What is a Carbide Cannon? As it turns out, if you take some Calcium Carbide and mix it with water, it produces lime (which settles in the water) and Acetylene gas. Acetylene gas is explosive. I’ll bet you are already thinking of how to make use of that information. Well, we gave our boys a book for Christmas called Backyard Ballistics. You are probably thinking that we are bad parents for teaching our 9 and 11 year old boys stuff like that. Your probably right. The book shows you how to make a cannon that will make a lot of noise as it generates and acetylene gas that you ignite. Here are some pictures of my cannon that I built.
My first attempt did not fire. I think the ignition hole is too big and let the acetylene out too fast. I stuffed a little paper towel in the hole and it worked great.
This is my first successful firing of the carbide cannon: I leaned over it when it went off and nearly took out my eye. Not too smart.
So I did it a second time.
I have since gotten this thing to make a lot more noise. I found that if I stuff a little bit of tissue in the barrel (loosely) so the Acetylene gas won’t leak out and hold my finger over the ignition hole (or use a rocket igniter with tape over the hole) and wait a few seconds until the gas fills the cannon it makes a nice loud bang every time.
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I have the same book and I know it said not to shoot anything out of it but I’ve shot hundreds of things out of the cannon. It’s a blast. Try it some time. Just put a little toilet paper down the barrel before you load the actual object your going to shoot.