Water festival coming up! Need gun!

Build a homemade water gun or water balloon launcher and tell us about it.
akumabito
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Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:24 pm

Water festival coming up! Need gun!

Post by akumabito » Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:58 pm

Hey everyone!

I am new here (obviously), and I guess you get the "what should I build?" question all the time.. However, this is sort of an emergency in the same order of seriousness as the 'breakdancing stripper emergency' from "Dude where is my car?". Serious stuff!

You see, I live in Thailand and it is almost time for the Songkran Festival, which means three full days of non-stop water-throwing madness!

So needless to say, I've been shopping around for an appropriate water gun.. I found the commercial offerings both limited in choice, as well as fairly pricey though. A half-decent gun would run me around 1,000 THB, or $30. So then I figured, if I'd spend that much at a local hardware store, I could probably end up with a pretty kick-ass gun.

...and this is where you great folks come in! :D

I have never built a water gun before, but it does not seem like an impossible undertaking at all. I would like some advice on what type to go for though..

Here are a couple of ideas I was playing with;

- It should be easy to construct using only parts available from a hardware store. No fancy homemade parts or specialty parts that need be ordered over the Internet.

- Range is not very important. Most 'fighting' will be at near point-blank range anyways, with targets rarely being more than 30ft away.

- Maybe something with a large spread, or huge shot capacity would be sweet. Think "water-shotgun" or riot-gun, or something like that.

- It needs to be easy to refill, using either a garden hose, or (MUCH more likely) by submerging the whole thing in a 55 gallon drum of water.

- Not too big/heavy.. I am not build like Schwarzenegger... plus the thing would need to be carried nearly the whole time for three full days!

- Hand pressurized. As much as I'd like a super-high pressure system, it just ain't gonna happen...

So please feel free to post any and all advise you can spare. :D

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SSCBen
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Re: Water festival coming up! Need gun!

Post by SSCBen » Wed Mar 19, 2008 5:06 pm

Welcome to SSC!

I don't know anything about the availability of parts in Thailand, so you'll have to fill us in on that. PVC pipe may be hard to find or expensive as it is in Europe. The guides I write are from the perspective of someone in North America where part availability is mostly the same.

The basic homemade water gun guide is here: http://www.sscentral.org/homemade/aph/

None of these parts should be hard to find. I've marked where I bought them in the guide, but again, because you don't live in North America, those stores might not even be available to you. I don't use anything hard to find in that guide, and in the other ones the hardest to find things I get are from McMaster-Carr (a great parts website).

You can make a simplified version to reduce the cost if you're shooting for $30. A two chambered version cost me about $60 in Dec. 2004, but I had a lot of extra parts. You can cut a lot of cost by either building check valves yourself or ordering some cheaper ones from the internet. You can cut more cost by using something like a water bottle as the pressure chamber (you've said you don't need anything extremely powerful, so this would be adequate).

Any of these homemade piston designs would be more than adequate as well:

http://www.waterzooka.com/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-water-mortar/
http://forums.sscentral.org/t3955/
http://www.geocities.com/m15399/piston.html

Check out any of the links in our homemade section as well. You might find something you like there. ;)

akumabito
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Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:24 pm

Re: Water festival coming up! Need gun!

Post by akumabito » Wed Mar 19, 2008 5:47 pm

Yea, I've been combing through the homemade section of the site. A lot of fascinating info, really!

I actually tend to lean towards the SuperCPS. It would be great for truck-mounted battles. We're getting two 55 gallon drums in the back of our old pickup + 6 to 8 people (yeah, don't ask.. it's a Thai thing, LOL!)

It sort of depends on the availability of the tubing, I suppose. I'm not really worried about the costs per se (as long as my wife doesn't find out, that is). I just figured for similar or a little extra money, I could end up with something a LOT more satisfying than the stuff they sell in stores.

I will have to hunt for tubing. I'll try the local hardware shops tomorrow, the day after tomorrow I'll be heading for Bangkok. I'm sure they must be selling this sort of stuff SOMEWHERE.. :D

Hm... come to think of it.. construction materials are usually a lot more cheaper than back home.. I might have to build 4 or so to keep the neighborhood kids happy (and the rest of the 'hood terrorized)

Just a question though; considering most of this will be at very short ranges, would it be advisable to go for a higher diameter nozzle? I'm thinking lower velocity, but higher flow..

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isoaker_com
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Re: Water festival coming up! Need gun!

Post by isoaker_com » Wed Mar 19, 2008 6:55 pm

If range isn't as important as flow, larger diameter tubing and nozzles would definitely be recommended. The Songkran festival is one I'd most definitely wish to partake in one of these years. Best of luck with your water blaster cannon building and, if you can, please share photos both of your finished creation as well as pics from the actual day of celebration if you can!

Soak on!

:cool:
:: Leave NO one dry! :: iSoaker.com / iSoaker.net ::

akumabito
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Re: Water festival coming up! Need gun!

Post by akumabito » Wed Mar 19, 2008 7:25 pm

...you wouldn't have plans for a heavy-duty waterproof camera housing, would you? :D
Heheh, there will be lots of pics taken from the safety of the car's interior. I promise..

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SSCBen
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Re: Water festival coming up! Need gun!

Post by SSCBen » Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:28 pm

You'll be limited by the diameter of the LRT if you want high flows. The larger diameter tubing has a lot of dead space and can't be layered over, but you might not find that limiting if you don't want it to be lightweight and you don't mind some extra pumping (at first only to fill in the dead space).

Also, any latex tubing you find in hardware stores will be far too thin to work. You'll have to look online usually to find LRT. Most distributors I have found online ship worldwide. You might be able to find a local distributor online as well. LRT should be available in most areas of the world because it's used in some surgeries from what I know. It's also known as surgical tubing because of that.

If you can't find any latex tubing, some sort of large air pressure chamber would be perfectly fine.

As for plans for water proof camera housings, try Google. I found this in less than 10 seconds: http://web.media.mit.edu/~tim/pix/waterproofcamera.html
Last edited by SSCBen on Thu Mar 20, 2008 4:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Silence
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Re: Water festival coming up! Need gun!

Post by Silence » Wed Mar 19, 2008 9:09 pm

Welcome aboard!

You can build a water gun using pretty much any type of tubing - it's really the availability and selection that matter. Various types of plastic and metal have been used before. :cool:

akumabito
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Re: Water festival coming up! Need gun!

Post by akumabito » Thu Mar 20, 2008 12:41 pm

Does anyone have some experience in international shipping with McMaster-Carr?

It seems I might have to borrow a credit card and order some parts from them anyway. I'm just worried about delivery time (I only got three weeks left) and shipping costs. It would suck to pay more on shipping than on the actual parts.. :(

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SSCBen
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Re: Water festival coming up! Need gun!

Post by SSCBen » Thu Mar 20, 2008 4:17 pm

The shipping for McMaster-Carr for me has been incredibly fast. I live in the US and some items came the day I ordered. I don't know if that will mean their international shipping will be fast (relatively speaking), but I can't imagine it being terrible at the very least.

How much flow do you want in numbers? Your idea of "high flow" might be different than mine now that I think about it. This table should help you get an idea of how much you want: http://www.sscentral.org/physics/equations.html#real

Be sure to factor in the length of the engagement, your water capacity, and other things like that. I can then tell you which tube or combination of tubes would work best for you. ;)

sbell25
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Re: Water festival coming up! Need gun!

Post by sbell25 » Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:39 pm

I'm pretty sure that McMaster doesn't ship overseas anymore. I remember Aqua Flash (who is a UK member) talking about buying LRT, and he said that McMaster will no longer ship internationally, except to trusted long time customers. Or something like that, I can't find the thread or remember the specifics of it.

akumabito
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Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:24 pm

Re: Water festival coming up! Need gun!

Post by akumabito » Fri Mar 21, 2008 8:14 am

Alright, change of plans then... unless I can source the tubing locally, I will go for an APH-type design.. :)

akumabito
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Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:24 pm

Re: Water festival coming up! Need gun!

Post by akumabito » Sat Mar 29, 2008 7:31 pm

Hey guys!

It's been a while, but I finally got around to visiting the hardware store.. Got some good news and some bad news.. bad news is they do not have PVC check valves. Good news is that nice shiny brass check valves cost the same as PVC valves in the US, so HAH! :D

I did a quick mock up in the store (much to the amusement of the staff - it gave me lots of "WTF?" looks). I think I can pull it off for around 1,000 THB - which is close to $30 - with enough PVC pipes left over for a second or perhaps even third gun..

I'll go back in a few days to pick up my supplies.. It's gonna be one sweet APH! :D

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SSCBen
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Re: Water festival coming up! Need gun!

Post by SSCBen » Sat Mar 29, 2008 7:36 pm

If you can, please take pictures as you build the gun and write a guide. That will help people in similar situations.

Good luck with the construction. ;)

akumabito
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Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:24 pm

Re: Water festival coming up! Need gun!

Post by akumabito » Sat Mar 29, 2008 7:48 pm

Yeah sure, no problem. I'll do a write-up about it. I will also try to get a lot of pictures of the festival itself. I'm looking for an el-cheapo digital camera, and a way to fabricate a simple housing for it, so I can get some good action shots.

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Silence
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Re: Water festival coming up! Need gun!

Post by Silence » Sun Mar 30, 2008 8:55 pm

Wow, I'm pleased to hear you've found all the parts! My only concern would be the price - although we pay the same amounts, you can't really compare prices number-by-number. $30 is worth more in most countries than it is worth in the US, although the dollar is sinking quickly.

So, the store had all the parts needed for the seals? Make sure you get every last piece early, just in case something does not work. :cool:

Good luck!

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