Potato Guns n Roses
Posted 12-22-2013 at 10:07 PM by grumptacular
In November of 96 I was working at a restaurant as a kitchen manager. One evening, one of the other employees brought in a potato gun. For those of you unfamiliar with this contraption, I will explain.
A potato gun typically consists of two pieces of PVC piping, a funnel piece, a cap, an ignition switch from a bar b que, and a screw. One piece of PVC pipe, the chamber, is about a foot long, and 4 to 6 inches in diameter. On one end is a cap that can be screwed on and off, the other end is connected to a funnel piece, which is then connected to the other PVC pipe, the barrel, that would be 3 to 4 feet long and 2 or 3 inches wide. On the chamber, you cut a hole just big enough to screw in the ignition piece and glue it down making sure there is a tight seal on it. Opposite from the ignition, you screw in the screw. When you depress the ignition switch, an arc of electricity will strike the screw.
To load the gun, you take a potato and jam it down the barrel. You remove the cap from the chamber and spray hair spray into it. Replace the cap. Aim, and by depressing the ignition switch, it lights the hair spray, propelling the potato through the barrel to a target.
With the potato gun we had, it was on the larger side of your normal potato gun. We would launch potato's over a grove of trees and bombard the employees of a near by pizza shop as they would go back and forth from their vehicles. We did this for several nights and would just be rolling on the ground laughing at the reactions.
One evening, the gun quit firing. Apparently the screw started to get a layer of corrosion on it, so I removed the screw and cleaned it off with a metal brush, and then replaced it. Loaded the gun, and it wouldn't fire again. I assumed that we didn't have the screw in straight or something. So I removed the cap and let it sit while I went back to the kitchen to work a bit. After a while, I came back out and holding the chamber end about a foot from me, I looked into it, while I depressed the ignition several times. Nothing happened, but I had to much outside light so I still couldn't see if I actually had a spark, so I slowly started moving my face closer to the end of it. Kept hitting the switch over and over, moving my face closer and closer. Finally, as I pretty much had my face touching the tube now, cutting off the excess oxygen, I hit the switch.
For those of you who have seen the movie Backdraft, there is a scene where a spark hits a gas line and in slow motion, fire starts and then expands. That is pretty much what I saw when I hit the switch this last time. I saw the spark, and in slow motion, the hair spray lit, expanded, and came blowing out of the chamber. In that split second, I was able to move my head just enough to not take a direct hit in the eyeball, however, it got me!! There was a huge BOOM! as the flaming gas rushed out of the chamber and it scared the crap out of me!!!
I dropped the gun, and I ran back into the kitchen, right into two servers who were rushing to see what the noise was. The one I made eye contact with looked horrified, and the other one slapped me in the head. My hair was on fire. We stood there just for a second, and then just busted out laughing. I had singed off part of my goatee, most of my eyebrow and eyelashes, and a good portion of the hair at my temple area was all burnt up. I also had a nice, bright, red ring where the flash had seared the moisture from my skin. I wasn't burned, or hurt, just seared.
That night I went home and woke up my fiancee. I told her there was an accident at work HAHAHA and had to explain what happened. She was so ticked at me. Our wedding was in six days! HAHAHA Fortunately, I got myself a close haircut, shaved the goatee, and most of the redness had disappeared at the point of our wedding day. Our photographer came up with the ingenious idea of doing all the photos in black and white, and in the end, you couldn't even tell. HAHAHA Made for a hell of a story for our guests though.
For the record: Potato guns are dangerous! They are not toys!, and I no longer condone firing them at innocent pizza deliverers.
A potato gun typically consists of two pieces of PVC piping, a funnel piece, a cap, an ignition switch from a bar b que, and a screw. One piece of PVC pipe, the chamber, is about a foot long, and 4 to 6 inches in diameter. On one end is a cap that can be screwed on and off, the other end is connected to a funnel piece, which is then connected to the other PVC pipe, the barrel, that would be 3 to 4 feet long and 2 or 3 inches wide. On the chamber, you cut a hole just big enough to screw in the ignition piece and glue it down making sure there is a tight seal on it. Opposite from the ignition, you screw in the screw. When you depress the ignition switch, an arc of electricity will strike the screw.
To load the gun, you take a potato and jam it down the barrel. You remove the cap from the chamber and spray hair spray into it. Replace the cap. Aim, and by depressing the ignition switch, it lights the hair spray, propelling the potato through the barrel to a target.
With the potato gun we had, it was on the larger side of your normal potato gun. We would launch potato's over a grove of trees and bombard the employees of a near by pizza shop as they would go back and forth from their vehicles. We did this for several nights and would just be rolling on the ground laughing at the reactions.
One evening, the gun quit firing. Apparently the screw started to get a layer of corrosion on it, so I removed the screw and cleaned it off with a metal brush, and then replaced it. Loaded the gun, and it wouldn't fire again. I assumed that we didn't have the screw in straight or something. So I removed the cap and let it sit while I went back to the kitchen to work a bit. After a while, I came back out and holding the chamber end about a foot from me, I looked into it, while I depressed the ignition several times. Nothing happened, but I had to much outside light so I still couldn't see if I actually had a spark, so I slowly started moving my face closer to the end of it. Kept hitting the switch over and over, moving my face closer and closer. Finally, as I pretty much had my face touching the tube now, cutting off the excess oxygen, I hit the switch.
For those of you who have seen the movie Backdraft, there is a scene where a spark hits a gas line and in slow motion, fire starts and then expands. That is pretty much what I saw when I hit the switch this last time. I saw the spark, and in slow motion, the hair spray lit, expanded, and came blowing out of the chamber. In that split second, I was able to move my head just enough to not take a direct hit in the eyeball, however, it got me!! There was a huge BOOM! as the flaming gas rushed out of the chamber and it scared the crap out of me!!!
I dropped the gun, and I ran back into the kitchen, right into two servers who were rushing to see what the noise was. The one I made eye contact with looked horrified, and the other one slapped me in the head. My hair was on fire. We stood there just for a second, and then just busted out laughing. I had singed off part of my goatee, most of my eyebrow and eyelashes, and a good portion of the hair at my temple area was all burnt up. I also had a nice, bright, red ring where the flash had seared the moisture from my skin. I wasn't burned, or hurt, just seared.
That night I went home and woke up my fiancee. I told her there was an accident at work HAHAHA and had to explain what happened. She was so ticked at me. Our wedding was in six days! HAHAHA Fortunately, I got myself a close haircut, shaved the goatee, and most of the redness had disappeared at the point of our wedding day. Our photographer came up with the ingenious idea of doing all the photos in black and white, and in the end, you couldn't even tell. HAHAHA Made for a hell of a story for our guests though.
For the record: Potato guns are dangerous! They are not toys!, and I no longer condone firing them at innocent pizza deliverers.
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