Blowguns are easy! You need to find a nice straight tube from 3 feet to 6 feet long. For beginners I say 3 to 4 feet is best for learning. When you have practiced long and hard and are ready to try a longer one from 6 to 8 feet! It will be time for you to leave "Clodhopper"..
OK What can I use? My favorite and the easiest to find is 1/2" inside diameter alluminum conduit from YE OLDE HARDWARE STORE. You want something between 3/8" inside diameter and 3/4" inside diameter. ( Yes you really do!...) Alluminum is great for 3 to 4 feet but after that you have to worry about the tube flexing under its own weight. Kind of like my paunch. Ah Well.. Anyway , what ever you find has to pass this simple test. Hold one end up to your eye and look at something brightly colored....in the day time smarty! If the center of the hole at the other end is more or less in the center of the tube and you can't see hardly no saggin' no way no how, you are in business! If you can only finD 1/2" PVC and it flexes somethin awful, buy a short piece of the next size up that will slide over your main piece like a sleeve. This will stiffen your tube right up!...Don't say it!.. For a 4 foot piece of 1/2" you want about 2 feet of 3/4" and you can slop glue or tape on 'em to make it permanent but you WANT the short piece even with the inner tube at one end. This will be your mouth piece end. As you hold it you can see that it balances nicely this way! The one in the photo up there is a night navigation light fixture off of a ski boat and is .72 cal. 4.5 feet long and the mouthpiece is actually the waterproof light fixture. I found it along the lake shore and its mine now! Mine I tell ya! I purdied it up by sewing a piece of ostrich hide on the first part and wrapping leather straps on to the rest of the first half. You always want to leave the last foot or more of your tube at its narrowest with maybe some camo or black tape or paint on it only. That is for aiming which we'll get into later.. |
