Halloween 7/24/365

Saturday, October 20, 2012

2012- Day 11- Air cannon reloaded

Almost the final countdown yet again! We finished putting the fabric up in the vortex. It's holding up fairly well but a couple of the sheets have shrunken a tad, maybe 3/4", so we taped the ends with masking tape and this enabled us to safely stretch it over to staple onto the end hoops. The chandelier was finally hung! Hopefully a video soon. And today's item, the air cannon, was re-installed as shown. I had a similar video last year. I am a complete pneumatics newbie, not counting last year since we never actually got a chance to use the darn thing! A garage haunt is not an optimal venue for serious pneumatic props, but this is different! It is actually fairly easy to operate and very compact. This is the one we're using. Apparently the price has gone up since I bought mine, but again, if you are not an expert in the area of pneumatics I would not try to build one from scratch! Major safety issues here Ghouls. The other component of this set up is of course the air compressor which you will need as well. I'm using an 8 pound Husky brand. If you have never used an air compressor before there are some key issues to be aware of. The big one is the power drain. As I mentioned last year I tried plugging into almost every outdoor outlet we have and was blowing fuses right and left. You are going to have to use an indoor outlet and find one that works by trial and error! We will have to keep the tank inside the garage, but this year I have designed a large work area so there will be plenty of room. Make sure you keep that in mind! Also these things make a ton of noise while the tank fills. Thankfully the cannon does not require a ton of pressure and it looks like one fill should last at least an hour or more. We could refill the tank during the short intermission if we have to. Finally make sure you close the drain valve on the bottom of the tank if you have previously opened it! Last year I opened it before storing the tank, forgot to close it, and tonight I was trying to fill the tank for about an hour and nothing was happening! There was nothing in the troubleshooting directions about it. Somehow I figured it out!

No comments:

Post a Comment