Note: This guide has fewer step-by-step instructions. If you are not, please read some of the tutorials in my guide to learn a thing or two. Large streams can cause blindness and internal bruising. If you choose to ignore this warning, you do so at water cannon advance own risk. It boasts unparalleled range and water output on the same scale as a fire hose. The piston or tube were necessary because the air always floats on top of the water, so to fire a water gun at an angle without either solution, only compressed air would shoot from the gun. The original Supercannon had leaks and unusual problems with getting the water out the tube, so that idea was scrapped in favor of a piston design. Shot images My brother and I took some. Most other people use last drop, which is misleading because the last drop can't soak anyone and often is 5 or more feet ahead of the puddle. The range is only useful for the part that will deposit major amounts of water. A fire hose has water output of 4. You can see the difference in performance very clearly. What is more startling however is the output graph. Note that the scale above is logarithmic, that is, each notch means 10 times as much as the last notch. If we did the scale with normal axises, simply put, you wouldn't be able to see the competition. Materials The list below is approximately what I used. You can and I do suggest making changes based upon what is available to you and what you prefer. Brass valves are easier to open, but, they are far more expensive and heavy. I choose a plastic ball valve that would be hard to turn if I didn't add a torque arm. The torque arm makes the valve extremely easy to turn while saving some money. Drill a hole about in the center of one of the sides of the ball valve's current handle. Put the bolt through the two drilled holes and use the washer and nut on the other end to put it on more permanently. This procedure allows you to make aligned holes very easily. Look at the image above if you are confused. After drilling the holes, put the bolt, washer, and nut on to finish the handle. Tighten the nuts on pretty good, but not good enough to break the ball valve's existing handle. To further quicken valve opening, you also can lubricate the valve with some spray silicon lubricant. Close the valve, spray the lubricant on the ball part, spread it, and open water cannon advance close the valve in rapid succession to spread the lubricant over the parts of the valve. Think about how much water you want in your water tank. With a 1:1 water to air ratio, approximately half the volume of the pipe is water. Using the volume of a cylinder, you can convert accurately the volume in cubic inches to liters by dividing by 61. The back end of the gun is the part that fills the gun with air. The back end features a check valve with an air coupler to attach to an air compressor. The check valve lets air water cannon advance one way, but not out the other way, which is what you want in a design like this. The ball valve is necessary to vent compressed air from the back of the water gun. Venting the air is necessary after shots because the piston needs to be moved to its original position. The air vent release is very loud, so I would suggest adding an air muffler like McMaster-Carr part 4450K4. The air muffler releases the air a water cannon advance more slowly over a larger area, reducing the noise. The parts above all make the piston. There are two Buna-N piston cups, two metal fender washers, two rubber fender washers, two washers, one bolt, one nut, and one slightly larger nut I used as a spacer. Larger nuts can be used as spacers, but they also make dedicated nylon spaces that would work better. The images below will show how the piston is constructed. Note that the image on the right is deceiving due to barrel distortion. The pistons themselves are straight—the lens makes them appear bent. Also note that the nut should be put on with Loctite, which I will discuss more below. In retrospect, I would suggest epoxying the head of the bolt to the metal fender washer to prevent a small potential leak through the piston at higher pressures. I have noticed a tiny bit of water that can be poured our of the air vent valve after many shots, but that may also be the result of the humidity and water cannon advance compression of the air. Nonetheless, epoxying the bolt to the washer will not do any harm, so I suggest it. Inserting the piston into the pipe can not be done with the piston constructed as is in the images above. It must be water cannon advance in parts. The two images show how the piston should be arranged before inserting it into the pipe. Using a popsicle stick, apply Vaseline or whatever other lubricant you have to the perimeter of the seal. Be sure to in the piston cups. Put the piston on top of the pipe and push it in slowly. The seal water cannon advance inside of the pipe. Note the excess vaseline on the perimeter of the pipe. The piston is now there, but upside down. Put the washer on top of the other washer and the spacer. Lubricate the perimeter of the piston cup and insert it into the chamber like you did previously. Also lubricate the pipe itself above the piston already in there. Look at the background of the left image to see how. Get the hold in the center to align with the bolt so the bolt goes through it. That might take a little messy work with your hands in the pipe, but water cannon advance is necessary. Afterward, put the rubber fender washer, the metal fender washer, and the nut on the bolt and tighten the nut on. You will have to hold the piston still as you use the wrench to tighten the nut. Use Loctite to ensure the nut does not move during the life of the water gun read the package to see how. Wash off the entire pipe with water and dish soap to remove any vaseline on the pipe. Wait for the pipe to dry completely before solvent welding all of the parts together. Filling the water gun Due to the very simple design, filling this water gun is very different than filling other water guns. To fill, open all valves on the gun. Remove the water cannon advance hose nozzle. I measured and put markings on my ramrod to know when to stop pushing. Close the vent valve on the back. Pour water down the open firing valve until the water is up to the threaded nozzle. Connect the air coupling to an air compressor, and pressurize the water gun. When the desired pressure is met, disconnect the coupling. The gun is now pressurized and can be fired at will. The air vent is very loud—about 105 dBs. An air muffler reduces the noise level to less than 70 dBs, likely lower. I bought McMaster-Carr part number 4450K4, which reduced noise level by more than it reported it would, so I was very pleased. To install an air muffler, apply teflon tape and thread it onto the ball valve you use to exhaust the excess air. I designed the assembly to be upgradeable, mainly to be able to attach regulated air output to it, but that never happened. I broke off one of the pieces of plastic pipe, so I replaced everything with metal pipe. You can see the air muffler on the end of the ball valve. Photos of the completed water gun A closeup of the nozzle. You can see how big the nozzle is here. I did not experiment with other nozzle sizes, but I would imagine that a different nozzle size could improve this water gun's range further. The only thing that would need to be done would be drilling this nozzle larger. When making this guide, I was having trouble finding pictures that wouldn't be obscenely long, so I simply combined them into one image. It shows the pressure gauge, air vent valve, and filling assembly. Photos and videos of the water gun in action Water gunning at its best. At the time, I didn't have any higher resolution pictures. Check out our gallery for. This frame from the video of the shot shows definitively that the gun could shoot past 70 feet. The gun also could shoot drops of water past 75 feet, but that range was not measured and it can not be determined by this photo because the shadow of the tree obscures the last drops.
