Wow, that plan backfired!

So, among the stupid decisions I have been making this weekend (and since Thursday evening, there have been many bad decisions I won't go into here), today Seth, Tony, his Uncle Ron, and myself were playing with Tony's potato cannon. This isn't particularly stupid, on its own... However, for lack of a better accelerant, we were using acetylene.

We usually decide on how much accelerant to put into the chamber by number of seconds. We used two seconds of acetylene for a moderate pop, and four seconds of acetylene for an ear ringing explosion.

Then it was my turn...

Uncle Ron decided it would be a good idea to mix some 100% oxygen with the acetylene. Now, oxyacetylene is primarily used to cut metal. We put it in a pvc chamber of a potato cannon. And Ron filled it with 6 seconds worth of the mix.

Now, a smart person would have let the gas thin out a bit before doing it...or started over from scratch. Not me. I said fuck it, and pressed the trigger.

BOOM!!!!!

I'm not exactly sure what happened next. All I know is there was a flash, I couldn't see, and I couldn't hear at all. Apparently I ran away a few steps from the scene of the crime and when I came to, I looked back, and the potato cannon was in pieces. It had shattered. In my hands. And against my body. Shrapnel lay everywhere.

The aftermath: My right forearm is bald, all the hair singed off. There are three cuts on my right forearm too. One of which is still bleeding. The right side of my stomach has some abrasions and such, but was black and blue for a good hour after it. My left ear was ringing for about 20 minutes afterwards, and my right ear is still ringing and has limited hearing out of it. It is slowly getting better though. So, all in all, not so bad.

The potato cannon is beyond repair. The trigger is still in one piece, but the chamber is in about 4 pieces, with some holes missing where the pvc either exploded into the orchard or disintigrated. The barrel, which was a good 4 feet long, broke in half, with part of the barrel still connected to part of the chamber, and the other part lying along. A piece of the barrel is also missing.

It's amazing what kind of stupid things you can do if you really put your mind to it!