06-16-2005, 02:58 PM
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#26 (permalink)
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Muck Fusic
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Virginia Beach
Posts: 1,575
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This is a cut and paste off the post the creature of the flamethrower made. Truly don't make this unless you know what you are doing, and even if you do know what you are doing, it's probably better you don't. I posted this for humor value. Also, some of the earlier pictures I only posted the url because I went over the image amount in this post.
Quote:
Like any red-blooded, masculine man of the male gender, I love PVC weaponry. You should too. If the concept of heading on down to the local Home Depot and transforming $100 worth of random pipe bits into a killing machine doesn’t appeal to you, you’re a frikkin' pansy. Also, you’re probably sane and will live significantly longer than I will. Nonetheless you disgust me, and I take comfort in the knowledge that your obituary will be nowhere near as humorous as mine. For those of you who laugh in the face of hypersonic shards of plastic puncturing your spleen, here’s an intimate look at how I’ve kept myself busy for the past week: building a PVC flamethrower.
If you're not interested in the building process, skip to the bottom of the post for the fire.
My flamethrower has two main parts, a gun/hose assembly, and the tank. I made the gun first:
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/8243/1-gun.jpg
It’s made entirely of parts you can get at your average hardware store. The hose connects to a stop valve, which connects to a short pipe nipple that's tapped directly into the tank.
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/4795/2-valve.jpg
The tank took a while to make, because I let each set of chemical welds dry before doing the next ones. The ends of the tank are two 90 deg. elbows and two 90 deg. street elbows, welded to make two full 180 deg. "U"s. One side of the tank is a 2' length of 4" sch.40 PVC, the other is a 4"x4"x1.5" T with standard pipe attached to each 4” socket.
http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/8075/3-pipes.jpg
Before assembling the parts, I drilled and threaded the two holes I needed in the tank ends: a 1/4" standard pipe hole for the outlet to the hose, and a 1/8" standard pipe hole for the valve that I would use to pressurize the tank. Interesting note: 1/4" and 1/8" pipes have no actual relation to the measurements of distance commonly known as the quarter inch and eighth inch. The holes are actually 7/16" and 11/32" respectively. Hooray for non-metric measurements.
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/6082/4-drill.jpg
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/9984/6-tapping.jpg
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/16...ppedthreads.jpg
Next step: cement one end of the tank:
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/759/8-weld1.jpg
Then the other:
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/2388/9-weld2.jpg
After the tank dried, I dredged up an old camping backpack to hold it. I cut a hole in the bottom of the pack and screwed the gun/hose assembly into the base of the tank.
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/8640/10-backpack.jpg
Finally, I screwed in the Schrader valve (which I bought from www.spudtech.com, an excellent online retailer for PVC weapons and parts) to complete the tank:
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/3293/11-svalve.jpg
Now the whole rig was ready for some pressure testing. Since I would soon be running the distinct risk of giving myself heat-assisted, deep tissue exfoliation, I was extra-careful to make sure there weren't any leaks. I used up a lot of Teflon tape.
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/7053/12-tapedcap.jpg
And, after filling the tank with water for a trial run, made sure the cleanout cap was on nice and tight
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/9522/13-tightcap.jpg
before flipping on the air compressor.
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/8950/14-pressurize.jpg
No leaks! At this point, I had quite possibly the world's most kick-ass super-soaker.
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/4641/15-test1.jpg
Of course, I didn't go through all that effort for a damn squirt gun. So I added a pilot light in the form of a blow torch.
Much better! The finished product:
There was only one thing left. Add some fuel (denatured alcohol; PVC is soluble in gasoline)
And TURN UP THE HEAT. I accidentally set my camera to long exposure, so some of the pics look blurry. It worked out well for capturing the flames, though.
 (1200x900 of above)
And two animations I made from video clips:
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/7779/animation2.gif
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/2034/animation3.gif
Thanks to www.imageshack.us for hosting.
Two more animations:
http://paintedover.com/uploads/4/animation3.gif
http://paintedover.com/uploads/4/animation4.gif
My e-mail is AugerPSU@gmail.com if you've got any questions about the device.
Important safety upgrade for anyone following the water gun instructions on page 12
New pics,page 16
New pics, stuff on fire, page 18
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a man, a plan, a canal, panama
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