My niece and I were watching some television show early this morning and on the show was mentioned that someone's watermelon blew up. We looked at each other and almost in unison said "air hose."
Off to the local farmer's market we went for watermelon, pineapple, canteloupe, honeydew and a variety of other melon options. All to no avail.
Initially tried spearing the melons using a pointed nipple with a quick coupler on the end. Then taped it all in place to keep things from blowing out. No go. Always leaked around the side. Then fitted a nipple to an expanding mandrel. Sort of like an inner cam bearing puller. It would expand on the inside but still leak. The watermelon did at least expand this way. Taping it in place didn't help.
Also tried cutting threaded holes in to the sides of the various melons and using stuff from the brass supply. Always leaked. A watermelon treated this way did at least rupture. But there was no catastrophic and total body failure we were hoping for.
Tried both gradual and sudden pressure applications. Ranges from 60 to 150 psi. Never got a fully satisfying fruit or melon dynamic explosion. Finally tigged up a box and used some fast setting epoxy to put a piece of plexi down. Put a fitting on that and put a vacuum on it. Got a semi satisfying rupture of a honeydew melon that way. Though, dammit, didn't have a gauge on it so don't know what pressure it took to cause the implosion.
Surely someone here has been bored enough in a pit some hot long Saturday afternoon that they've found away to blow food up with pressurized air. What fruit or vegetable or tuber (sic?) or other foodstuff has a strong enough outer body or membrane to hold an air fitting and pressure long enough to then suddenly and violently fail in a satisfying and catastrophic manner. I promised the kid we'd try again
.
(three trips to the farmer's market and 29 options never did the trick)
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Topic: Need Help Exploding Fruits and Vegetables (Read 3937 times)