Pomme Delight

We've yet to produce any serious ballistics calculations - suffice to say this is a CONSIDERABLE improvement on Spud 1. Projectiles of choice today were apples, very seasonal, home grown, environmentally sound and in plentiful supply. Still using the John Freida hairspray for fuel as it has consistently come top in all our performance tests - reliability is a key issue here. In the Spud 2 the ignition is provided by a Bosch Super4 R6-771 spark plug from the Merc, excited by the good old piezo unit from a gas boiler.
Bore is up to 2.25 inches, the muzzle length 5'6" and the combustion chamber is 3' of 4" land drain c/w fittings. The pic of the two weapons leaning on the back of the truck clearly demonstrates the increase in size. Obviously report is up massively and we've had to cut short trials to avoid trouble in Diploville. We need to find a reliable method of measuring the velocity - at the moment, in a steep launch, the projectile is out of site in a fraction of a second and I reckon we're dropping rounds at about 600yds. We haven't been able to conduct horizontal tests as this afternoon's session was cut short, but I reckon we'll be getting a minimum of 100 yards flat trajectory. I can't emphasise enough how good this is. MORE BANG !

Smashed Potato

I'm quite pleased with this pic - whilst it has a naive, snap-shot quality about it, the clever bit is the way the peaceful domestic scene outside the back door at Diplo Hall belies the devastation and and destructive forces about to be un-leashed at 07.00 hrs, May Bank Holiday. This was not to be a "test" firing so we can't really plead ignorance, experience has taught us that a flat trajectory of 70 metres using a 2 ounce round is quite achievable, early indications are giving an MV of around 750 to 800 fps. Ballistics at this scale does involve a certain amount of trial and error, for instance the calibre of 1.5" was arrived at by seeing what stock pipe we had in the 'shop. A variety of fuels have been employed to date but we have settled on the very expensive Sheer Blonde from the John Frieda Collection - quite what this stuff does to your hair doesn't bare thinking about. The detonator (or ignition system) is a modified pezo type spark generator from an old gas boiler delivering a finely tuned spark via two self tapping screws inserted into opposite sides of the combustion chamber. Any how - must be off to order some new fence panels and weird extruded aluminium greenhouse parts for the neighbours and pen a few well chosen words by way of an application to get my status downgraded from "irresponsible" to "eccentric". MORE KINETIC ENERGY (again)