Have to say I like your generator shed…I remember shooting strike anywhere matches out of my Crossman pumper when I was a kid. They would ignite when they hit a fair amount of the time.
My name is Mike. I played with matches.But, I did so under the apprenticeship of my father, the plays with matches master.He taught me about the Clothes Pin Matchstick gun.It actually is best built with two clothes pins. One pin is used to create the shooter. And, only one half of the second is used as a cocking mechanism. (trust me, its easier this way)You also use a construction knife to create a more steady Sear by carving a slightly more squared face to drop the trigger onto while cocking.The trigger gets pushed back onto the Sear slot, opening the spring, and creating forward thrust. But it doesn't take long to need to use the construction knife to create a batter hold on the trigger.You load the match into the cocked shooter, pull the trigger, and the spring strike on the match head sends it flying as a freshly lit match, on contact. It flies perhaps 10' (?) maybe more if you aim higher??I grew up in So.Cal. Ever heard of our wildfires?I never caused one.I made the next match toy myself, when I reached master status, graduating from my apprenticeship.
Wow, people actually replied to my thread ?!? (woohoo).anyone want to hear about my own match creation,.... the matchstick rocket launcher.oh,... I ain't waiting,....You take a wire paper clip, and bend the shorter, smaller loop portion, and bend it upward about 45º. So, one half rests horizontal, on the sidewalk, for example, and the smaller half is about 45º towards vertical.You then wrap the tip of a strikes anywhere match, in aluminum foil, and a portion of its wood stick (1/2 of the stick), loosely twisting the aluminum foil around the head and stick. You lean it in your just created paper clip rocket launcher. Then you hold a lighter to the Al. foil (in my day, you used another match, as the uBICuitous BIC ligher had not yet emerged), and the covered match head ignites, creating a burst of compressed gas from the flare up, and the matchstick takes off like a rocket.
Regarding kitchen matches. The last time I went to buy "strike anywhere" matches I tried Walmart, Kroger grocery store and Dollar General Store. No luck, so finally found them at ACE Hardware. Guess we have more folks protecting us from ourselves. Don
Those big boxes say "strike on box". Growing up we had "strike anywhere" matches, sometimes called "kitchen matches" because many of us had to light the gas stove with them. They had the white tip at the end of the red, green or blue head. We struck them on sidewalks, our zippers, our jeans and even on heavy cloth shirts. And boy they went BANG when shot from my Crosman 760 at a wall.I guess "strike anywhere" was just too "dangerous" in someone's judgement for us common folks to have,,,Don
Mike,Slightly off topic (but you mentioned it;) Can you please post a pic of your 'home made electrical panel interlock'? Inquiring minds want to know. Ok, I'm a licensed electrician and am just curious.As for using cotton swabs for projectiles, yeah......I'm guilty. I did not know about the burger picks but back in my youth in the early 1980's I fired many a Q-tip out of airguns. Normally I used a tight fitting Q-tip as a 'cleaning pellet' when I ran out of felt pellets, BUT eventually used them for 'pest projectiles' once I found out how well they flew fired out of a 1377. Good clean fun!Surprised nobody mentioned, NOT to fire anything other than lead pellets out of spring piston airguns, or it will likely be damaged. 'Oddball' projectiles should only be fired out of pumpers, Co2 or PCP's as spring piston airguns need the cushion of the pellet resistance to keep the piston from slamming into the end of the compression tube and ruining the piston. YES most of us (and anyone who has actually read their springer manual) know this, but I figured I'd throw this in the thread just in case someone new to airgunning thinks they might be tempted to try these 'dart projectiles' in their springer.
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