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Potato cannon carriage #1: Frame/axle and elevating arcs
Recently, I thought I would try to get my nephew, 9, away from his video games, so I proposed that we build a potato cannon together. Grandpa was not very keen on the idea of us firing it handheld, so...
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Potato cannon carriage #2: Frame and elevating arc assembly and trunnion...
This weekend consisted mainly of painting, painting, painting, some more painting, and after that, some painting. I’m using canned spray paint from the big box store, and the wood just soaks it up. It...
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Potato cannon carriage #3: Trail, ramrod and major assembly
We made a lot of progress today. Most of the painting is done, so we could concentrate on assembly. Here’s the lower trunnion assembly with the hanger studs and knobs complete. The potato projectiles...
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Potato cannon carriage #4: Ignition
Ignition is via a 100,000 volt stun gun connected to the electrodes. The stun gun has a sliding on/off switch on the left side, and a momentary contact rocker switch on the right. I carefully pried the...
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Potato cannon carriage #5: Forward armor
First, I didn’t like the way the ramrod just stuck out of its tube, as shown in part 3, so I made a longer one that fits the rod completely. I put a small eye screw with a keyring in the end of the rod...
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Potato cannon carriage #6: Some tweaks and the test firing
I made a few little improvements this week while I’m finishing the forward armor. I redesigned the forward ramrod tube bracket. It’s as minimal as I could get it – a 3/4” piece of poplar, cut to fit...
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Shop projects #1: I have 468. Do I hear 469?
Today I drilled and installed the top of my downdraft/outfeed table. It’s the top from a “ready to assemble” computer desk/conference table. I wound up with a 39×12 grid of holes. If you do the math,...
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Potato cannon carriage #7: Artwork and final assembly
It’s been a while, but it’s worth the wait. I asked a friend of mine, who’s a talented sketch artist, to draw up some artwork reminiscent of World War II bombers. I asked for something in the style of...
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Building a simple cigar box guitar #1: Fitting and shaping the neck
In this series, I’ll be building a simple cigar box guitar. You can see just how simple by comparing it to a proper instrument – Randall Price’s tenor guitar, for example. It’s a “through neck” design,...
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Building a simple cigar box guitar #2: Recovery and more neck shaping
This part is mostly catch-up. I ruined my first neck, rounding over one of the front edges instead of the back. I made up another, this time out of maple. It looks very similar, with the same design...
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Building a simple cigar box guitar #3: Major assembly
I hit my stride today, and knocked out quite a bit of work on this. I had an inspiration on the roundovers on the back of the neck. At the end of the previous installment, I had only run them with the...
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