Like any red-blooded, masculine man of the male gender, I love PVC weaponry.

You
should too. If the concept of heading on down to the local Home Depot and transforming
$100 worth of random pipe bits into a killing machine doesn’t appeal to you, you’re a
frikkin' pansy. Also, you’re probably sane and will live significantly longer than I will.
Nonetheless you disgust me, and I take comfort in the knowledge that your obituary will
be nowhere near as humorous as mine. For those of you who laugh in the face of
hypersonic shards of plastic puncturing your spleen, here’s an intimate look at how I’ve
kept myself busy for the past week: building a PVC flamethrower.
If you're not interested in the building process, skip to the bottom of the post for the fire.

My flamethrower has two main parts, a gun/hose assembly, and the tank. I made the gun
first:

It’s made entirely of parts you can get at your average hardware store. The hose connects
to a stop valve, which connects to a short pipe nipple that's tapped directly into the tank.
The tank took a while to make, because I let each set of chemical welds dry before doing
the next ones. The ends of the tank are two 90 deg. elbows and two 90 deg. street elbows,
welded to make two full 180 deg. "U"s. One side of the tank is a 2' length of 4" sch.40
PVC, the other is a 4"x4"x1.5" T with standard pipe attached to each 4” socket.

Before assembling the parts, I drilled and threaded the two holes I needed in the tank
ends: a 1/4" standard pipe hole for the outlet to the hose, and a 1/8" standard pipe hole for
the valve that I would use to pressurize the tank. Interesting note: 1/4" and 1/8" pipes
have no actual relation to the measurements of distance commonly known as the quarter
inch and eighth inch. The holes are actually 7/16" and 11/32" respectively. Hooray for
non-metric measurements.
Next step: cement one end of the tank:

Then the other:

After the tank dried, I dredged up an old camping backpack to hold it. I cut a hole in the
bottom of the pack and screwed the gun/hose assembly into the base of the tank.
Finally, I screwed in the Schrader valve (which I bought from www.spudtech.com, an
excellent online retailer for PVC weapons and parts) to complete the tank:
Now the whole rig was ready for some pressure testing. Since I would soon be running
the distinct risk of giving myself heat-assisted, deep tissue exfoliation, I was extra-careful
to make sure there weren't any leaks. I used up a lot of Teflon tape.
And, after filling the tank with water for a trial run, made sure the cleanout cap was on
nice and tight

before flipping on the air compressor.

No leaks! At this point, I had quite possibly the world's most kick-rear end super-soaker.
 Of course, I didn't go through all that effort for a drat squirt
gun. So I added a pilot light in the form of a blow torch.

Much better! The finished product:

There was only one thing left. Add some fuel (denatured alcohol; PVC is soluble in
gasoline) And TURN UP THE HEAT. I accidentally set my camera to long exposure, so
some of the pics look blurry. It worked out well for capturing the flames, though.

My e-mail is AugerPSU@gmail.com if you've got any questions about the device.

my god man i work at a pump factory, i could be builing hundreds of these bastards out
of stainless, aluminum and mild steel.

imagine the pressure you could put into a stainless tank.

how much pressure is the tank under?

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=1107178&perpage=40&pa
genumber=1

quote:

ford prefect came out of the closet to say:

how much pressure is the tank under?
~85 psi

quote:

cytro came out of the closet to say:

thats pretty sweet, write up instructions if you dont mind.
I'll do some tomorrow, It's got a pretty long parts list.

quote:

Orgiewolf came out of the closet to say:

If someone could explain, I'd like to know how the flames are sure not to trace back
into the tank and explode, like your parents always told you would happen
everytime you squirted fire out of something.
Two reasons. one, the stuff is comeing out way, way too fast for the fire to move back up
the stream. Secondly, there's 6 feet of high-pressure hose that's completely filled with
ethanol—and no oxygen to burn it with. So it's fairly safe, unlike an aerosol can.
Arilakon came out of the closet to say:

does that mean that the PVC would like melt or something? i don't really know
these things. i know that styrofoam melts in petrol, is it a similar thing?

Yes it's the same thing. Styrofoam is made of PVC. To make styrofoam just fill a mold
with some little pvc pellets and apply heat. Voila, wonderfully insulating air-pocket-filled
styrofoam.

How did the thought of using something like this for the fourth of July not hit me until
you said it? You must post directions. I work at a hardware store so aquiring parts would
be easy as hell.

And I'd have to get a silver firesuit to wear while using it. For safety/coolness.

Edit : How would I go about procuring said firesuit? Ebay's got nothing, surprisingly.

quote:

MorningSon came out of the closet to say:

RolandTower, at ~85 psi, how long did the tank last?
Not sure. I fired in bursts of half a second to a couple seconds, and got a decent ammount
of milage out of it. I'd guess maybe thirty seconds of continuous burn?

ou should replace the ball valve with a Richards Nozzle - R1290 for Truck, Bus, Marine
& Home Delivery Nozzle rated to 90Gal/Min. The pipe in the R1290 is standard threaded
pipe, so it should be easy to choke the pipe or replace it with a pipe of your own.

http://www.benfordfueling.com/shop/page15.html

Also, enjoy your visit from the BATF.

SachielDVangel came out of the closet to say:

I bet many of the people begging instructions would take 'short-cuts.' I'd say, if you
can't make one with the chemistry/engineering knowledge that you have, you don't
need to be making one.

To the poster, wow, awesome loving job. I'd love to see it, but I don't think I'd have
the balls to strap a tank with flammable liquid under 2.5 times the pressure of a
car's tire on my back while holding the pilot light in my hands.
I could've sworn I inflate my tires to around 200 psi... and I think he said in his post his
tank was only at 85. Oh well.

It's things like this that make me think the goons would be America's finest line of
defense in any kind of struggle against the Red Menace(c). What can't we do with
pressurized air?

Nice work, man. That'say cleaner than the stuff I came up with a few years ago. I had a
fairly jizbomb shoulder-launched rocket but never got around to figuring out a safe
detonation fuse for the explosive version.

Anayway, you can get a LOT more distance with your thrower. The reason military
throwers use napalm is that 1) it sticks to poo poo and start fires. 2) it is slow to vaporize
and thus maintains it's mass longer and travels farther.

If you duplicate that rig with steel and mix gasoline with mothballs, styrofoam or pure
ivory soap chips until it's like runny jelly you can throw it 50 feet or more with the same
pressure.

You'll need a bigger outlet oriffice and a level indicator plus flame arrestor to prevent
backflashing if the level gets low, however, the lack oxygen in the tank makes it pretty
hard to blow yourself up **IF THERE ARE NO PRESSURE LEAKS**

Can't wait to see version 2.0

Haven't read every single post, so don't know if any of this has been mentioned or not,
but there's a couple of things that you might want to take note of.

First things first, you might want to put a spring loaded one-way valve (the type that
contains a ballbearing) in the line to the gun. The reason for this is as follows - the gun
will work fine while you have 85lb pressure on the mixture inside - as you said, the
alcohol will be coming out at too high a pressure for the heat to get back up the line and
into the tank. But what happens as you keep squirting? The pressure drops inside the
tank, and if the original jet is strong enough, it will drop to below atmospheric pressure
briefly. Nature unfortunately, likes balance, so what happens immediately afterwards is
that the tank sucks in flame and air into a closed vessel already full of vapourised alcohol
(as pressure drops inside the tank, the alcohol will form a gas). Don't know about you, but
I wouldn't want to be wearing that thing on my back at the time. A one way valve will
help alleviate this, because once the pressure drops below a certain level, it won't be
strong enough to keep the valve open. There are heat activated valves available for use in
oil burner lines, but I doubt if they would react quickly enough.

Second - the tank - waaaaaay too complex, and way too many joints. Sure it looks the
part, but the more joints you have, the more possible points of failure. And while PVC
might dissolve in petrol (gasoline for the americans out there), PVC bonding compound
doesn't like anything, including alcohol, because it breaks down the molecular bond.
Alcohol and petroleum based liquids also seep through PTFE or teflon tape after a few
weeks of exposure, which is why you can't use it in oil lines. And, if for no other reason
that all those pipe fittings cost a packet. For less money, you could have bought one of
those cheap backpack weedkiller sprayers - voila - one tank that is designed to be
pressurised, with a sealed filler cap.

Finally, if you want to make the compound "sticky" (although I don't recommend it), mix
in some styrofoam packing beads with the alcohol or gasoline that you are using..... make
sure it isn't too thick to come out the nozzle though!

Wow, impressive.

This point has been made already, but ethanol is BAD for chemical welds. And in
addition to the ball valve and the CO2 pressurization I'd add a safety valve before the
tubing so you had to have both hands squeezing to hold the valves open.

quote:

WhiskeyJuvenile came out of the closet to say:

How do you prevent the flame from travelling back up the gun?

quote:

RolandTower came out of the closet to say:

Two reasons. one, the stuff is comeing out way, way too fast for the fire to move back
up the stream. Secondly, there's 6 feet of high-pressure hose that's completely filled
with ethanol—and no oxygen to burn it with. So it's fairly safe, unlike an aerosol
can.

On page 2.

quote:

rlp1 came out of the closet to say:

It's already been answered. The alcohol is travelling too fast, and there is no oxygen
inside the gun, so there is no fuel to ignite the alcohol still inside.

I don't think this assessment is accurate: he's compressing the alcohol WITH air. The air
compressor pumps in regular old air right into the tank, which does mix whatever fuel
he's using with the 30% or so O2 that's naturally in the air. To play it safe, he should be
compressing it with a more inert gas (pure N2, or CO2, though those may keep the fuel
from igniting as well as it mixes with outside air) or use a flammable gas, like propane or
butane (will make things burn even better, but more "boom!" risk involved).

More accuratly there is no oxygen in the nozzle, the only time he would have to watch
out is if he ran out of fuel and was blowing mist out of the end of the gun.

To address a few issues:

rear end soon as the thing begins sputtering/ shooting mist, I shut the pilot light off. I
usually have one gallon of ethanol and about 5 gallons of air in the tank, so pressure
remains high throughout. I will definitely look for a blowback valve, though.

Also, to those who mentioned the interaction between ethanol and chemical welds: are
you sure? I always understood that PVC cement was just a PVC solvent with PVC
dissolved in it, and that, after drying, it left a single chunk of PVC. If not, I may need to
re-think my using of this thing. I do wash it out with a load of water after every
flamethrowering session though (two so far).

quote:

Dethlord came out of the closet to say:

No offense (seriously), but you look like a huge nerd. Which only makes these
pictures 1000x more loving awesome. Great work.

well, I was trying to imitate in that picture. But yes, I'm a fairly large nerd. I swim
competitively though, so I do my best to keep it under control.

quote:

Gromit came out of the closet to say:

Sorry if I missed it being already mentioned, but what does that thing sound like in
action?
foooshhhhhpshhhFOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSHHHHHHHshhhhpfoooshhhh

quote:

Inspector Hound came out of the closet to say:

How much does it weigh?

This is a retarded question, but you are leaning back in the one picture, does it have
a kick to it?

How long does the fuel burn once it hits the ground?
I'd guess 40 or so pounds all together, fully loaded.
No kick, just a reflexive action to having a fireball in front of me.
most neve hits the ground. the stuff that does burns for a couple seconds.

Also, I have instructions written up. But I'm definitely concerned about the risk of this
leading to death/destruction, especially after people who seem like they know more than
me have indicated that I'm about to kill myself. So: maybe I should just post the
instructions for a water gun? after that, It's not to much of a stretch to figure it out.

And, I'll try to get pictures of me burning things later. I'd do movies, but I have no real
movie editing software, and no hosts

quote:

Rrail came out of the closet to say:

Construction starts on ours tonight. Lets see how high of a compression this thing
can hold. Maybe we can get one to shoot 50+ feet.

Time for a disclaimer: don't do stupid things with this. The pipe is rated to 220 psi, the
joints are 180, I believe. Do not exceed this rating.

If you do decide to make a flamethrower, don't use it near anything flammable. don't fire
it towards anyone you can see. Don't fire bursts more than 2 or 3 seconds. Wear heavy,
long clothing, leather gloves, and safety goggles. have someone with a fire extinguisher
nearby. Generally be really, really careful.

Upgrade; Now with less chance of goonsplosion©!

Due to the incessant nagging of the sane people in the thread, I bought a one-way, spring-
loaded valve for the line to reduce the risk posed by any angsty, emo fire that—feeling
spurned by the common fire shooting out onto the lawn—tries to go hide by itself in the
tank. I'm also using the heavier yellow gas-line tape for pipe joints, and if any leaking
starts to occur, I'll redo the rest of the joints with it.

Buying the valve was an interesting experience. I wasn't sure where Home Depot kept the
one-way valves, so I asked an employee in plumbing. The guy's maybe 60, balding, fairly
large and egg-shaped.

RolandTower: Excuse me, do you know where I could find a one-way pipe valve? Like
the kind a gas stove might have to prevent blowback?
Guy: Hmmmm, I'm not sure exactly what you want. What do you need it for?
RolandTower:Ermmmm, I'm um....
Guy:What do you need the valve for?
RolandTower:Ikindofbuiltthisdevicethatusesalcoholtofireflames like,tenfeetorso.
<pause>
Guy:Oh! So you built sort of a flamethrower?
RolandTower:yes...
Guy:And so you need the one way valve...
RolandTower:So that when I near the end of a tank, I don't run the risk of the vapors
igniting in the tank.
Guy:Of course! Here, you need one of these, and these fittings.
RolandTower: Ummm, thanks.

All I want to know is: how many other guys in my area must've built these? The dude's
reaction boiled down to "oh, another flamethrower? Aisle five." God, there must be a lot
of nuts out there.

Here's the valve with all the fittings attached that will let me stick it in-line with the hose.

After running a pressure test with water, it seems that the valve works well. It doesn't
restrict the flow, the assembly doesn't leak, and it makes a satisfying "sshhhkt!" noise
whenever I close the ball valve.

So, for anyone who's building one of these, be sure to include a 3/4" Hose thread,
125psi Vacuum Breaker somewhere along the line. Ask the guy at your hardware store,
and he'll show you the fittings you need to convert the hose threads to pipe threads. Also,
realize that you are still running the risk of blowing up and dying, so don't please don't
sue me if you do.
Holy poo poo, I built pretty much the exact same thing over Christmas break, right down
to the shaping of the back. We've used jellied gasoline to good effect in the test runs, it's
definitely worth a shot - it will stick to things and keep on burning. The only thing I can
really add for flamethrower hopefuls is to really do a good job sealing every crack - you
can do a DIY pressure testing by pumping it up with the air compressor and submerging
it in a bathtub full of water. Any bubbles and it's a good sign that you'll detonate upon
test.

p0stal b0b came out of the closet to say:

Yeah, that was me.

Methylated Spirits, or meths for short, is basically like camp stove gas, or lantern
fuel, it's non-corrosive to plastics, but still quite flammable. It's alcahol-based, &
they put some nasty purple stuff in it, so people don't drink it to get pissed cheaply.

Sounds like methylated spirits are a methanol/ethanol mixture. American retailers sell it
as denatured alcohol. I got mine at a Sherwin Williams outlet (it's supposed to be used as
a shellac remover). West Marine also sells it as camping stove fuel. It's pure grain
alcohol, but with some wood alcohol added so that it doesn't get taxed as booze. The
wood alcohol makes it so that anyone who were to drink it would go blind, and quite
possibly die.

Also, I want your gas mask. All I have is a paint fume respirator, which really has
nowhere near the same effect.

Oh, and I keep forgetting to say this: Thank you to whomever bought me the new title.

it's from another thread, i didn't make it.

there's a lot of other plastics the tank can be made from that are gasoline-safe.
i think what might be ideal is an un-pressurized 1-gallon gas tank and a bottle of co2
in that backpack.

The problem with CO2 is that it can be upwards of 1000psi coming from a regular tank. I
made a cannon a few years ago which could use any standard size paintball type CO2
tank and held the CO2 charge between two ball valves in black iron pipe. Unless you
have a way to highly regulate the psi as you are pressurizing the tank you run a very high
risk of extremely exceding the limits that PVC can take.

A bit more info on the CO2 powered cannon if you care to keep reading- The barrel is
2'long, made from 2" diameter PVC. The chamber for it is 1" black iron, except where the
attachment point for the CO2 is. It works fairly well, and can launch a properly sized
water balloon about 200 yards, and I have just recently shot a 1.5 lb CO2 tank from it a
good 50-60 yards. If I can find my digital camera kicking around I'll take some pics.

quote:

skn came out of the closet to say:

awwww, must we fight with my e-wife? anyway, loving awesome man, loving
awesome. care to give us a rough estimate of how much all the materials to build the
tank and gun cost you? not the compressor, pilot fuel, screwdriver and poo poo, just
all the PVC, hose, bushings, teflon, cement and so forth, im curious as to how much
it would cost me to build one for myself.

Depends where you go. PVC is cheap, and if you hang around construction sites you
might be able to get some for free just by asking. They ALWAYS have left over, although
it might be under-spec or just low quality. The brass is pretty cheap as well. Ranging
anywhere from 50 cents to a dollar or two depending on what kind of part your buying.
Hose is like 10 to 20 cents a foot, again, depending on the type of hose. Cement/primer is
like 3-4 dollars a can, and will last you the rest of your life. Teflon tape is cheap as well.

The real killer would be buying any tools you don't have. If you're like me and work at a
place that has tons of tools and spare parts you can build the thing for nothing and with
little difficulty. Having the power saw, press drills and giant shop air compressor was
great.

quote:

Biter came out of the closet to say:

We put some denatured in a supersoaker, pumped it up, and then shot the stream
threw a blowtorch... to no avail. seems that the stream needs to be a mist. Original
Poster, how did you get around this problem? I am going to try gluing some screen
over the nozzle to break up the stream, but im' wondering if you had this same prob.
I was worried about this, but it didn't come up. The ethanol pretty much comes out in a
stream; at high pressure, it's not as cohesive, but as the pressure drops the stream
becomes more solid. It lit up just fine, though. The stream passed through the inner cone
of the flame from the torch, so the positioning was pretty much perfect.

As for price, all the pipe, cement, primer, sealing tape, and fittings cost me $98.19. The
safety valve and fittings cost about $15. The pipe tap and oddly-sized drill bits cost $14.

quote:
Orgiewolf came out of the closet to say:
If someone could explain, I'd like to know how the flames are sure not to trace back
into the tank and explode, like your parents always told you would happen
everytime you squirted fire out of something.
I don't know if this has been answered, and I don't really have the time to read the whole
thread right now, so forgive me if this is redundant.
The solvent he's using, along with most other common accelerants does not contain any
available oxygen. Thus, in order to burn, it must first be mixed with an oxidizer - in this
case, air. Because the feul is being pushed out of the contraption under pressure, there is
no way for air/fire to pass back through the hose and ignite the pressurized air and fuel in
the tank (the same reason your Bic lighter doesn't just blow up in your hand. Even if this
were to happen, the tank would have to be nearly empty and under a good deal of
pressure, else the available oxygen in the tank would be consumed without any dramatic
results.
[/nerd]

Kickass toy. I tried making one allmost identical to this back in highschool. Unfortunatly
I used a prefabricated metal tank which ended up being too small to sustain any real
pressure and I never got arround to building a bigger one. Nice to see how well it might
have worked.

I've fired mine about 10 times now (three cheers for having relatives in the construction
industry. Tons of left over and surplus chemicals just waiting to be used.), and it's starting
to show some wear and tear. The threads are starting to peel (I do 5 presure tests with
water, and a bathtub dunk to make sure it's still "safe" before each "hot" run), and I'm
fixing an almost microscopic hairline crack right now. It also turns out the varnish
remover stuff I first used, dissolves PVC very, very slowly. On my test piece it is just
starting to slowly eat it away, and the test started about ~36 hours ago. So after one last
run for glory tonight, I'm going to have to retire the tank, possibly with a sledge hammer
to ensure no one else picks it up and ends up hurting themselves.

Then I'll build mark 2. With improved materials, and more safety stuff.

I'm fully behind the coolness factor of this.

Please note; Captain Safety would like to say a few words:

I would jusy like to add a couple of concerns, please use inert gas to presurise your
weapons of firey destruction. If you run the tank dry whilst the flame is burning there is a
very good chance of back fire. Remember if you are a cool nerd (Which I totaly condone)
you dont want to be a horribly disfigured jaded nerd.

Alot of hardware store parts you are using are at the limit of what they are designed for. I
wouldn't recomend using your flame thrower again in a couple of months or longer - the
solvents used plus your PVC cement will deteriorate. Just one leak and that 25ft of firey
goodness will shoot out the back of you.
Take note of what people have said about the nozel tap - the o rings in that will not
handle heat and solvent too well.

If you seriously want to use something like this for fun over a period longer than a few
months. Make it out of stanless steel - like the stainless tank on this page above. Use a
pressure gauge, a better control nozel, pressure blow off valve (like on acetelene tanks),
test everything 30psi higher than what you would use it at and a one-way valve. Also
research your tapping specs and go for interference fits.

Captain Safety, out -:

I have made alot of these type of things before

If it came down to goons vs. the world I could whip up truck body with an on-board
compressor and a mannable turret. If only Mad-Max were real

One ditty I made when I was young and stupid was a fire ball bomb. Crush up sparklers
and wrap them up in a tissue paper package. Wrap that to butane refilling canister, with
al-foil, stick a sparkler into the tissue package, light it and get the gently caress away. I
should have had a camera when I did it

looking forward to seeing a flame thrower vs. a side of cattle on a hook