2004 Trackster Parade Tank

Kevin Kipferl's latest Trackster project for this years 2004 Memorial Day and 4th of July parades in Mansfield PA.


Construction

cardboard1

cardboard2

duck tape1

duck tape2

paint1

paint2

Kind of a last minute fabrication job. It only took my brother and I roughly 12 hours to construct. We were up all night the night before the Memorial Day parade. We finished the paint job at 7:30am Memorial Day. The parade was at 11am. Rained all day. It held up quite well considering it was constructed from only cardboard and, YOU GUESSED IT, " DUCK TAPE " - the handyman’s secret weapon. We used a 10-foot length of 3" schedule 40 PVC pipe for the cannon. We cut it back for the 4th of July parade to 6 foot. " 4ft outside" so we could elevate the barrel. It was too heavy before. We also made two "tootsie roll" guns with 1 1/2" PVC pipe and compressed air for a propellant. We shot a paper cup loaded with red, white and blue confetti at the judge’s stand on the 4th with the main gun. We used black powder for this! - Had to have some smoke ya' know.



Memorial Day Parade 2004

Ready

Set

Go

Shoot!

The vents (one on each side) in the front let the engine heat out. The vent in the rear is for the gas powered air compressor's exhaust. We used the compressor for the "Tootsie Roll" shooters.



4th of July Parade 2004

Ready

The Parade

Napping

Old soldiers motto: Why stand when you can sit; Why sit when you can lay down.

Sleep




Here is a short movie showing Kevin putting the Trackster through its paces. The file is 1.7 Megabytes. Let it load up the first time (it may be jumpy) and then play it again once it's full downloaded to your computer. Note: it may require a media player update to load properly.

Download Times:
10 minutes at 33.6
5 minutes at 56k
Less than 1 minute at T1
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