Thread: what it's made of

Anyone know what kind of steel an oxygen cylinder is made of. Used and old one for a project and it sure is hard stuff.

John

4130 steel, hardened and tempered at 1,000 deg. F min. I used to work at Walter Kidde in Belleville, NJ, and they made many there.

Thanks, i new as soon as i cut into it it wasn't your average cold rold.

John

Apparently it was empty!!

You wouldn't by chance be making a 215mm bowling ball howitzer?

It should have been Rc32 max., UTS ~150ksi, YS ~140ksi.

Bowling ball howitzer.

Ah. BOWLING BALL HOWITZER!
Right on!
And I thought we were havin real fun with our Aqua-net powered spud cannons.

Hmmmmmm [img]smile.gif[/img] not a bad idea. compressed air baloon launcher is getting a little boring

John

Look in the tooling want ads about two months ago 6/17 under scrap oxy cylinders,I don't think the pictures in the link work any more but the text should still be there.
"Ammo" is expensive unless you know someone who works in a bowling alley or a sporting goods store that sells used equipment.

Salvation army and their ilk usually has used bowling balls pretty cheap. Some stores also have old golf clubs-it just depends on the location of that particular thrift store-for instance Ridgecrest ALWAYS had golf clubs, bowling balls, etc, wheras I went to one in Atlantic city and it had nothing of the sort.

Ice slugs make pretty good ammo...........least thats what I heard. You can make molds out of soldered furnace tin and put a rounded or pointed nose on them............least thats what I heard.

ice slugs = no evidence

Ummm, wouldn't the breech pressure required to accelerate a bowling ball, coupled with the large diameter of the welding cylinder, make this a very risky proposition? I mean these things are rated for what? 3, 4 thousand PSI? Aren't breech pressures in the tens of thousands?

If you were jus' funnin', I bit.

Jim

PS Now a tennis-ball cannon, that's cool. And safe?

That is what slow powder and wadding is for, burying the breech helps deflect or contain the shrapnel if you muck it up. I wouldn't mind seeing a bowling ball lanuched, I used to launch D cells as a kid, never blew the breech out of that cannon

Some years ago I was involved in sleeving a bowling ball mortar, and attending the initial firing and wine party. Pretty impressive, everybody looking up to guess how close the balls would land. Some broke. As I recall about 1/4 to 1/2 can of black powder did the job.