fresh bytes
Subscribe Now

Clayton Bailey makes spectacular rayguns out of junk and scrap

120203-bailey-guns-047edit.jpg

The first thing you’ll notice upon entering Clayton Bailey’s workshop is the man and his mustache. The ends of his majestic facial hair curl down either side of his mouth and don’t stop until they’re well down his chest.

Next you’ll notice the many steampunkish ray guns — from dueling pistols to rifles to turrets — that Bailey has constructed from materials he found at flea markets and scrap yards around the San Francisco Bay Area. Instead of shooting lasers, they utilize either lungpower or pump-action air pressure to launch peas, corks or bits of potato a third of the way down a football field.

They’re gorgeous and entirely nonlethal, unless you’re targeting someone with an especially bad allergy to peas, corks or potatoes.
Wired via Boing Boing

Continue reading 

Leave a Reply

featured blogs
Feb 6, 2026
In which we meet a super-sized Arduino Uno that is making me drool with desire....

featured chalk talk

Drone Applications & Technologies
Sponsored by Mouser Electronics and onsemi
In this episode of Chalk Talk, Bob Card from onsemi and Amelia Dalton explore the wide breadth of robotic and drone solutions offered by onsemi. They also investigate the role that current sense amplifiers, image sensors and inductive encoders play in these types of designs and how you can utilize onsemi solutions for your next innovative drone application.
Jan 26, 2026
25,461 views