What is the craziest build idea you ever had ?

[sandman2234]

Craziest one that actually worked was a modification of your typical go cart. I had a couple old karts frames dug out of trash heaps, and wanted one that actually ran. I knew of a pair of motorcycles that had been freight damaged, and were left in the crates sitting while the dealer/shipper/manufacturer fought things out. I got permission to send them to the scrap yard, and I could remove a few small parts for my trouble of taking them to the scrapyard. (as payment) I removed the engines and tossed a couple of B&S engines in the truck to offset the loss of weight. I then mounted the engines (both of them) with transmissions onto the rear of one of the go-cart frames. Anyone ever clock a go-cart with twin Wombat 125 Hodaka engines running full speed across a pasture? (and we aren't talking about a hayfield, but a rough pasture!). The one time I took it out on the highway, and cranked it up to road speed, I found out what happpens when a rear tire blows at speeds! Lucky to even be here, but I did make it to town in record time. Few of my friends ever had the nerve to drive it, and it just disappeared while I was on my tour serving my country. Hopefully nobody ever got killed on it!
David from jax

 

[have_blue]

HB and Renze do a google on Malsam terracers, Thats what I made a smaller copy of, it pulled good with a 3000 Yanmar.

Well that's an adea! Too bad it takes 2 tractors. Heck, I barely had 1 tractor when I dug my pond.

The problem with digging machines is, they'e too big or too aggressive. A small tractor doesn't stand a chance.

All you need is something with will dig 2-3" every pass. The digging part is easy, so you only need a small but sturdy digging part. The hauling part is the hardest, so the hopper trailer needs to be big and sturdy, with a reliable dumping chute mechanism. I bet a $15K digging machine would sell like hot cakes. Everyone wants a pond, but nobody wants to pay $40K to have it dug.

 

[RadarTech]

and it just disappeared while I was on my tour serving my country. Hopefully nobody ever got killed on it!
David from jax

David,
Maybe just maybe it disappeared due to the thoughts of one of those friends... They would rather you live a little longer....

I had a friend that served 2 tours in Iraq, and 1 in Afghanistan. Got a Purple Heart for an IED wound. Came home and was killed on a motorcycle his 3rd day back... Several of kept saying we should disable his bike before he got back knowing how he drove... now we wish we had..

sometimes a blessing comes in very strange packages....So maybe you should be thankful it disappeared......



Later,
J

 

[Taylortractornut]

THe tw tractors is the down side though They had two smaller tralialers made from 500 gallon oval tanks split in half. they pulled with a big four wheeler and one had a toyato truck they pulled the other with. The disc is a great digging bit, just look at a Farmall cub with the mid mount disc breaker. Its only 8.5 HP and can run the breaker that 24 inches nearly up to the middle in hard plowing. and the dirt is thrown up ontop of disc and over. If the neighboring hunting club wants a terraced area this spring I maybuild another one.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

I saw one of these rail guns on a Discovery Channel show and they are impressive.

As for your tank project, do a search on YouTube for an Aussie who has a multi-part video series on how he built a tank including the tracks. I watched about 8 of the videos, and he had a bunch more. It was pretty impressive work.

I've seen the video. For the record, I had my idea before I ever saw his videos. His just looked like a lot of work between casting the hull out of fiberglass and hand making every link on the tracks.

I'm also hoping to make mine a little more functional and durable. I want my cannon to actually shoot something. Also I'm not sure how those wooden tracks of his are going to hold up. He sure did a good job, though. His Sherman sure looks authentic.

I think it's going to be a fun project. The deal with my kids is that we'll start building it together when they are old enough to actually help with the build and fabrication.

 

[Mackinac Joe]

Decided to make gunpowder bombs with a friend. About 14 years old.

Got the recipe for gunpowder out of a book in the school library. Carbon, sulphur, potassium nitrate, and 1/100th part water according to our book. (Don't remember the other proportions.)

Getting the carbon was easy. We grew up in southern Illinois coal country. All you had to do was walk along the railroad tracks and pick up chunks of coal that had blown off the cars.

Getting the sulphur was easy. Every kid in town had asked his dad "what's all that yellow stuff by the tracks just outside of town?" Every dad answered, "well, son, that's where a sulphur car derailed years ago." So all we had to do was pick up chunks of sulphur.

Getting the potassium nitrate was harder. Somehow we figured out you could get it at a drugstore. So we went to Mr. Brazelton's drugstore and asked to buy so much potassium nitrate with a completely straight face. He weighed it out and packaged it up neat as could be. Took our money. Just as we got to the door, Dr. Brazelton hollered, "BOYS!" We stopped dead in our tracks and turned around. He was grinning, and said, "Don't blow yourselves up!" We bolted out the door with our prize.

We "borrowed" my friend's mom's kitchen mortar and pestle set to grind up all our ingredients in his bedroom during a sleepover. Used her little kitchen scale to weigh out the ingredients precisely.

Decided we'd better test the gunpowder before we made any bombs with it. We thought lighting loose gunpowder on fire would cause it to explode, but we were stupid enough to try to ignite it by hand. We poured a little pile of it on the outside "sill" of my friend's bedroom window ("dad will never notice") and lit it on fire. It burned absolutely brilliantly bright and made a nice char on the limestone sill.

But we were expecting it to explode, so we thought we must have made the gunpowder wrong. We figured we weren't using enough. We snuck outside and poured a bigger pile of it on the asphalt in front of his house. It burned good enough to melt a hole into the road. But still no explosion.

We tried mixing it with different kinds of oil, but whatever we mixed it with only made it worse and we never could get it to explode. (We had previous gasoline scares so we were smart enough not to mix it with that.)

Only years later did we realize our gunpowder worked exactly like it was supposed to. Of course it never "exploded" because we never ignited it while encapsulated.

And of course my friend's dad found the charred windowsill and we had to come clean.

Mackinac Joe

 

[farmboy12]

Decided to make gunpowder bombs with a friend. About 14 years old.

Got the recipe for gunpowder out of a book in the school library. Carbon, sulphur, potassium nitrate, and 1/100th part water according to our book. (Don't remember the other proportions.)

Getting the carbon was easy. We grew up in southern Illinois coal country. All you had to do was walk along the railroad tracks and pick up chunks of coal that had blown off the cars.

Getting the sulphur was easy. Every kid in town had asked his dad "what's all that yellow stuff by the tracks just outside of town?" Every dad answered, "well, son, that's where a sulphur car derailed years ago." So all we had to do was pick up chunks of sulphur.

Getting the potassium nitrate was harder. Somehow we figured out you could get it at a drugstore. So we went to Mr. Brazelton's drugstore and asked to buy so much potassium nitrate with a completely straight face. He weighed it out and packaged it up neat as could be. Took our money. Just as we got to the door, Dr. Brazelton hollered, "BOYS!" We stopped dead in our tracks and turned around. He was grinning, and said, "Don't blow yourselves up!" We bolted out the door with our prize.

We "borrowed" my friend's mom's kitchen mortar and pestle set to grind up all our ingredients in his bedroom during a sleepover. Used her little kitchen scale to weigh out the ingredients precisely.

Decided we'd better test the gunpowder before we made any bombs with it. We thought lighting loose gunpowder on fire would cause it to explode, but we were stupid enough to try to ignite it by hand. We poured a little pile of it on the outside "sill" of my friend's bedroom window ("dad will never notice") and lit it on fire. It burned absolutely brilliantly bright and made a nice char on the limestone sill.

But we were expecting it to explode, so we thought we must have made the gunpowder wrong. We figured we weren't using enough. We snuck outside and poured a bigger pile of it on the asphalt in front of his house. It burned good enough to melt a hole into the road. But still no explosion.

We tried mixing it with different kinds of oil, but whatever we mixed it with only made it worse and we never could get it to explode. (We had previous gasoline scares so we were smart enough not to mix it with that.)

Only years later did we realize our gunpowder worked exactly like it was supposed to. Of course it never "exploded" because we never ignited it while encapsulated.

And of course my friend's dad found the charred windowsill and we had to come clean.

Mackinac Joe

Many of you know I'm 13. This kinda stuff reminds me of my very recent past.

Well, I'll tell one that happened last Tuesday. We were at a nativity scene where our goats were being loaned, and it was getting very cold. They decided we were gonna have a fire. They were getting a fire pit and supplies from someone, but no one there had a pickup truck (except dad, but he had to choose the one night he wasn't gonna be there) to pick it up.

So, they put the country boys in charge. We went into the basement science lab to find a lighter or something to start it with. We found one of those igniters used to start torches. We found it didn't create a strong enough spark to light paper or something. Only one of us was stupid enough to think that using an aerosol can would be smart. As the other two of us were walking out, we realized Chris wasn't there. We started to go back, and just as we were walking into the room he was in-!BOOM!-. It shook the two us standing 20 feet away. It lit the whole room. We found burns on his hands. Then, when we got back out, the fire was lit.


Kyle

 

[MarkV]

Decided to make gunpowder bombs with a friend. About 14 years old.

Got the recipe for gunpowder out of a book in the school library. Carbon, sulphur, potassium nitrate, and 1/100th part water according to our book. (Don't remember the other proportions.)

Getting the carbon was easy. We grew up in southern Illinois coal country. All you had to do was walk along the railroad tracks and pick up chunks of coal that had blown off the cars.

Getting the sulphur was easy. Every kid in town had asked his dad "what's all that yellow stuff by the tracks just outside of town?" Every dad answered, "well, son, that's where a sulphur car derailed years ago." So all we had to do was pick up chunks of sulphur.

Getting the potassium nitrate was harder. Somehow we figured out you could get it at a drugstore. So we went to Mr. Brazelton's drugstore and asked to buy so much potassium nitrate with a completely straight face. He weighed it out and packaged it up neat as could be. Took our money. Just as we got to the door, Dr. Brazelton hollered, "BOYS!" We stopped dead in our tracks and turned around. He was grinning, and said, "Don't blow yourselves up!" We bolted out the door with our prize.

We "borrowed" my friend's mom's kitchen mortar and pestle set to grind up all our ingredients in his bedroom during a sleepover. Used her little kitchen scale to weigh out the ingredients precisely.

Decided we'd better test the gunpowder before we made any bombs with it. We thought lighting loose gunpowder on fire would cause it to explode, but we were stupid enough to try to ignite it by hand. We poured a little pile of it on the outside "sill" of my friend's bedroom window ("dad will never notice") and lit it on fire. It burned absolutely brilliantly bright and made a nice char on the limestone sill.

But we were expecting it to explode, so we thought we must have made the gunpowder wrong. We figured we weren't using enough. We snuck outside and poured a bigger pile of it on the asphalt in front of his house. It burned good enough to melt a hole into the road. But still no explosion.

We tried mixing it with different kinds of oil, but whatever we mixed it with only made it worse and we never could get it to explode. (We had previous gasoline scares so we were smart enough not to mix it with that.)

Only years later did we realize our gunpowder worked exactly like it was supposed to. Of course it never "exploded" because we never ignited it while encapsulated.

And of course my friend's dad found the charred windowsill and we had to come clean.

Mackinac Joe

That sure sounded like my youth except my Dad owned a pharmacy and we did our testing in the basement secret lab. After the fire department left the sulfur smell cleared out in about a day and Dad was able to reopen the drug store.

MarkV

 

[PineRidge]

Here's a spud gun we made. This would be great for your tank it's propane injected, breech loaded, and controlled by a solid state chip with a stun gun for ignition. Throws a spud out at over 300 MPH.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Here's a spud gun we made. This would be great for your tank it's propane injected, breech loaded, and controlled by a solid state chip with a stun gun for ignition. Throws a spud out at over 300 MPH.

Ttell me more about your breech loading. That's the one thing I'm having a hard time figuring out. I thought about the compressed combustible type hybrid gun idea for a fraction of a second before I remembered that I want this to be operable by a 10 year old.

 

[PineRidge]

We eventually went to a Cam-Lock fitting sold at TSC so you can load fast. The end of the barrel has been sharpened to "cut" the potatoe. The PVC barrel is also rifled.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

We eventually went to a Cam-Lock fitting sold at TSC so you can load fast. The end of the barrel has been sharpened to "cut" the potatoe. The PVC barrel is also rifled.

I'd thought about the cam lock idea. The problem I have to overcome is how to make the potato cannon so I can load it from inside the turret but minimize the amount of cannon sticking into the tank. Any of these breech loaders I've seen have a pretty big butt sticking out behind the potato.

How did you rifle the PVC?

 

[PineRidge]

There's a guy on the Internet, shouldn't be hard to find him as he's the only one that I know that rifles PVC for barrels. He modified an old WWII machine to do the rifeling.

See them here

 

[David Devuono]

I built this tracked wheel barrow to get into my camp in the winter. After the intial test run I had to build a stiffer front Axle setup to keep the track from coming off and put an idler wheel on the chain to keep it from jumping teeth. It made about 7 (1300ft) trips to my camp. When I tried it in the spring I lost the quick link on the drive chain on some debris. Then I picked up an old Massey MF135 and have not returned to this project. FYI I placed a big wooden box on it to carry coolers etc.

YouTube - Tracked Wheelbarrow

 

[Iplayfarmer]

So what did you use for tracks?

It looks like a handy little machine.

 

[David Devuono]

I had a piece of heavy 5" inch channel which I used as a die to press the track pieces. I then welded them to a chain. I made the front wheels adjustable to put tension on the tracks. I added an idler wheel linked to a contol on the handle to disengage the drive. While it operates nicely on snow, it is a bear to steer on solid ground with a couple hundred pounds on board.

 

[David Devuono]

found a couple of more pictures, including the plow I made to help it go through deep snow, made from cutting a fender.

 

[David Devuono]

Now that I have a snowblower, I may not need this thing anymore. I will reuse the parts though on some other project I am sure?

 

[rtdiggr]

Now that I have a snowblower, I may not need this thing anymore. I will reuse the parts though on some other project I am sure?

That "wheel barrow" looks awesome!

Shane

 

[Iplayfarmer]

I had a piece of heavy 5" inch channel which I used as a die to press the track pieces. I then welded them to a chain. I made the front wheels adjustable to put tension on the tracks. I added an idler wheel linked to a contol on the handle to disengage the drive. While it operates nicely on snow, it is a bear to steer on solid ground with a couple hundred pounds on board.

I've thought about fabricating my own track something like what you've done, but I was thinking about using roller chain. It sure seems like a lot of work. I'd need rubber pads on mine because I plan on using it on sidewalks and pavement in the summer.

Great project though. Thanks for posting. That really helps me to get ideas.