California Water Cannon

General water gun discussion.
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SSCBen
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California Water Cannon

Post by SSCBen » Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:06 pm

I could have sworn that something was posted about this website here years ago but I could find absolutely nothing when I searched.

Recently I dug up the California Water Cannon. The water gun itself is a basic piston water gun made of aluminum and constructed with CNC machines. The price ($140+) was incredibly high back in 2002. While it definitely has exaggerated performance it was nonetheless an interesting water gun. I never saw one in action so I have no idea how they actually performed.

Has anyone else seen or used these water guns?

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Silence
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Re: California Water Cannon

Post by Silence » Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:31 pm

Well, if something was posted, it certainly didn't happen in my time here.

Searching Google for link:california-water-cannon.com site:sscentral.org and .net didn't turn up anything. Heck, even searching for "California Water Cannon" turned up little.

You may want to ask Zoccoz since one of his sites turned up. Although I wouldn't expect to find much if you could find anything in your archives.

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SSCBen
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Re: California Water Cannon

Post by SSCBen » Tue Jul 08, 2008 3:49 pm

I emailed the guy behind the California Water Cannon and he's provided some explanation about why the website disappeared:
Ben, The original run of water cannons was done after many years of
perfecting the prototypes. The 200 unit run cost over 20K and had
additional costs because of quality issues on parts that we received.
Unfortunately, we sold these slowly over several years and it was
impossible to save the money at that time to build a new run of cannons.
A secondary problem was the insurance. They canceled me and wanted 25K a
year, whether we sold one or a million of these!! I have a few cannons
left, and am saving these for my Boy Scouts. Be glad to talk to you some
more about these and would entertain an offer for the prints, which took
a lot of time and effort to perfect.
Denis Porter
He seems a little confused about what I wanted though. I was interested in a detailed technical drawing that I thought would be helpful to someone like me who's just getting into machining and wanted to work with a known working design, but I think he thinks I want to sell it and am making an offer for the plans.

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Drenchenator
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Re: California Water Cannon

Post by Drenchenator » Wed Jul 09, 2008 12:07 pm

Hum. Maybe he just wants to make sure he is the the only guy who can make the guy. That's what it looks like to me. I'm surprised we didn't see this before. Back in 2002 this would have been one of the only sites that built water guns and sold them--can't think of others right now. It's a shame we couldn't at least get some dimensions.

Though, for a simple piston gun, it's a bit excessive. Performance isn't going to improve greatly just because the gun is precisely machined. You still only get out of it what you put into it, which is still just brute force from the user. The price, 140 USD, is a bit understandable now that he said that it basically cost him 100 USD to make them. That's only a margin of 40 USD, which is reasonable, I suppose.
The Drenchenator, also known as Lt. Col. Drench.

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