Five years ago there were 61 milk cans on his carbide cannon. Last year 100. But now Henk Jan Reinders is making it all the way. His latest creation contains 116 milk cans. What makes him tick?
“This is a ten-year project,” Reinders grins. “I started with a small cannon. And every year I made it a little bigger and more modern.”
Yesterday he tested the cannon on the premises of his transport company in Emmen. It is the first time that filling the milk cans is completely automatic. This is done with a computer. “I don’t know anything about that myself, so someone helped me with that.”
You need calcium carbide to shoot with carbide. These are often white lumps. In a closed container it reacts with water to form flammable acetylene gas. When there is a spark, you get a bang.
And in Henk Jan’s installation, the computer fills each milk can with 10 liters of gas. Ignition is also done at the push of a button.
This creates an enormous cacophony of explosions, which are so loud that you also feel it in your body. And Henk Jan thinks that’s great: “Then you get the feeling that life is still quite beautiful sometimes.”
Watch this video to see how Henk Jan gets the carbide cannon working: