site for them, such as McMaster, they would be called solenoid valves. Most spud gunners who use the valves, however, prefer to remove the solenoid, fill the hole with epoxy, then tap a blowgun vavle into it, which will open it faster. Salty aka Flying Salt 01:07, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Pneumatic Cannon Picture

Okay, I know everyone doesn't want this to be an instructional page, but the picture for the pneumatic cannon has non-pressure rated fittings. Don't you guys think that there should be a properly built cannon to represent this class od potato guns? I am just suggesting that we change the picture so people do not look at it as a cannon they should build. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by An Apple Pie (talk • contribs) 20:15, 12 March 2007 (UTC).

What makes you think the fittings are non-pressure rated? Phantombantam 04:16, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Phantom, if you're experienced enough, you can tell if they're DWV (drain, waste, vent) fittings by the socket depth. I'd have to say, that is a pretty funky looking pneumatic. I'll see if I can find a picture of mine. Salty aka Flying Salt 01:03, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

External Links

Seems like there are too many external links. In addition, see links normally to be avoided. Wikipedia articles really are not supposed to be advertising methods, and they aren't going to help SEO much anyway. Thus, it's also pointless to have tons of targeted keywords in some of the links. But at any rate, the number of links really should be cut down. Silence(water) 04:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Forgotten

A typical die-cast spud gun.

It is mentioned once and then lost to the article as it goes on about the various forms of potato cannon. A section on this form would be appropriate, especially after making it the first thing the viewer sees. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.214.178.154 (talk) 19:41, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The factory made toy spudgun now has its own page. Mortus Est (talk) 14:12, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Which is more powerful?

Under Combustion launchers it gives a maximum range of 500 meters and says:

Combustion launchers are usually more powerful than their pneumatic or hybrid counterparts.

Under Pneumatic launchers it gives a maximum range of 1000 meters and says:

Pneumatic spud guns are generally more powerful than combustion spud guns;

Under Hybrid launchers it doesn't give a maximum range but explains why

The hybrid is capable of higher velocities than a combustion or pneumatic spud gun because....

and goes on to talk about breaking the sound barrier. Am I the only one to see a contradiction here? Can someone who knows the topic please explain and/or correct these statements?

TIA, --Eliyahu S Talk 21:49, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


Wondered what you meant for a while there then realised you were referring to a drive-by edit I reverted before I read the talk page.
71.254.144.6 made an edit which changed the word "less" to "more", which naturally turned the logic upside down.
In terms of potential power the order is combustion (of unpressurised fuel and air/oxygen) < pneumatic < hybrid (a pressurised combustion).
Mortus Est (talk) 14:22, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Trivia Section

I've changed the name of the "Trivia" section to "In popular culture", as all of the entries deal with either TV shows or film. I've therefore removed the trivia tag. --Liderian (talk) 16:32, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Safety

The Section 'safety' is full of weasel words ((Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words)) and does not have a NPOV. The whole section needs a cleanup or should be removed. -- IP —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.245.162.255 (talk) 23:10, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Move?

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was  Done — Aitias // discussion 17:34, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

  • Spud gun (cannon) → Spud gun — (Discuss) — parentheses not needed for disambiguation, and are confusing. spud gun and spud cannon already redirect to this page, so no need for a parenthetical article title — DudeFromWork (talk) 03:12, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
  • The "(cannon)" is need to distinguish from spud gun (toy). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 13:17, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment. This is by far the primary target. (toy) gets very few page views. By far the most common search term is "spud gun". 199.125.109.99 (talk) 03:35, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Support. I think, with the current dab line at the top of the page, the move would not create any ambiguity. Rracecarr (talk) 21:47, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

information Administrator note  Done. — Aitias // discussion 16:47, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
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