How to Shoot an Anvil 200 Feet in the Air

[Churchill]

Brilliant

I was obsessed with those French firecrackers when I was younger, and would proceed to blow stuff up around the garden, much to my parent's annoyance.

Old "Three Fingers" used to do that at school. Of course he wasn't called "Three Fingers" back then. He got arrested eventually.

[MrRobin]

Brilliant

I was obsessed with those French firecrackers when I was younger, and would proceed to blow stuff up around the garden, much to my parent's annoyance.

[Churchill]

The bit that has been going round in my head, is where he uses a piece of iron to level off the black powder. So he's scraping a piece of cast iron over cast iron with gunpowder not just present, but between them.
One day he's going to get a little surprise when he - very briefly - discovers why non-sparking brass would have been a better choice.

It's a piece of wood.

Use your eyes.

[NotAllThere]

I think I'll just nip off to the anvil and firework shop.

[TimberWolf]

One day he's going to get a little surprise when he - very briefly - discovers why non-sparking brass would have been a better choice.

Worse was the video of them playing with the 100's of years old 3 barrelled blunderbuss. I did wonder how they managed to reach such a ripe old age with the messing about they were doing with such antiquated equipment and the lack of concern about where it was pointed.

Re the anvil, I was impressed with how straight the flight path was, presumably aided by carefully levelling the bottom anvil and packing and flattening of the black powder in the recess they made in it.

A calculation, involving a lot of guesswork on the properties of the materials and dimensions, shows the anvil could reach 50 metres in height, but there is a lot of fiddle factor available. Basically though it appears quite an efficient launcher by the look of it:

Assuming receptacle dimensions = 2cm *3cm*10cm = 60m^3
Density of 'black powder' = 0.1g/cm^3, ∴ mass = 6/1000 kg
Energy density of 'black powder': 4*10^6 J/kg
Energy content in receptacle = 24,000J
50kg anvil
∴ 24,000 = mgh = 50*10*h, ∴h = 48 metres

[RichardCranium]

You know you want to

[ mad anvil man ]

It's pretty damn impressive what just a small amount of gunpowder can do. No wonder cannons work.

I wonder if this chap's games evolved from one my big bruvva taught me when I was ickle. Scrape the red stuff off a couple of Swan Vesta matches, put it between two florins and stamp on it.

I decided a more interesting experiment would require the heads of an entire box of matches. When scraping them off using a steel modelling knife into a small plastic box on my lap, I managed to ignite one of the matches and it set the entire box off. I managed to throw it off me and it burnt a hole through my mattress.

I'm lucky I didn't lose my baby-maker. Or possibly the house and my entire family.


The bit that has been going round in my head, is where he uses a piece of iron to level off the black powder. So he's scraping a piece of cast iron over cast iron with gunpowder not just present, but between them.

One day he's going to get a little surprise when he - very briefly - discovers why non-sparking brass would have been a better choice.

[MarillionFan]

Good videos RC. Worthy of a +ve rep. Unfortunately I cannot +rep you with my login or any of my other sockies until the -ve's run out.

Sorry.

[RichardCranium]

Tesla Coil Car Thief Protection

[MarillionFan]

Remember. No prevention of terrorism act in the US. Do that in a field in Kent and you'll get your brains blown out quicker than you can shout 'Hey I'm Brazilian!'

[RichardCranium]

How about the Vortex Cannon?

[RichardCranium]

Oh dear. I can see I'm going to spend a sleepless night in front of YouTube now.

Just like I did when I saw the trebuchet videos.

And the Tesla coil videos.

And the high voltage v Furby videos.

[NickFitz]

You know you want to