Kitten Cannon - Greg's how to guide

Introduction

Kitten Cannons are a lot safer then orange cannons as kittens are generally softer then oranges. Oranges are also a lot more useful then kittens and as such should not be wasted. A good kitten cannon can launch a kitten up to 1000 plus meters.

The Kitten Cannon

Ok, the picture shows roughly what I think a kitten cannon would look like. I reckon the barrel would have to be PVC with an internal diameter roughly the same size as a kitten, so about 3". A meter or so of length should do it. As for the combustion chamber bit, that could be connected to the barrel using one of those reduction sections, that takes 4" or so down to 3". Short end cap sections can then be attached to this reducer. Putting pipe in between the sections ought to strengthen it somewhat, and you'll need something to glue it to anyway! The combustion chamber can then be made as large as required simply by adding more bits!

A tricky bit will be the sparking setup. By placing a spark-plug through the wall of the combustion chamber as close to the back as possible, combustion should be maximised. The combustion will begin at the back of the chamber and expand forwards, hopefully launching the kitten out of the barrel in the process, and not blowing the end cap off or something. I reckon that would be REALLY noisy, and painful. Trust me. As for energising the plug, one of those gun things you use to ignite a gas stove would be good. One of the Bosch ones, not the el-cheapo K-mart ones. The Bosch ones provide a much better spark. All you need to do is get the gun (which would look really sexy on a big gun anyway) and pull the "barrel" off it. There should be two wires inside the metal tube that is the barrel. Extend both of these and connect them to the spark plug. How you do this will be up to you, but it's a fairly simple process. All that remains now is the firing. Open the end cap and place a kitten in the reduction section. Spray in some form of aerosol. Hairspray should work and is cheap. The same goes for CRC and WD-40. You can even experiment with combinations, like CRC and Hairspray, which might give improved results. But, the best solution would be to spend the $10 and get a can of Aerostart. Potent stuff. Using this design, with a 2 piece combustion chamber, bosch ignition, well placed plug and Aerostart it shouldn't be too hard to send a kitten up to 1km away.

WARNING
My calculations indicate that the kitten should come out of the barrel at about 300km/h, so be careful where you point it! This should be sufficient to keep a kitten in the air for 15 seconds or so, so if you're shooting straight up in the air, keep an eye on the kitten.
Be careful where you place the spark-plug in the combustion chamber. Make sure the plug goes through one of the double-layered sections, as the spark-plug hole will be a stress concentration point. I heard of one idiot who used a gas heater sparker placed in the centre of the end cap itself (and no, this idiot was not me or anyone i know). The placement of the sparker in this position is excellent for combustion, but VERY VERY bad in terms of stress locations. To fire the gun with the sparker in this position the gun had to be held out in front of the firer and the ignition button pressed. This one poor idiot had the end cap shatter, sending small shards of PVC into the front of his body, everywhere from the legs to the chest, and everything in between. OUCH! So, don't put any holes in the end cap.

Preparing the kittens

Kittens can be hard to acquire as a lot of cat owners don't leave kittens out at night. One way is to make them. Cats have a gestation period of 9 weeks so some forethought is required here. Just find a female cat on heat, get it knocked up and feed it for 9 weeks and presto a litter of kittens. Another way to acquire kittens is from the pound, just pretend like you like them and collect your self a whole sack full.

Firing!

When operating the kitten cannon remember safety, wear ear and eye protection.