Im wondering how much of an angle for my cake boards and my racks is safe..Theres nothing behind my house, so I want to have everything angled out that way..On a prevoius post I had a pic of my rack with a 2x4 under one end and someone said thats fine. But Now I cut back the plywood base, so its about 13"x13", and the cake boards are 2'x2' a 2x4 under the rack makes a decent angle however the 2x4 under the boards really doesnt ( I would say about 5 degrees) Can i angle the boards more? Or should I put a larger base on the racks so the angle is a little less? Sorry if its confusing
graybeard
June 24th, 2006, 06:19 PM
Keep in mind that when you angle a rack or cake board, the recoil force is now directed a bit to one side, instead of straight down against the ground. If you have any angle built in, I think you should be sure you have a wide enough base to keep the board or rack from rocking or tipping in the direction of the recoil force. Large wide based cakes angled at the thickness of a 2/4 should not be a problem. Where you could get into trouble, is with an angled rack that is fused to fire a large number of simultaneous shots, such as in a finale. You want to make very sure that the recoil force, multiplied many times, cannot tip over the rack. Also be aware that cake boards and racks can bounce on thick grass as the shots lift. The grass acts almost like little springs. I saw an angled rack go over this way once because of bouncing on long grass. Some guys have a little swivel flipper on the bottom of the rack which is their only lateral support. I'm not confident those are totaly safe. If the rack gets to bouncing as the shots lift, I fear that flipper could fold up, allowing the rack to go over. Everything changed when the Excals became available. Those of you that have fired them, know what I'm talking about. The recoil force is quite significant in the Excals and warrants extra attention in stabilizing your racks.
dmbjoker
June 24th, 2006, 06:53 PM
I was afraid of it bouncing over, so I was going to use a longer piece of 2/4 so it would extend out on each side maybe 1 foot, also theres about an inch lip in the front I was going to put a cinder block on it. I think that shoudl do it, Im not gonna fire all at once Im going to do them in a Z pattern