I think it all started last Christmas (2005) when someone gave my dad a dollar store blowgun as a gag gift. It shot foam darts with suction cups on them, and was designed to not hurt anybody. I discovered that if you stuffed a piece of paper towel behind the dart as wadding, you could remedy that one design flaw, thus launching the dart across the house and sticking it to a window. I thought it was awesome, and the idea seed was planted.
Two weeks later I went on a Hurricane Katrina relief mission trip down to Mississippi. As we were packing up our leftover material, someone found a piece of PVC pipe, put a piece of a stick inside it, and shot it at Joe. The shooter had done some construction work, and he mentioned that wire nuts make the best ammunition. And the idea sprouted.
Some short while after that moment, I vowed that I would make a blowgun that shot wire nuts. The idea then got put on hold until after my recital, because I couldn't think about anything else. In the middle of March, I went home for a weekend. Jolene came with me, and since we had nothing better to do, we dicided that it was time for my blowgun idea plant to finally bear fruit.
We went to the hardware store intending to get a length of half inch PVC pipe and a box of wire nuts. Instead
we ended up getting 2 foot lengths of copper pipe that was designed for shower/bathtub plumbing. It was a
perfect diameter, pre-cut to the right length, and some $10 cheaper than comperable PVC pipe (which wasn't the
right size).
Not particularly wanting to stick a copper pipe in my mouth, we decided that we needed a mouthpiece. After looking at the various connectors, I finally found a 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch PVC adapter. It fit perfectly onto the end of the pipe.
These are wire nuts, if you don't already know what they are. They're connectors that twist onto electrical wires to mash them together to get a good connection, keep them from pulling apart, and to prevent the bare wire ends from touching things and shorting out. They're somewhat aerodynamic, and they're almost exactly the same diameter as the pipe.
The final product. Stick a wire cap in the mouth end, aim, then blow really hard. It has enough force to seriously sting if you shoot somebody, and it'll put large dents in soda cans. I've also put marks in the drywall of my apartment with it, but don't tell anybody.
