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Im pulling my hair out and hope SOMEONE on here has experience with these cannons. I built a hairspray cannon last year and it worked friggin flawlessly! This year I pull it out and clean it up for another season of shooting whatever I can stuff down the barrel and its being a finicky jerk! Ill get it to shoot 2-4 times in a row and then it just laughs at me. I used hairspray last year and initially tried starter fluid this time around. Ive then switched back and forth between the two trying to figure it out. Any ideas Im not thinking of?

Are we talking a simple contraption? Water jug with a long tube stuck on it, flap cut in the side to spray your body spray into?
Our problems came from over doing the spray and not airing out after each shot. It would fire once or twice and then nothing. After a few evolutions we had a vacuum attachment hooked on the side to suck some much needed oxygen in. Worked a treat after that.

Its simple but not that simple. All pvc, larger tube as a chamer and a smaller one as a barrel. Screw on cap at the back and a grill igniter as the boom button.


Hmm what you said might be my issue. That would explain why it works a couple times then just wont. What are you using as a fuel? Id like to use starting fluid as Ive heard its a better boom but mostly because hairspray leaves everything incredibly sticky

Checked the lighter working correctly?

Nothing like resadue sticking up the ignition system?
Sometimes I can come down to somthibf key but minor in any mechanical system.

Just plain body spray like Lynx ( Axe). But then we make cannons out of whatever we can find in the field, so they aren't exactly devastating (plus they took all our MEK off us - that gak was dynamite. You could launch a fire extinguisher over a building with a small amount of that).

edit: of course if you don't mind risking losing your eyebrows, small pets, maybe a spare limb or two, you could always grab hold of some MEK (methyl ethyl ketone - butanone) and use that.

 jhe90 wrote:
Checked the lighter working correctly?

Nothing like resadue sticking up the ignition system?
Sometimes I can come down to somthibf key but minor in any mechanical system.

Yea Im getting plenty good spark so Im pretty sure its not the ignition part of it.

I think Im going to let it dry out over night and see what happens. The hairspray does leave water residue after use so maybe thats messing with everything. If not that maybe Ill buy a can of butane and set up a nipple or something for the cannon. I dunno though because I dont want to over complicate things

 KingCracker wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:
Checked the lighter working correctly?

Nothing like resadue sticking up the ignition system?
Sometimes I can come down to somthibf key but minor in any mechanical system.

Yea Im getting plenty good spark so Im pretty sure its not the ignition part of it.

I think Im going to let it dry out over night and see what happens. The hairspray does leave water residue after use so maybe thats messing with everything. If not that maybe Ill buy a can of butane and set up a nipple or something for the cannon. I dunno though because I dont want to over complicate things

Well if I remember my old diagram.
Its a triangle of heat /source of ignition. Fuel and oxeygen. Excuse me, I'm just trying to break logically.

Given heat is fine.
Also maybe check your getting ernough oxeygen in there. Simple ernough I guess to reduce down thr things it is. One by one youl find the answer.
Water does sound like it could be a issue, its gonna not help you trying to burn somthibf.

I guess good old fashioned tinkering iit is!

Ok Im fairly certain I figured it out. After a night of drying out I tried again. Im used to how much hairspray I had to spray in the chamber and seeing as I switched to starting fluid the mix is very different. I was basically flooding the chamber with the fuel, Id have to wait upto 5 minutes at a time before itd even want to fire. So far less fuel so far is giving better results though its still pretty finicky at times