How did i grow up watching myth busters, and NEVER heard of Savage builds until this channel?!? Freaking Discovery..... wish I could watch them for free. They don’t deserve my subscription for a streaming service after this. 😡😡😡
FYI the Samaritan wouldn't work, safely, because the chambers do not wrap the entire shell casing. It would explode out the back and injure the operator.
That would be super funny to 'slip' in a conversation over coffee and see the look on someone's face, Meanwhile in thsir head.... WHAT DID THEY JUST SAY ABOUT RUNNING A, what,,,,,, a marathon is that a new term for marathon???? (thoughts in the mind of the receiver after hearing you say that over coffee. Just would be fun and funny.
Somebody absurdly rich please give this man money for a full fledged CZcams reboot. What mythbusters did for science and engineering and critical thinking was one of the primary inspirations for my interest and knowledge in those subjects today. 💯
Even though Jamie and Adam definitely didn't get along at times, it's awesome to see the amount of respect Adam has for how smart Jamie is at coming up with solutions to problems.
Yeah, the professional respect between them is fantastic, and something we can all aspire to. "This person will never be a good friend of mine, but that's OK. They do good work. I do good work. We do good work together. That's all we need."
Yeah, and also they say time and again, they never disliked one another, they just would never hang out outside of production. Cause outside of what they were working on, they had very little in common.
@@georgewl while it's true that they don't hate each other, Adam has all out said that they do not get along at all on a personal level. Other than doing work there's tension between them, and that's also sometimes the case concerning work.
Panjandrum 2.0 An Adam Savage - Mark Rober collaboration! I'm pretty sure Mark could design a new braking system hat could stop those flywheels and probably design you a really smooth flywheel.
@@AWSum-uf4ri If it's supposed to be a period accurate attempt at a workaround though wouldn't the magenets have to be brushes electromagnets? And brushed motors make friction 😅 also not sure how those would hold up as rocket brakes😅
I thought about this problem. You want to transfer the energy as quickly as possible. My solutions involved having some sort of mechanism on the panjandrum to catch (well, be physically struck by) the flywheel.
Or use more breaking area like the brakes on a train or multiple sets around the flywheel. If you don't have some give parts will fly off like bullets with those forces. The frictionless magnetic brakes they use on some roller coasters might also be worth looking into.
The nitro episode was the best Savage Builds episode imo. Felt very mythbusters-like. Lots of suspense, unexpected things, and also the failures during the tests made it so much better.
Panjandrum: the main problem of the panjandrum was that the rockets did not ignite and burn equal on both wheels. Solution: 1. build it with 3 wheels, one in the exact center. 2. attach the rockets to the center wheel only. Firing Samaritan: is that caliber close to 12 gauge ? a version that could fire standard shotgun ammo would be rather practical, as you would not need to make special ammo. you may have to alter the dimensions somewhat, but for a working gun that might be worth it.
I'm no gunsmith, so perhaps I'm wrong, but the other problem I see with the Samaritan is that the cases are not enclosed by the cylinder. It looks neat, but the brass can't contain the explosion by itself - it needs to be braced by a chamber (or cylinder wall) or else the brass just bursts when the powder goes off.
A firing Samaritan could actually work well if you shape the bullets like a shotgun slug : hollow. 1 ounce shotgun slugs fire quite well with roughly the amount of powder that would fit inside that casing and a hollow bullet that size.
About 30 years ago I was involved in replacing a hospital emergency back up generator. The old genny was ancient, like Frankenstein lab looking ancient. The emergency power for the hospital was supplied by an electrical motor driving an alternator with a massive flywheel between them. When the power failed the energy in the flywheel would keep the alternator spinning till the generator fired up and then supplying power to the electrical motor again. This was basically a old style UPS system. We pulled the whole system out and replaced it with a modern UPS and generator. The flywheel was insanely heavy.
PANJANDRUM design improvements 1. True Flywheels - maybe as easy as shims on hubs 2. Balance Flywheels - 1,000 rpm at this diameter makes the tiniest imbalance critical 3. Mount truck brake calipers to grab the outer flywheel - this will increase their torque capacity by the diameter ratio of the flywheel to the brake rotors. The rotors would also absorb and dissipate massive amounts of heat compared to the puny truck brake rotors. The friction surface will also be operating at the diameter ratio higher speed, these combined factors will produce braking of about the Square of the diameter ratio. 4. use 2 or more brake calipers per side for balance
Outside of CA you can go up to .50 caliber that is a half inch bore. CA not understanding the difference between the .50 BMG they wanted to ban (for some reason, they are rarely used in crime) and anything with that size bore banned anything with half inch bore.
Dear Adam, instead of adding an extra possible failure phase in the Panjandrum, just release the flywheel by itself? Your team was terrified when the test spin-up caused it to move a few feet. That raw terror was correct, use the flywheel by itself and don’t waste energy with “braking.” Unleash the terror!
A Finnish gunsmith here... I was wondering about the firing-able Samaritan, because the roll containing the chambers has holes in the sides. Somebody knowing a lot about WW2 British weapons said it was originally built from a 4-chambered flare pistol, in which context the holes do have some sense to them, because flare cartridges have a very small amount of gunpowder to propel the flare and parashoot. I fear that if you packed enough propellant in there to make the slug travel at any useful speed, the pressure would be enough to rupture the shell through the hole. Having a hole in the side of a high-pressure firing chamber is generally a very bad idea. Brass is much more soft than steel, and even normal handgun rounds sometimes rupture, even with the fully intact chamber around them, if there is any gap between the two. When chambering firearms, there is a set of measuring tools to confirm if the chamber is shaped correctly and has the correct depth. The "GO" -gauge must be able to be chambered and the breech fully closed and locked. The "NO-GO" -gauge must not be able to be chambered and should prevent the breech from locking. The difference between the two is 0.02 mm. That's two hundredths of a millimeter (I don't speak inches). So, it's a delicate matter, carving a chamber that is up to spec. And that is precisely to prevent brass ruptures in chambers that are too big.
I see titles like, "Wheel of Death" and hear "nitroglycerin". It's amazing no one was ever seriously injured making these episodes. 👏Some thought was required to keep people safe.
Oh man the concept he talks about at 11:00 of building things that people in the past wouldn't know TO build but COULD build is something I'm obsessed with. An experimental archeologist PHD student friend of mine and I have had long talks about building a Roman telegraph - they didn't have the scientific understanding to design it, but we strongly think that they could have built it with the materials and methods they had access to. If anyone has any links to more examples of that concept, I'd love to see it.
You might be interested by Joerg Sprave's Instant Legolas and variants thereof. Ultimately, in essence, a power-assisted semi-automatic bow. Made with techniques known to be used in, say, medieval Europe.
Read the discworld novels about the Clacks (like a telegraph using light and shutters and people on towers observing). that's doable with a lower level of tech.
From what I remember reading (A while ago) When the British built the Panjandrum, no one actually expected it to work. It was considered more useful to let the Germans find out about it and freak out a bit while the real devices and tactics were created.
Instead of using breaks to transfer the energy you should have just used clutches, they make them to handle anything from a 1/2 horse power weed whip to a 10000 horse power race car.
I built a panjandrum for my daughters school project. I used 5ft wheels and used a heavy weight attached to a rope wound around the spindle. The weight was the driving force. It worked really well.
Every time I see the samaritan, I wish it was a firing sample, because it's so close to perfection. Adam should make it fire .410 shells, which are lower power, yet can be placed inside a larger shell to make it look more prop-authentic.
The powder to bullet ratio is one thing - the bigger problem with the Samaritan is that the chamber has a whacking great hole in the side of it. Cartridge cases can have thin walls only because they’re supported by the chamber, so having those big cutouts in the cylinder... well, I’d recommend firing it from a clamp with a string....
I have grown up watching you, and you give you credit for my career as a electrical engineer/ Fire Alarm and Safety Tech. With the wheels you might want to make tread on the wheels so it can grab and pull.
Two possibilities to consider, instead of using basic heavy truck brakes, could upgrade to carbon brake pads since the coefficient of friction goes up with heat (low when cold and the wheel isn't moving yet, higher when the wheel starts picking up speed), or switch to an Eddy Current Brake
For the Panjamdrum, you could try sourcing the drum brakes from a semi truck. They're designed to stop 40 tons, and need about 150psi of air to do so with a 6 gallon tank. That could worked into the design and you'd very likely get the braking force needed.
The Samaritan build would be fascinating. The propellant to bullet ratio has a bunch of variables however, powder to grains would relate closer to how a M203 grenade launcher lobs a 40mm projectile. I would say, right off, the exposed fluting of the cylinder would prime the handgun to detonate/explode with the chamber pressure of the round being fired. Another variable for the rounds and the cylinder would be the overall recoil; too much and not having crimped your case heads around the bullets will "walk" the bullets lose and forward, locking the cylinder in place. I think it would be prudent to study the physics of a Smith and Wesson 500magnum while firing to have a grasp on what the capability of a functional Samaritan could/would be.
I'm thinking his ammo is a high/low pressure system like the M203 grenade launcher. The M203 carts have a strong internal chamber for high pressure ignition of the powder and an expansion chamber under the projectile. You need high pressure to get complete ignition, low pressure is fine with large diameter projectiles. *** Nail-set blanks could be the power-source; bore out a steel core to hold the blank and make the high-pressure section. Remember to off-set the hole! These bad boys are rim-fire! The passage between the blank drill-out and the expansion chamber end of the core would be a great spot to put a rupture-disk: a bit of heavy paper to hold back pressure until the perfect moment.... The visible outer walls of the cartridge would be simple brass tubing soldered/crimped to the high-pressure core, the bullet crimped to the tubing, a gap between bullet and core. If a bullet falls out, not powder to spill. With nail-set blanks, you can choose your power setting. Should be fairly consistent with shot-to-shot velocity. *** This allows the cylinder cut-outs: the high-pressure section is self-supporting with the expansion chamber/bullet supported by the cylinder . Weight savings, if nothing else. Bullets that big going around 200 meters/second are gonna take down most anything. And with silver, the more metal that stays in the baddie, the better! As to why the Samaritan is so big, well, it makes a nice club when empty!
Talking about explosive things going missing.. My dad was involved in the decommissioning of the UK bomb arsenal after the war, essentially carting them out into the Irish sea and dropping them overboard. He used to drive a flatbed truck with several 1000 pounders on the back from the Midlands to the West coast. Coming back from one drop off, he found a Police cordon closing off a roundabout, in a ditch was one of the 1000 pounders... He recognised it as one of his, and came up to the police to retrieve it, they wouldn't let him saying it was dangerous. He said it had been disarmed and was harmless - to prove his point he got a wrench from the truck and with the Police watching in horror he thwacked the detonator hard - nothing happened... He was free to put it back on the truck!
If you DO go back to the wheel of death project, maybe consider a 'starter' rocket on the main wheel to help get the wheel moving before you activate the flywheel clutches. If I was building it, I'd use something similar in concept to the catapult on an aircraft carrier. Have the wheels 'launched' from a stationary platform that spins it up, and then use the rocket+flywheels to maintain momentum instead of trying to start from a stationary platform.
back in the early 90's I wrote a convoluted Excel spreadsheet based on the BTRC publication called GUN! GUNS! GUNS! It was a book of formulae to convert real-word and fantasy guns into RPG versions. Players being players, they always want *their* favorite (usually rare and exotic) weapon in any of dozens of RPG systems. My spreadsheet took all of that and boiled it down to just a few standard parameters and spat out the results based on muzzle energy (mass x velocity.) To (finally get to the point) I remember the difficultly in finding energy quotient in various propellants to apply to the mass of the projectile, reconciling it with burn time and the minimum length of the barrel to achieve that time, and the point at which a barrel was too long and robbing the projectile of energy from friction. What a nightmare. Anyway, the instructor was impressed and I got full marks for something I was doing anyway!
Rabbit hole: projectile shapes, the specific mass of various materials, ratios of length to diameter...I took a lot of that and boiled it down to the more common choices while Using date ranges to estimate the energy/gram and burn rates of chemical propellants. Fun times.
A 1972 episode of the sitcom Dad's Army featured a fictional radio.controled version of the Panjandrum. The episode is titled "Round and Round Went the Great Big Wheel"
That panjandrum build you did with the flywheels, if you're going to use a disc brake system you'd need the brake setup of something like a Le Mans race car. But honestly, in my opinion, the most effective way to transfer that energy efficiently would be with a (Don't quote me on the actual name of this, I can't exactly remember tbh but I think I'm going to be close) Hydrostatic transmission with clutch packs and a planetary gear system. The heat produced from transferring the energy stored in the flywheels is used to heat the oil in the transmission to progressively engage the clutch packs as the oil gets hotter it expands and grabs the clutch plates in the clutch pack allowing you to transfer that stored energy into forward motion.......kinda exactly like an automatic transmission 😏
Random (untested, may be horrible) thought for energy transfer: a giant “clock spring” (the kind where flat spring steel spirals bigger and bigger around a central core)... locked to wheel axis at center; starts unengaged with respect to flywheel, but when ready, another (possibly also spring-driven) mechanism plunges a pin at the outer edge into a slot in the flywheel. At first, slack in the spring allows the pin to easily accelerate... but as the spring tightens, more and more energy starts getting transferred... maybe?!?
Hi Adam, just had a thought about a simple potential solution to the braking issue. Maybe you could create threads on the ends of the axle? The flywheel would thread itself into the axle as you spin it up, like a nut threading on a bolt, and then once it reaches the end of the thread, the momentum will be transferred to the wheels. You might need to beef up the stopping point so that the energy doesn't just strip the thread.
Twin disc slipper clutch on the outsides of the pangendrum. Clutches fixed to main shaft. The clutch disc's attached to fly wheel same way car engine clutch is set up. Can obtain crazy clamping forces greater than brake setups. Using progressive slipper clutch valve using on drag racing cars you can progressivly increase the hydraulic pressure on the clutches allowing slight slip to start and obtain higher clamping power. Hope that gives some idea may be way off base for a garage tinkerer.
For the Panjandrum, you need some sort of transmission to transfer the energy from the flywheel to the panjandrum. I don’t think a disc brake would ever work. The other idea might be to pin the flywheel to the panjandrum somehow instantaneously, but I don’t know if that would work either because the force would probably shear the pins. More small-scale testing should be done to get the best approach.
As a gunsmith and hellboy fan, I would love to see a live firing Samaritan. I wouldn’t say anemic, but you would be lucky to get 550-700 FPS (700 being highly optimistic) with that ratio, but due to the ratio you still have a good bit of energy transfer. If you are unable to make a fully functional revolver at least make a single shot pistol to test the cartridge. It wouldn’t be exactly the same, but it would be interesting to see the ballistics.
If Adam reads the comments i have a quick idea for the death wheel rebuild. Put equal distance notch cut outs on the fly wheels (like a skill saw blade) then have a spring loaded axel attached to the wheel slam down on the notches instantly transferring all energy to forward motion. No breaking required.
First thing I thought of when I saw the panjandrum on the show was why not move the rockets inboard. A few rockets not firing or bad timing doesn't matter much if they're in plane with the centerline
The wheel of death - you've done an episode where you roll marbles down different curves and the fastest one is due to a mathematical formula, the Fibonacci Sequence I think, but anyway, start spinning the whole contraption at the top of one of these curves - when it gets up to speed, nudge it off and let it roll - you can even launch it into the air with a well placed ramp. Then you can aim it and even build a dedicated ship to launch it from the sea. Maybe?
Concerning the Samaritan revolver; That case size/volume may actually be right depending on the desired velocity. I would refer you to the old M79 "BLOOP" gun that launched 40mm grenades that kind-of-sort-of looked similar [albeit EVEN BIGGER] The REAL problem is containment of the high pressure gases. With the chambers open and the case side wall exposed you WILL have a rupture, IT WOULD BE DANGEROUS AND IRRESPONSABLE! Also, there is the integrity of the barrel to consider. If you want to propel a very Large and Massive Bullet that size you will need to engineer a strong enough barrel. The problem is somewhat mitigated by the gap between the cylinder and the barrel, but that is very brief in time and most of that pressure will enter the barrel and it will have to content with HUGE forces that I think would require a much thicker barrel (again, depending on the velocity desired). That weapon design was as stoopidly asinine as the childish concept of "Hellboy" Just another immature dumbass idea meant to "look cool" from Hollywood. Reality is by far, more impressive Hellboy and his revolver is at best a joke. but, yeah, go ahead, waste your time, built it exactly the way it looks. My prediction is a catastrophic rupture that damages the top strap and ruins the gun.
I think you should just balance the panjandrum. Then spin it up like the flywheels and just let them go. Dual belt drive. Then a 1 long cutter spanning both drives along your drive pulleys then cut into those pulleys simultaneously spliting the belts to time it perfectly.Itd be a U shaped latch with a smaller cap, so when you launch it itll swing down forcing it that single direction it was knudged in and the U shape ensures that in tandem with the swing motion. In fact the latch and cutter should be 1 piece to ensure the timing perfectly
For that wheel of death thing, as far as braking the flywheel, the design in my head has the flywheel with spring-loaded plates which pop out at a ~20 angle. The plates are held flat using explosive bolts. Once you want to brake the flywheel, you'd trigger the bolts and these plate then pop out and collide/catch opposing plates on the frame of the wheel. The back side of these plates on both the flywheel and on the frame have a positive overhang on the hinge-end of the plates. It would be absolutely spectacular to watch and I guarantee you that, it'll be usable a single time, but it would most certainly work. (Just to be clear, these are not flimsy, sheet metal plates. I'm thinking 1" thick plates of cold-rolled steel. Each plate is 8" x 36" and there's 30 on each flywheel and 30 corresponding on each side of the frame.)
Honestly, while the wheel of death is cool, I think I prefer their solution. A tank with a bunch of super fast spinning chains on the front. They slam into the ground and churn up mines and barbed wire and any enemy soldier who wasn't smart enough to move. There were a LOT of really inventive ideas back then.
I've really loved understanding your relationship with Jamie, the way you quite obviously have great affection for the man, without particularly liking him.
I am surprised you guys even tried brakes. When you are dealing with a flywheel on the same machine you got those brakes from....what comes after the flywheel? a Clutch! (or torque converter). Was an awesome episode to watch in any case.
Imagine being some poor guy driving super early in the morning, probably super tired and barely awake, and then seeing that giant wheel rolling down the road. XD
You should collaborate with "Stuff Made Here" on the firing sammmaritan build! Also you could tie it in to a "what's the biggest handgun you could physically make and use" narrative 😁
Not sure if anyone mentioned it already - but the easiest way to make it more stable - would be to add 3rd small kind of steering wheel or some weight that would be dragged at the back...
The biggest problem is probably that you have to take all the energy from ONE flywheel which - at the beginning - is spinning very fast. This makes the brakeing rather difficult due to putting MAXIMUM STRAIN on them at the start. A better but far more complicated solution would be to have 2-3 flywheels which are spinning at different speeds and are used at different times ... one to actually make the flywheel start moving (the point which requires most energy ... but not necessarily most rotational speed) to then increase the speed in several stages, which is where increased flywheel speed would be needed.
12:25 If you do attempt this, please be aware that the "windows" in the cylinder, which provide a view of the cartridge/chamber, would be catastrophic in a real firearm. The cartridge-case could never withstand the chamber pressure, and would quickly become a "second barrel". So, you'd either need every single cartridge to essentially be it's own chamber, or you'd need to have "faux windows" in the cylinder.. You probably already know this, of course. But it seemed worth saying, just in case. The inventors madness can blind us all to obvious dangers, on occasion.. As to the powder-to-slug ratio, that depends entirely on what you want the round's effective range to be. If you only need it to damage a target across the room, you'd be fine.
I hadn't discovered Savage Builds till recently, watched the Panjandrum episode today. The first thing that bothers me about the flywheel drive is that the device is at maximum kinetic energy coming off the platform, and then it's coasting till it stops. In the episode Adam discusses asymmetric rocket thrust, then looks to remove the rockets. My first thought is to remove the asymmetry. Why not add a third wheel on centerline, perhaps a little smaller diameter and mount the rockets on the OD of the centerline wheel. Misfiring rockets shouldn't produce any left / right torque.
adam savage: thinks doing the same thing over and over again with progressively higher stakes for an _hour_ would be a hard sell to a network anime production companies: think doing the same thing over and over again with progressively higher stakes for over a _THOUSAND_ hours is the perfect model for an ideal tv show. ...funnily enough I'd say they are both right, it's weird just how much an entertainment product changes with the environment it is in
I saw the panjandrum video last week, was neat. I work at a college with a mechine shop I told the instrcutpor for that area they should make one. He said we could do small scale make somehting with drums on hte edge and a vane structure in the center, spint it up off ocmpressed air on some bearings then just pull the bearings apart and let it go.
They have a magnetic braking systems uses on large 18 wheelers. Since they dont touch they will have smooth transfer of energy. Jay Leno Used a small one for one of his Fire Trucks. Also Check out the open disk brake at the Hutchinson Salt mine Strataca. They use their 10 foot disk brake every day so the engineering is already done for something that size Granted since it transports humans it is spinning slower but they have to account for a runaway too :)
I felt like the Panjandrum might have worked better if they'd been able to delay the final test until the ground dried up some. They ended up testing it on, like, the worst possible day.
When you do redo it, I would modify the wheel surface to properly disperse weight and to gain good traction. Skinny flat metals wheels aren’t very conducive for traction in a wet muddy field.
Best way to increase braking power is to reduce leverage working against you, and use caliper on outside edge of flywheel. (Basically use flywheel as caliper)
Our chemistry teacher, had been an employee at a factory that used to produce NG. And one of the stories she told us about said compound, was that the thing was so, so, so unreliable and so unpredictable, that one time, in the middle of a test that involved droplet sized quantities, 4 out of 10 charges from the same batch (yeah, same batch) did not reach purpose. There's a reason that stuff is universally loathed and it's not just urban mythos, there's a big truth to it.
11:30 "We're going to do the same thing over and over again, and each time it explodes. Or doesn't. We won't know till it happens!" Sounds exciting to me :P
If you really want to make a working version of the Samaritan, one way to increase the charge to projectile ratio is to consider hollowing out the base of the projectile to make room for more propellant (similar to the Rocket-Ball, but with additional powder contained the metallic cartridge.) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Ball This should improve the ratio of power to projectile weight, and could possibly help it engage the rifling in the barrel as the charge spreads the rear of the projectile against the sides of the barrel.
So, for nitroglycerin, the problem was, you couldn't get it to explode reliably when you wanted it to, but also couldn't stop it from exploding when you didn't want it to. I think that's the definition of a dangerous substance.
Adam, if you try it again maybe look into a mechanism similar to what a saw stop uses. An explosive toothed brake could transfer the momentum rapidly similar to how it works to pull the sawblade away from you fingers.
The problem with brakes is that they dump the energy. There's got to be some kind of clever hack to drive the wheels with less energy loss. Something using an epicyclic gearset and a huge paddle wheel (to couple torque into the air).
That round would be awesome!!! Sure a 9mm scaled up to 12ga size, think about those proportions if you want to break your wrist. Keep it how you got it, Sub sonic has its value too!! Quieter, Yet enough mass to probably slam a softball size hole in a brick wall, I love it! Try and make a "less leathal" freight truck punch! 👊
Why not build your "pangendrum" like a bicycle rather than horizontally. Once running it won't fall over. It maintains its upright stance until it is moving very slowly. The beauty of the bicycle style is that it makes changing direction very difficult until it is slow. Also you could have your rockets on the bridge between the wheels. You could rotate the wheels up to speed & have rockets on it as well.
That's definitely an unlikely amount of powder to actually work. If you ever do pursue it, I'd suggest starting with a simple breach loading test "gun" before you mill out a fancy replica. With that little powder and that much diameter you'll probably have bullets wedged in the barrel that are hard enough to remove that you're probably better off just replacing the barrel.
the problem i saw with the initial flywheel build is that you didn't use an accurate "hub centric" design.... it's something i see every day being an automotive technician. when people buy crap aftermarket wheels that don't accurately center on the hub of the axle they end up with vibrations while driving- very similar to what i saw on the test spin-up of the flywheel. the flywheel also had a lot of run-out which also causes harmonic vibrations- this may have been caused by the process used to make the flywheels- if they were flame cut or plasma cut that can cause warpage of the steel as one side will be hot and the other very cold as they are cut out. it may require re-designing the centering of the centering hub and then final machining of the outer edge of the flywheels after they are installed on the hubs- this also is something from the automotive world that there are devices called "on car brake lathes" that machine brake rotors while installed on the vehicle to ensure that the hub doesn't cause run-out as sometimes the hub can be warped/slightly bent and machining a hub on a brake lathe and then re-installing it back on the car you'll still end up with vibrations while braking. possibly switching to a smaller diameter but thicker flywheel that can be machined true after it's installed on the hub might be the hot ticket.
Instead of using breaking force which introduces energy losses through heat, it would make more sense to use use a multi gearing system (reduction gear system) that would allow a relatively high rpm (1000 rpm, high mass (900lbs)) rotating object to tansfer it's kinetic energy without substaintial losses. So using a 1000:1 ratio you would obtain a very high torque rotatining drive wheel at 1RPM for a 1000RPM flywheel. To ensure this high torque, 1 RPM, is efficient you would want to ensue the drive wheel wheel (tires if you will) will have sufficient traction (like a tractor wheel) to grab and properly engage in the terrrain since the speed will be slow (1RPM) but the torque will be huge. I think you would find a direct drive system like this would be extrremely efiicent. However you would need to design an engagement/disengagement system, a clutch if you will.
Question, because it seems obvious is your initial test, why would you even try to transfer the energy in the penandrum instead of making the flywheels themselves the wheels? Rev them up with the wheels elevated off by the axel and some sort of ramped launcher? Once they are at the desired speed release the stopping block or break on the axel.
If the Samaritan v.Steel ever gets made, maybe consider Rocket Assisted projectiles? Not Gyrojet stuff, but just a simple rocket propellant at the base of the projectile that is activated by the powder burn... and as I'm typing this I'm sitting here going "Well ****, that's an engineering challenge on its own right there..."
Seems if you eliminated the automotive brake rotors entirely and used the outer flywheel edge in the brake calipers (assuming you can reduce runout to an acceptable level), the much longer moment for the brake would massively improve energy transfer.
Next time should get disc break calipers from a semi. That way they’d be air operation and when you cut air supply you have giant springs instantly clamping on the fly wheels
The Samaritan fires 22mm rounds, you'd need someone with the same license needed to manufacture a machine gun to make the rounds for that gun because it's WAY over .50 caliber (it's .86 caliber, well, slightly larger than that but close), or a "sporting use" exemption from the ATF and that takes a while, I guess you could put the paperwork in now.
Note: black powder firearms that don't use self contained ammunition are exempt from the NFA callibre restriction which is how people are able to own functional reproductions of things like flintlock muskets and civil war era cannon.
@@hlynkacg9529 True, if you did a black powder version... not sure how much powder would have to be in that round to push the bullet, but yes, you CAN have larger than 1/2 inch bores with BP guns.
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How did i grow up watching myth busters, and NEVER heard of Savage builds until this channel?!? Freaking Discovery..... wish I could watch them for free. They don’t deserve my subscription for a streaming service after this. 😡😡😡
Pls next video make axel vehicle from twisted metal.Also your works are awesome kepp it doing it man :D
A channel or show entirely based around the idea of attempting to make movie weapons and test their viability.
FYI the Samaritan wouldn't work, safely, because the chambers do not wrap the entire shell casing. It would explode out the back and injure the operator.
Hey Adam have you ever been to Hamburg in Germany? If yes hvae you visited the Miniatur Wunderland (literal translation: miniature wonderland)?
"Keeping those ideas in reserve, potentially for another show."
Don't you play with my fragile heart.
"WE'RE RUNNING AFTER THE PANJANDRUM!" is DEFINITELY a new sentence at-utterance. What a moment.
That would be super funny to 'slip' in a conversation over coffee and see the look on someone's face, Meanwhile in thsir head.... WHAT DID THEY JUST SAY ABOUT RUNNING A, what,,,,,, a marathon is that a new term for marathon???? (thoughts in the mind of the receiver after hearing you say that over coffee. Just would be fun and funny.
In WWII it never really worked and more often than not people ran away from it
Respect, fellow spotter of unsaid utterances!
Somebody absurdly rich please give this man money for a full fledged CZcams reboot. What mythbusters did for science and engineering and critical thinking was one of the primary inspirations for my interest and knowledge in those subjects today. 💯
Even though Jamie and Adam definitely didn't get along at times, it's awesome to see the amount of respect Adam has for how smart Jamie is at coming up with solutions to problems.
Yeah, the professional respect between them is fantastic, and something we can all aspire to. "This person will never be a good friend of mine, but that's OK. They do good work. I do good work. We do good work together. That's all we need."
Yeah, and also they say time and again, they never disliked one another, they just would never hang out outside of production.
Cause outside of what they were working on, they had very little in common.
@@georgewl while it's true that they don't hate each other, Adam has all out said that they do not get along at all on a personal level. Other than doing work there's tension between them, and that's also sometimes the case concerning work.
They are more like brothers.
"It'll be fun because I'm doing it"
A perfectly reasonable statement; I wouldn't watch many other people just make some shelves...
Now I want a Savage Builds season 2 more than ever
Panjandrum 2.0 An Adam Savage - Mark Rober collaboration!
I'm pretty sure Mark could design a new braking system hat could stop those flywheels and probably design you a really smooth flywheel.
Magnets would operate with the least friction
@@AWSum-uf4ri If it's supposed to be a period accurate attempt at a workaround though wouldn't the magenets have to be brushes electromagnets? And brushed motors make friction 😅 also not sure how those would hold up as rocket brakes😅
THIS ALL OF THIS!!!
I thought about this problem. You want to transfer the energy as quickly as possible. My solutions involved having some sort of mechanism on the panjandrum to catch (well, be physically struck by) the flywheel.
Or use more breaking area like the brakes on a train or multiple sets around the flywheel. If you don't have some give parts will fly off like bullets with those forces. The frictionless magnetic brakes they use on some roller coasters might also be worth looking into.
Oh, I'd love to see a partnership with you and Forgotten Weapons to test the live-fire Samaritan.
Seems more like a Mark Novak/Anvil thing
Also the design of the Samaritan is inherently problematic with its open cylinder wall. I don't know how you'd get around that.
@@j.yossarian6852 you would have to make custom ammo that's caseing could handle the pressure using less powder would help too
Would never happen, politics in the way
@@mblake0420 who's politics? They seem pretty on the same wavelength and Adam has been friends with a few firearms guys.
The nitro episode was the best Savage Builds episode imo. Felt very mythbusters-like. Lots of suspense, unexpected things, and also the failures during the tests made it so much better.
I love how excited Adam gets in explaining his successes and failures.
It's all fun and games until the build tries to escape into the wild.
Panjandrum:
the main problem of the panjandrum was that the rockets did not ignite and burn equal on both wheels.
Solution:
1. build it with 3 wheels, one in the exact center.
2. attach the rockets to the center wheel only.
Firing Samaritan:
is that caliber close to 12 gauge ?
a version that could fire standard shotgun ammo would be rather practical, as you would not need to make special ammo.
you may have to alter the dimensions somewhat, but for a working gun that might be worth it.
I'm no gunsmith, so perhaps I'm wrong, but the other problem I see with the Samaritan is that the cases are not enclosed by the cylinder. It looks neat, but the brass can't contain the explosion by itself - it needs to be braced by a chamber (or cylinder wall) or else the brass just bursts when the powder goes off.
A firing Samaritan could actually work well if you shape the bullets like a shotgun slug : hollow. 1 ounce shotgun slugs fire quite well with roughly the amount of powder that would fit inside that casing and a hollow bullet that size.
Thats a great idea
About 30 years ago I was involved in replacing a hospital emergency back up generator. The old genny was ancient, like Frankenstein lab looking ancient. The emergency power for the hospital was supplied by an electrical motor driving an alternator with a massive flywheel between them. When the power failed the energy in the flywheel would keep the alternator spinning till the generator fired up and then supplying power to the electrical motor again. This was basically a old style UPS system. We pulled the whole system out and replaced it with a modern UPS and generator. The flywheel was insanely heavy.
I just love that Adam knows people that can do absolutely ANYthing that needs done. Or, things that do not need to be done. That's the best part.
PANJANDRUM design improvements
1. True Flywheels - maybe as easy as shims on hubs
2. Balance Flywheels - 1,000 rpm at this diameter makes the tiniest imbalance critical
3. Mount truck brake calipers to grab the outer flywheel - this will increase their torque capacity by the diameter ratio of the flywheel to the brake rotors. The rotors would also absorb and dissipate massive amounts of heat compared to the puny truck brake rotors. The friction surface will also be operating at the diameter ratio higher speed, these combined factors will produce braking of about the Square of the diameter ratio.
4. use 2 or more brake calipers per side for balance
I think the caliber of the Samaritan classifies it as a “destructive device”. Check with Gun Jesus on Forgotten Weapons
if they do a colab i think i might just faint from blood loss to the brain, NGL
There's no way a Samaritan build will happen while Adam is in California.
So take it on the road :-)
Outside of CA you can go up to .50 caliber that is a half inch bore.
CA not understanding the difference between the .50 BMG they wanted to ban (for some reason, they are rarely used in crime) and anything with that size bore banned anything with half inch bore.
@@1978garfield you say rarely... but has anyone actually used one in a crime? the guns cost like 10 grand. petty criminals simply cant even afford one
Dear Adam, instead of adding an extra possible failure phase in the Panjandrum, just release the flywheel by itself? Your team was terrified when the test spin-up caused it to move a few feet. That raw terror was correct, use the flywheel by itself and don’t waste energy with “braking.” Unleash the terror!
So, straight up. I would love to see a hour-long episode about what dealing with/making nitroglycerin in the real world is like.
A Finnish gunsmith here... I was wondering about the firing-able Samaritan, because the roll containing the chambers has holes in the sides. Somebody knowing a lot about WW2 British weapons said it was originally built from a 4-chambered flare pistol, in which context the holes do have some sense to them, because flare cartridges have a very small amount of gunpowder to propel the flare and parashoot.
I fear that if you packed enough propellant in there to make the slug travel at any useful speed, the pressure would be enough to rupture the shell through the hole. Having a hole in the side of a high-pressure firing chamber is generally a very bad idea.
Brass is much more soft than steel, and even normal handgun rounds sometimes rupture, even with the fully intact chamber around them, if there is any gap between the two.
When chambering firearms, there is a set of measuring tools to confirm if the chamber is shaped correctly and has the correct depth. The "GO" -gauge must be able to be chambered and the breech fully closed and locked. The "NO-GO" -gauge must not be able to be chambered and should prevent the breech from locking. The difference between the two is 0.02 mm. That's two hundredths of a millimeter (I don't speak inches). So, it's a delicate matter, carving a chamber that is up to spec. And that is precisely to prevent brass ruptures in chambers that are too big.
I see titles like, "Wheel of Death" and hear "nitroglycerin". It's amazing no one was ever seriously injured making these episodes. 👏Some thought was required to keep people safe.
Oh man the concept he talks about at 11:00 of building things that people in the past wouldn't know TO build but COULD build is something I'm obsessed with. An experimental archeologist PHD student friend of mine and I have had long talks about building a Roman telegraph - they didn't have the scientific understanding to design it, but we strongly think that they could have built it with the materials and methods they had access to.
If anyone has any links to more examples of that concept, I'd love to see it.
You might be interested by Joerg Sprave's Instant Legolas and variants thereof.
Ultimately, in essence, a power-assisted semi-automatic bow. Made with techniques known to be used in, say, medieval Europe.
Read the discworld novels about the Clacks (like a telegraph using light and shutters and people on towers observing). that's doable with a lower level of tech.
"Doing the same thing over and over again but raising the stakes each time" isn't that basically the show 24 in a nutshell?
From what I remember reading (A while ago) When the British built the Panjandrum, no one actually expected it to work. It was considered more useful to let the Germans find out about it and freak out a bit while the real devices and tactics were created.
Instead of using breaks to transfer the energy you should have just used clutches, they make them to handle anything from a 1/2 horse power weed whip to a 10000 horse power race car.
I built a panjandrum for my daughters school project. I used 5ft wheels and used a heavy weight attached to a rope wound around the spindle. The weight was the driving force. It worked really well.
Every time I see the samaritan, I wish it was a firing sample, because it's so close to perfection. Adam should make it fire .410 shells, which are lower power, yet can be placed inside a larger shell to make it look more prop-authentic.
The powder to bullet ratio is one thing - the bigger problem with the Samaritan is that the chamber has a whacking great hole in the side of it. Cartridge cases can have thin walls only because they’re supported by the chamber, so having those big cutouts in the cylinder... well, I’d recommend firing it from a clamp with a string....
I have grown up watching you, and you give you credit for my career as a electrical engineer/ Fire Alarm and Safety Tech. With the wheels you might want to make tread on the wheels so it can grab and pull.
use a dragster clutch system on the panjandrum
Two possibilities to consider, instead of using basic heavy truck brakes, could upgrade to carbon brake pads since the coefficient of friction goes up with heat (low when cold and the wheel isn't moving yet, higher when the wheel starts picking up speed), or switch to an Eddy Current Brake
For the Panjamdrum, you could try sourcing the drum brakes from a semi truck. They're designed to stop 40 tons, and need about 150psi of air to do so with a 6 gallon tank. That could worked into the design and you'd very likely get the braking force needed.
The Samaritan build would be fascinating. The propellant to bullet ratio has a bunch of variables however, powder to grains would relate closer to how a M203 grenade launcher lobs a 40mm projectile. I would say, right off, the exposed fluting of the cylinder would prime the handgun to detonate/explode with the chamber pressure of the round being fired. Another variable for the rounds and the cylinder would be the overall recoil; too much and not having crimped your case heads around the bullets will "walk" the bullets lose and forward, locking the cylinder in place.
I think it would be prudent to study the physics of a Smith and Wesson 500magnum while firing to have a grasp on what the capability of a functional Samaritan could/would be.
Savage Builds should have gotten a second season, so should Mythbusters Juniors.
Also White Rabbit Project with Tory, Grant and Kari
I'm thinking his ammo is a high/low pressure system like the M203 grenade launcher.
The M203 carts have a strong internal chamber for high pressure ignition of the powder and an expansion chamber under the projectile.
You need high pressure to get complete ignition, low pressure is fine with large diameter projectiles.
***
Nail-set blanks could be the power-source; bore out a steel core to hold the blank and make the high-pressure section.
Remember to off-set the hole! These bad boys are rim-fire!
The passage between the blank drill-out and the expansion chamber end of the core would be a great spot to put a rupture-disk: a bit of heavy paper to hold back pressure until the perfect moment....
The visible outer walls of the cartridge would be simple brass tubing soldered/crimped to the high-pressure core, the bullet crimped to the tubing, a gap between bullet and core.
If a bullet falls out, not powder to spill.
With nail-set blanks, you can choose your power setting.
Should be fairly consistent with shot-to-shot velocity.
***
This allows the cylinder cut-outs: the high-pressure section is self-supporting with the expansion chamber/bullet supported by the cylinder .
Weight savings, if nothing else.
Bullets that big going around 200 meters/second are gonna take down most anything.
And with silver, the more metal that stays in the baddie, the better!
As to why the Samaritan is so big, well, it makes a nice club when empty!
I am so glad you have revisited the Panjandrum, I was always fascinated by those old films!
Adam, you're such a cool person that we all just wish we could sit and chat with. This is the next best thing. Thank you!
Talking about explosive things going missing.. My dad was involved in the decommissioning of the UK bomb arsenal after the war, essentially carting them out into the Irish sea and dropping them overboard. He used to drive a flatbed truck with several 1000 pounders on the back from the Midlands to the West coast. Coming back from one drop off, he found a Police cordon closing off a roundabout, in a ditch was one of the 1000 pounders... He recognised it as one of his, and came up to the police to retrieve it, they wouldn't let him saying it was dangerous. He said it had been disarmed and was harmless - to prove his point he got a wrench from the truck and with the Police watching in horror he thwacked the detonator hard - nothing happened... He was free to put it back on the truck!
If you DO go back to the wheel of death project, maybe consider a 'starter' rocket on the main wheel to help get the wheel moving before you activate the flywheel clutches.
If I was building it, I'd use something similar in concept to the catapult on an aircraft carrier. Have the wheels 'launched' from a stationary platform that spins it up, and then use the rocket+flywheels to maintain momentum instead of trying to start from a stationary platform.
back in the early 90's I wrote a convoluted Excel spreadsheet based on the BTRC publication called GUN! GUNS! GUNS!
It was a book of formulae to convert real-word and fantasy guns into RPG versions. Players being players, they always want *their* favorite (usually rare and exotic) weapon in any of dozens of RPG systems.
My spreadsheet took all of that and boiled it down to just a few standard parameters and spat out the results based on muzzle energy (mass x velocity.)
To (finally get to the point) I remember the difficultly in finding energy quotient in various propellants to apply to the mass of the projectile, reconciling it with burn time and the minimum length of the barrel to achieve that time, and the point at which a barrel was too long and robbing the projectile of energy from friction. What a nightmare.
Anyway, the instructor was impressed and I got full marks for something I was doing anyway!
Rabbit hole: projectile shapes, the specific mass of various materials, ratios of length to diameter...I took a lot of that and boiled it down to the more common choices while Using date ranges to estimate the energy/gram and burn rates of chemical propellants. Fun times.
The biggest problem you have is anything 1/2" bore or larger with no sporting application is an NFA destructive device.
@@oftheforest6572 i dont know that anticipation?
@@oftheforest6572 all he needs is a sot and an ffl. That's not all that easy to get.
@@oftheforest6572 oh ok I get you. Like having a qualified person on site. Is that really sufficient?
@@oftheforest6572 is it possible to get an NFA exemption on something that hasn't been built yet?
@@oftheforest6572 I'm not either, I'm kind of don't think that would work
A 1972 episode of the sitcom Dad's Army featured a fictional radio.controled version of the Panjandrum. The episode is titled "Round and Round Went the Great Big Wheel"
That panjandrum build you did with the flywheels, if you're going to use a disc brake system you'd need the brake setup of something like a Le Mans race car. But honestly, in my opinion, the most effective way to transfer that energy efficiently would be with a (Don't quote me on the actual name of this, I can't exactly remember tbh but I think I'm going to be close) Hydrostatic transmission with clutch packs and a planetary gear system. The heat produced from transferring the energy stored in the flywheels is used to heat the oil in the transmission to progressively engage the clutch packs as the oil gets hotter it expands and grabs the clutch plates in the clutch pack allowing you to transfer that stored energy into forward motion.......kinda exactly like an automatic transmission 😏
Random (untested, may be horrible) thought for energy transfer: a giant “clock spring” (the kind where flat spring steel spirals bigger and bigger around a central core)... locked to wheel axis at center; starts unengaged with respect to flywheel, but when ready, another (possibly also spring-driven) mechanism plunges a pin at the outer edge into a slot in the flywheel. At first, slack in the spring allows the pin to easily accelerate... but as the spring tightens, more and more energy starts getting transferred... maybe?!?
Hi Adam, just had a thought about a simple potential solution to the braking issue. Maybe you could create threads on the ends of the axle? The flywheel would thread itself into the axle as you spin it up, like a nut threading on a bolt, and then once it reaches the end of the thread, the momentum will be transferred to the wheels. You might need to beef up the stopping point so that the energy doesn't just strip the thread.
Twin disc slipper clutch on the outsides of the pangendrum. Clutches fixed to main shaft. The clutch disc's attached to fly wheel same way car engine clutch is set up. Can obtain crazy clamping forces greater than brake setups. Using progressive slipper clutch valve using on drag racing cars you can progressivly increase the hydraulic pressure on the clutches allowing slight slip to start and obtain higher clamping power.
Hope that gives some idea may be way off base for a garage tinkerer.
For the Panjandrum, you need some sort of transmission to transfer the energy from the flywheel to the panjandrum. I don’t think a disc brake would ever work. The other idea might be to pin the flywheel to the panjandrum somehow instantaneously, but I don’t know if that would work either because the force would probably shear the pins. More small-scale testing should be done to get the best approach.
As a gunsmith and hellboy fan, I would love to see a live firing Samaritan. I wouldn’t say anemic, but you would be lucky to get 550-700 FPS (700 being highly optimistic) with that ratio, but due to the ratio you still have a good bit of energy transfer. If you are unable to make a fully functional revolver at least make a single shot pistol to test the cartridge. It wouldn’t be exactly the same, but it would be interesting to see the ballistics.
If Adam reads the comments i have a quick idea for the death wheel rebuild. Put equal distance notch cut outs on the fly wheels (like a skill saw blade) then have a spring loaded axel attached to the wheel slam down on the notches instantly transferring all energy to forward motion. No breaking required.
First thing I thought of when I saw the panjandrum on the show was why not move the rockets inboard. A few rockets not firing or bad timing doesn't matter much if they're in plane with the centerline
Just watched the nitro episode and the line "its a rental" cracked me up so hard, great stuff!
The wheel of death - you've done an episode where you roll marbles down different curves and the fastest one is due to a mathematical formula, the Fibonacci Sequence I think, but anyway, start spinning the whole contraption at the top of one of these curves - when it gets up to speed, nudge it off and let it roll - you can even launch it into the air with a well placed ramp. Then you can aim it and even build a dedicated ship to launch it from the sea. Maybe?
Concerning the Samaritan revolver;
That case size/volume may actually be right depending on the desired velocity.
I would refer you to the old M79 "BLOOP" gun that launched 40mm grenades that kind-of-sort-of looked similar [albeit EVEN BIGGER]
The REAL problem is containment of the high pressure gases. With the chambers open and the case side wall exposed you WILL have a rupture,
IT WOULD BE DANGEROUS AND IRRESPONSABLE!
Also, there is the integrity of the barrel to consider. If you want to propel a very Large and Massive Bullet that size you will need to engineer a strong enough barrel. The problem is somewhat mitigated by the gap between the cylinder and the barrel, but that is very brief in time and most of that pressure will enter the barrel and it will have to content with HUGE forces that I think would require a much thicker barrel (again, depending on the velocity desired).
That weapon design was as stoopidly asinine as the childish concept of "Hellboy"
Just another immature dumbass idea meant to "look cool" from Hollywood.
Reality is by far, more impressive
Hellboy and his revolver is at best a joke.
but, yeah, go ahead, waste your time, built it exactly the way it looks. My prediction is a catastrophic rupture that damages the top strap and ruins the gun.
I think you should just balance the panjandrum. Then spin it up like the flywheels and just let them go.
Dual belt drive. Then a 1 long cutter spanning both drives along your drive pulleys then cut into those pulleys simultaneously spliting the belts to time it perfectly.Itd be a U shaped latch with a smaller cap, so when you launch it itll swing down forcing it that single direction it was knudged in and the U shape ensures that in tandem with the swing motion.
In fact the latch and cutter should be 1 piece to ensure the timing perfectly
That is why dynamite was such a good thing when it came out. It stabilized nitro glycerin into a usable form.
For that wheel of death thing, as far as braking the flywheel, the design in my head has the flywheel with spring-loaded plates which pop out at a ~20 angle. The plates are held flat using explosive bolts. Once you want to brake the flywheel, you'd trigger the bolts and these plate then pop out and collide/catch opposing plates on the frame of the wheel. The back side of these plates on both the flywheel and on the frame have a positive overhang on the hinge-end of the plates. It would be absolutely spectacular to watch and I guarantee you that, it'll be usable a single time, but it would most certainly work. (Just to be clear, these are not flimsy, sheet metal plates. I'm thinking 1" thick plates of cold-rolled steel. Each plate is 8" x 36" and there's 30 on each flywheel and 30 corresponding on each side of the frame.)
Point of order: hedgehogs were made of S-beams or bigass angle iron, rebar is nothing at that scale.
I guess you never got Dad's Army in the States. One of the best episodes ever.
Yup they lost theirs too - it had a life of its own.
Honestly, while the wheel of death is cool, I think I prefer their solution. A tank with a bunch of super fast spinning chains on the front. They slam into the ground and churn up mines and barbed wire and any enemy soldier who wasn't smart enough to move. There were a LOT of really inventive ideas back then.
I've really loved understanding your relationship with Jamie, the way you quite obviously have great affection for the man, without particularly liking him.
I am surprised you guys even tried brakes. When you are dealing with a flywheel on the same machine you got those brakes from....what comes after the flywheel? a Clutch! (or torque converter). Was an awesome episode to watch in any case.
Imagine being some poor guy driving super early in the morning, probably super tired and barely awake, and then seeing that giant wheel rolling down the road. XD
I wonder if they did not come up with the idea of transporting them on their side^^
Or an old German veteran on a walk thrown into immediate ptsd anxiety
@@antraxxslingshots They were so tall that if put on their side it would be too wide for the road.
@@ryandowney8743 That indeed makes perfect sense :)
Did he say, "Crazy expensive, like Binaca expensive?" Wasn't that a breath freshening spray product from the 70's?
The Samaritan *sounds* so good when handled, as good as it looks.
You should collaborate with "Stuff Made Here" on the firing sammmaritan build! Also you could tie it in to a "what's the biggest handgun you could physically make and use" narrative 😁
Not sure if anyone mentioned it already - but the easiest way to make it more stable - would be to add 3rd small kind of steering wheel or some weight that would be dragged at the back...
The biggest problem is probably that you have to take all the energy from ONE flywheel which - at the beginning - is spinning very fast. This makes the brakeing rather difficult due to putting MAXIMUM STRAIN on them at the start. A better but far more complicated solution would be to have 2-3 flywheels which are spinning at different speeds and are used at different times ... one to actually make the flywheel start moving (the point which requires most energy ... but not necessarily most rotational speed) to then increase the speed in several stages, which is where increased flywheel speed would be needed.
12:25 If you do attempt this, please be aware that the "windows" in the cylinder, which provide a view of the cartridge/chamber, would be catastrophic in a real firearm. The cartridge-case could never withstand the chamber pressure, and would quickly become a "second barrel". So, you'd either need every single cartridge to essentially be it's own chamber, or you'd need to have "faux windows" in the cylinder.. You probably already know this, of course. But it seemed worth saying, just in case. The inventors madness can blind us all to obvious dangers, on occasion.. As to the powder-to-slug ratio, that depends entirely on what you want the round's effective range to be. If you only need it to damage a target across the room, you'd be fine.
I hadn't discovered Savage Builds till recently, watched the Panjandrum episode today. The first thing that bothers me about the flywheel drive is that the device is at maximum kinetic energy coming off the platform, and then it's coasting till it stops. In the episode Adam discusses asymmetric rocket thrust, then looks to remove the rockets. My first thought is to remove the asymmetry. Why not add a third wheel on centerline, perhaps a little smaller diameter and mount the rockets on the OD of the centerline wheel. Misfiring rockets shouldn't produce any left / right torque.
adam savage: thinks doing the same thing over and over again with progressively higher stakes for an _hour_ would be a hard sell to a network
anime production companies: think doing the same thing over and over again with progressively higher stakes for over a _THOUSAND_ hours is the perfect model for an ideal tv show.
...funnily enough I'd say they are both right, it's weird just how much an entertainment product changes with the environment it is in
"so we'll just make bigger wheels" 💙
I saw the panjandrum video last week, was neat. I work at a college with a mechine shop I told the instrcutpor for that area they should make one. He said we could do small scale make somehting with drums on hte edge and a vane structure in the center, spint it up off ocmpressed air on some bearings then just pull the bearings apart and let it go.
They have a magnetic braking systems uses on large 18 wheelers. Since they dont touch they will have smooth transfer of energy. Jay Leno Used a small one for one of his Fire Trucks. Also Check out the open disk brake at the Hutchinson Salt mine Strataca. They use their 10 foot disk brake every day so the engineering is already done for something that size
Granted since it transports humans it is spinning slower but they have to account for a runaway too :)
I love the Jamie Hyneman impression
We all do
I felt like the Panjandrum might have worked better if they'd been able to delay the final test until the ground dried up some. They ended up testing it on, like, the worst possible day.
I just saw the episode for the first time today and I'm like yelling at the TV "yall! It's muddy as hell!"
When you do redo it, I would modify the wheel surface to properly disperse weight and to gain good traction. Skinny flat metals wheels aren’t very conducive for traction in a wet muddy field.
Best way to increase braking power is to reduce leverage working against you, and use caliper on outside edge of flywheel. (Basically use flywheel as caliper)
Our chemistry teacher, had been an employee at a factory that used to produce NG. And one of the stories she told us about said compound, was that the thing was so, so, so unreliable and so unpredictable, that one time, in the middle of a test that involved droplet sized quantities, 4 out of 10 charges from the same batch (yeah, same batch) did not reach purpose.
There's a reason that stuff is universally loathed and it's not just urban mythos, there's a big truth to it.
11:30 "We're going to do the same thing over and over again, and each time it explodes. Or doesn't. We won't know till it happens!" Sounds exciting to me :P
If you really want to make a working version of the Samaritan, one way to increase the charge to projectile ratio is to consider hollowing out the base of the projectile to make room for more propellant (similar to the Rocket-Ball, but with additional powder contained the metallic cartridge.) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Ball This should improve the ratio of power to projectile weight, and could possibly help it engage the rifling in the barrel as the charge spreads the rear of the projectile against the sides of the barrel.
So, for nitroglycerin, the problem was, you couldn't get it to explode reliably when you wanted it to, but also couldn't stop it from exploding when you didn't want it to. I think that's the definition of a dangerous substance.
Adam, if you try it again maybe look into a mechanism similar to what a saw stop uses. An explosive toothed brake could transfer the momentum rapidly similar to how it works to pull the sawblade away from you fingers.
The problem with brakes is that they dump the energy.
There's got to be some kind of clever hack to drive the wheels with less energy loss. Something using an epicyclic gearset and a huge paddle wheel (to couple torque into the air).
Savage Builds was great, wish they'd make another season. The "Iron man" suit was jaw dropping incredible engineering
That round would be awesome!!! Sure a 9mm scaled up to 12ga size, think about those proportions if you want to break your wrist. Keep it how you got it, Sub sonic has its value too!! Quieter, Yet enough mass to probably slam a softball size hole in a brick wall, I love it! Try and make a "less leathal" freight truck punch! 👊
Why not build your "pangendrum" like a bicycle rather than horizontally. Once running it won't fall over. It maintains its upright stance until it is moving very slowly. The beauty of the bicycle style is that it makes changing direction very difficult until it is slow. Also you could have your rockets on the bridge between the wheels. You could rotate the wheels up to speed & have rockets on it as well.
Instead of breaks use a clutch system something similar to 18-wheelers
Can some one of the patreons ask Adam: Did he watched "Epic Rap Battles of History: Ghostbusters vs Mythbusters", and what was his reaction? take 3
Here you go: twitter.com/donttrythis/status/531883784367775744?lang=en
That's definitely an unlikely amount of powder to actually work. If you ever do pursue it, I'd suggest starting with a simple breach loading test "gun" before you mill out a fancy replica. With that little powder and that much diameter you'll probably have bullets wedged in the barrel that are hard enough to remove that you're probably better off just replacing the barrel.
the problem i saw with the initial flywheel build is that you didn't use an accurate "hub centric" design.... it's something i see every day being an automotive technician. when people buy crap aftermarket wheels that don't accurately center on the hub of the axle they end up with vibrations while driving- very similar to what i saw on the test spin-up of the flywheel. the flywheel also had a lot of run-out which also causes harmonic vibrations- this may have been caused by the process used to make the flywheels- if they were flame cut or plasma cut that can cause warpage of the steel as one side will be hot and the other very cold as they are cut out. it may require re-designing the centering of the centering hub and then final machining of the outer edge of the flywheels after they are installed on the hubs- this also is something from the automotive world that there are devices called "on car brake lathes" that machine brake rotors while installed on the vehicle to ensure that the hub doesn't cause run-out as sometimes the hub can be warped/slightly bent and machining a hub on a brake lathe and then re-installing it back on the car you'll still end up with vibrations while braking. possibly switching to a smaller diameter but thicker flywheel that can be machined true after it's installed on the hub might be the hot ticket.
Instead of using breaking force which introduces energy losses through heat, it would make more sense to use use a multi gearing system (reduction gear system) that would allow a relatively high rpm (1000 rpm, high mass (900lbs)) rotating object to tansfer it's kinetic energy without substaintial losses. So using a 1000:1 ratio you would obtain a very high torque rotatining drive wheel at 1RPM for a 1000RPM flywheel. To ensure this high torque, 1 RPM, is efficient you would want to ensue the drive wheel wheel (tires if you will) will have sufficient traction (like a tractor wheel) to grab and properly engage in the terrrain since the speed will be slow (1RPM) but the torque will be huge. I think you would find a direct drive system like this would be extrremely efiicent. However you would need to design an engagement/disengagement system, a clutch if you will.
I love this weapon, mainly because of the Dad's Army episode where they have one...and it escapes while being tested :P
Question, because it seems obvious is your initial test, why would you even try to transfer the energy in the penandrum instead of making the flywheels themselves the wheels? Rev them up with the wheels elevated off by the axel and some sort of ramped launcher? Once they are at the desired speed release the stopping block or break on the axel.
If the Samaritan v.Steel ever gets made, maybe consider Rocket Assisted projectiles? Not Gyrojet stuff, but just a simple rocket propellant at the base of the projectile that is activated by the powder burn... and as I'm typing this I'm sitting here going "Well ****, that's an engineering challenge on its own right there..."
Seems if you eliminated the automotive brake rotors entirely and used the outer flywheel edge in the brake calipers (assuming you can reduce runout to an acceptable level), the much longer moment for the brake would massively improve energy transfer.
Next time should get disc break calipers from a semi. That way they’d be air operation and when you cut air supply you have giant springs instantly clamping on the fly wheels
The Samaritan fires 22mm rounds, you'd need someone with the same license needed to manufacture a machine gun to make the rounds for that gun because it's WAY over .50 caliber (it's .86 caliber, well, slightly larger than that but close), or a "sporting use" exemption from the ATF and that takes a while, I guess you could put the paperwork in now.
Note: black powder firearms that don't use self contained ammunition are exempt from the NFA callibre restriction which is how people are able to own functional reproductions of things like flintlock muskets and civil war era cannon.
@@hlynkacg9529 True, if you did a black powder version... not sure how much powder would have to be in that round to push the bullet, but yes, you CAN have larger than 1/2 inch bores with BP guns.
If you try the Panjandrum again, use an eddy current brake that acts directly on the flywheels.