7 Hacks That Turn Everyday Objects into Deadly Weapons
The world is rife with mundane crap that doesn't qualify as even remotely lethal, and that's barely hilarious at all. Fortunately, with some moderate tweaking, even the simplest of items can be turned into something horrifying.
Just ask the inventors of the...
Super Soaker Flamethrower
When Super Soakers arrived on the scene, they put ordinary squirt guns to shame with their extended range and awesome power. Sure you had to pump till your arm cramped into a freakish, bent claw, but that just prepared us for many lonely, cold nights in front of a glowing monitor.
It was only a matter of time before some disillusioned youth with pyromaniac tendencies and a fascination with WWII-era weapons of horror noticed that water wasn't the only thing you load into it. And where more wholesome youth would have stopped at firing delicious nacho cheese from their squirt gun, others were determined to turn a water-soaked afternoon of fun into a fiery nightmare of unsupervised hooligans and singed eyebrows.
Super Soakers have ranges up to 45 feet, meaning when you set one ablaze you can torch your neighbor's house from the convenience of your own kitchen or barbecue their hot dogs for them without having to stop watching Maury.
The Internet offers up a wide range of videos on just how to make one, with some budding young arsonists and future burn victims choosing to rig up an ignition system while others simply get a friend to hold a lighter under the flammable stream (because there's probably no way that could end badly).
Though if flaming guns are too modern and crass for your tastes, you can always burn yourself the way our forefathers did by wielding this guy's flaming sword.
Hemi-Powered Big Wheel
Remember the Big Wheel trikes we all had as kids that were slightly slower than walking, and that we rode until the plastic tires got holes in them and our legs cramped from the completely non-ergonomic design of the ass-numbing seat? Marcus Braun does and had a hankerin' for the good old days, because when Dodge announced a "What Can You Hemi?" competition, Braun set to work making the most dangerous children's toy this side of China.
Arguably the best part of a Hemi-powered Big Wheel is the hilarity/horror presented by the fact the driver can't actually see over the handlebars to know just who or what he's crushing, but as long as they have wicked awesome streamers blowing in the breeze it probably doesn't matter much.
In theory there's nothing wrong with a Hemi-powered Big Wheel, it's just the slippery slope it represents. You know, we build bigger trikes, they make bigger babies. Soon we'll be overrun by seven-foot tall, 300 pound toddlers with jam hands and ridiculous amounts of horsepower.
Handgun Helicopter
Think those fancy unmanned aerial combat vehicles are only for the armed forces? Think again! All you need are a handgun, an RC helicopter and a lack of common sense and you too will have the ability to smite your enemies from on high like Zeus tossing out lightning bolts.
Jim Simmons, presumably unhappy that his previous shootings required him to get off the couch, rigged up a Springfield 1911-A .45 caliber automatic to his toy helicopter, just for the hell of it. For those of you not familiar with guns, this type is favored by law enforcement and the military for its stopping power and shootability. If you absolutely must have a flying handgun, this is the one.
While you may think a remote controlled helicopter shooting blindly as it flies through downtown or wherever is hilarious enough already, Simmons hooked up a camera to the helicopter so he could, you know, aim and make it harder to argue against premeditation.
If you've ever flown an RC helicopter, even one not carrying a sidearm, you're likely well aware of two things they do very well: crash and explode. Often simultaneously. Combine that with the inherent difficulty of control, and an armed helicopter seems just as likely to take out its owner as anyone else, though if it was caught on video it would clean up on YouTube.
V-8 Chainsaw
According to the U.S. Product Safety Commission there are over 28,000 chainsaw injuries in America every year. According to Robert Andrews, that number is laughably low.
Andrews built a chainsaw powered by a Buick V-8 engine, named the Predator because "Fucksaw" was already taken, to compete in log-cutting contests. Yes, there are actually other V-8 powered chainsaws out there, along with probably quite a few legless woodsmen.
The chainsaw can cut through a four-foot log in two seconds, or about as long as it takes other competitors to shit themselves, and has never lost a competition. The Predator requires Robert and a buddy to stand on each side to lift it while searing hot exhaust belches out against them, which they don't mind so long as in the end the tree learns its place and never again dares to grow peacefully, all giving off oxygen and shit.
Besides the fact that this saw could chew through a sea of bodies like a hot knife through butter, only faster and with more screaming, like any chainsaw it's prone to breakage. As witnessed by this clip, these saws can backfire very suddenly in a burst of flame and kick ass red suspenders.
The Predator however has only broken once, according to the creator, but it broke so hard that a hunk of the chain was found a mile and a half away in a hotel parking lot, undoubtedly full of terrified tourists and adulterers.
Human Slingshot
Building your own amusement park ride seems like an impossible undertaking. Between the construction costs, the insurance issues and wrangling and vaccinating all the carnies, you're probably never going to get a roller coaster in your backyard. You can, however, stretch a big rubber band between a couple of poles like these guys.
The slingshot is made from two power line poles, a homemade bungee and some overeager kids on a four-wheeler who long ago abandoned their sense of self preservation in favor of a desire to watch a friend's ass get forced into their neck.
The potential for this contraption to go horribly awry is high. Nevermind a faulty bungee or poor launch trajectory, one loose harness strap and you'll be flying through the skies as gracefully as a drunken hobo scales the stairs into the subway, and towards the same result: broken bones and shitted pants.
Sawdust Cannon
A sawdust cannon is supposedly a way to make explosions without the inherent danger of real explosives, which is like saying stabbing someone with a screwdriver is like stabbing without the inherent danger of knives.
When you force compressed air into 30-pounds of sawdust with a road flare jammed in the middle, you get a massive explosion. The flare ignites the air/sawdust mixture and creates a scale model hell on Earth.
The cannon was tested on the TV show Mythbusters and, after creating a fireball even bigger than the one in the video, claimed that the technology was too dangerous for even them, and should never be shared with anyone. This seems slightly disingenuous though, after explaining exactly how easy it was, then broadcasting it to millions of rabid, tech-junkie viewers. It's kind of like giving a kid a candy bar and telling them not to eat it. Then waiting until they start eating it to make it explode.
Rocket Bike
These days, rocket bikes are as common as syphilis. A quick Google search will net you a few hundred thousand results. Most of them are loud, dangerous and don't do much except for sputter and smoke a lot, like grandma only less incontinent.
THIS WAS THE WORST IDEA!
Then you have Tim Pickens, an actual rocket designer. His "not fucking around here" bike incorporates the same hybrid fuel design used in SpaceShipOne, the first privately funded spaceplane to take a human into space, which, oh by the way, Pickens helped create.
The bike is fairly simple, in a crazy fire-a-few-inches-from-your-ass sort of way. A battery pack ignites a model rocket engine which vaporizes roofing tar, fueling the engine and creating 200-pounds of thrust. The rocket bike can go from zero to 60 in five seconds, fast enough to beat a Porsche--though probably still unable to help you land the girl riding in the Porsche.
The major design flaw though is not Pickens's engineering, but the base model he chose for his bike. The bike is a Pacific, sold at Wal-Mart and put together by guys who likely enjoy Pabst and weed for breakfast. Demonstrating faith in his design, Pickens lets his 13-year-old daughter ride the bike, which does less to give us faith in the bargain-basement bike and more to lower our faith in his parenting skills.
Then again, at age 13 what would you have given to trade your dad for a Rocket Bike Dad? We're guessing a lot.
While we don't condone creating one, we'd be failing in our civic duties if we failed to inform you that flamethrower is totally legal. Find out what else is, in 7 Items You Won't Believe Are Actually Legal. And find out about some iconic weapons that are being developed, in 5 Famous Sci-Fi Weapons That They're Actually Building.
And check out the Top Picks to see how our modified pens are truly mightier than the sword (we're talking about our dongs).
