pics of the stuffer thus far

[t-bone tim]

Well folks , my father in-law had an old fire extingisher in his garage and was calling it garbage

..well I took a look see and low and behold it was made of stainless....he was thinkin garbage...I was thinkin stuffer

,so home with me it came !

Next I needed to come up with something for a piston and tube ...I found a couple food grade plastic cuttin boards and thought I could make a piston with them ....and a trip to the plumbing shop yielded a makeshift tube for now till I come up with a stainless one

last night I played a bit in the garage ,cut the tube and the cut outs for the piston and shaped the piston for a nice tight fit,and started cutting the metal to frame it all up with ...a long way to go yet ,here's a few pics thus far

 

[t-bone tim]

more pics...some of the seals I made also

 

[cajun_1]

One mans junk is another mans treasure ....keep us posted.

 

[walking dude]

WOW dude..........all i can say........GREAT engineering..........

dude

 

[deejaydebi]

Hey great idea a fire extingisher! Great find! I use the cutting boards alot to make pistons for cheese presses. Job Lot has them for $1 alot! They make very staticy ichy sawdust that won't get off you! If you get the thin cutting boards just put bolt two together and round over the edges - it holds the o-ring in place real nice and you won't have to cut a pocket in.

You go boy!

 

[t-bone tim]

Debi ,that is exactly what I used ...except for a seal of sorts ,I cut out ( in the 2nd set of pics ) a round piece of plastic cutting sheets to be used as a gasket between the 2 pieces of the piston.The plastic is flexible and just a tad bigger than the piston so it should seal up nicely in the cylinder,we'll see .

 

[deejaydebi]

Kind of a wiper eh? Mine has a big o-ring around it. Let us know how the cutting sheet works. Might be tough enough to hold the air out. I think McMaster Carr has the big O-rings - just in case.

 

[richoso1]

They say that necessity is the mother of creation.

 

[navionjim]

Just curious Tim what are you thinking of for the ram? I have been wondering about using a double piston and air pressure of my compressor instead of a screw arrangement.
Jimbo

 

[geek with fire]

Of course, with me being a geek and working for a compressor manufacturer, I'm wondering if you couldn't just make a sealable tank (filled with your stuffing) out of your extinguisher, that you could just pressurize with a small compressor and control the amount of stuffing output with a regulator/valve. Of course if you aren't careful, depending on what you're stuffin', you could blow it to smithereens….which in and of itself would be fun to ;->

 

[richtee]

Hmm...gots me thinking...how 'bout a Q-Launcher? Kinda like the teeshirts at concerts, etc...

geez..I'm REALLY twisted, ain't I?

 

[mossymo]

T-bone Tim
I am very impressed so far with your stuffer plan. Do you have plans of making an air releif valve in the plunger? If needed I will take mine aprt and take pictures of it if you are unfamiliar with the valve, it would be fairly simple to make.

I am sure everyone is familiar with hair spray powered potato guns, well my wife's uncle went a little further than that. He took a grain auger and powered it with propane and made a pumpkin cannon !!!

 

[t-bone tim]

Jim,I am going to be using a screw type arrangement which is best for what I have to work with ....I don't have a way to make a perfect piston n seal which would be needed for an air pressure set up...but that sounds very cool and with some playin should work well ...I've seen water powered and hydraulic so why not air ...you gonna build one ?

 

[t-bone tim]

Mossy ,I'm gonna get it together first an try it ( the seal I am trying ) may let the air escape ,and hopefully not too much sausage ...if needed I may call on ya and take up your offer ,thanks Tim.

 

[navionjim]

Sounds good anyway, I have an old enterprise I'm trying to get cleaned up enough to use, I had a grizzly too but I stripped the gears! Admittedly I was using it to press something else, but jeez those damn things were plastic! That just ain't right. I saw where some guy was build stuffers out of PVC and powering them off the household water pressure, now that looked like a pretty good idea too.

 

[navionjim]

WOW TOO COOL! I've built many spud guns and I've seen the Punkin Chuckin on TV, it must be a blast to see that for real!
Jimbo

 

[goat]

I took a heavy duty potato gun and powered it with acetylene and a little oxygen and created a bomb.