Please, don't try anything you're about to see at home.
We're what you call experts.
On this bigger-is-better episode of "Mythbusters",
The team takes four fan favorites
to infinity and beyond.
"X" marks the spot.
That's where we're aiming for.
First, can Adam and Jamie whip up a weapon
from a water heater?
Favorite thing to blow up, right here!
Then, will they make the earth move
with earth movers?
I'm Jamie Hyneman,
and I'm gonna thread a needle with an excavator.
Whoa! Stop!
Meanwhile, Tory, Grant, and Kari
turn into rocket scientists...
I think we got a winning design here.
to see if a flight by fireworks is really possible.
Keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times.
And finally,
the team flings some bling in bird balance 2.0...
All we need now are some supermodels.
as they find out if a longer limo can give them
the cliffhanger ending they need.
Look at the back end!
It's coming off the ground!
Who are the mythbusters?
Adam Savage...
Eating food cooked with C4.
And Jamie Hyneman.
Between them, more than 30 years of special-effects experience.
Together with Kari Byron,
Right tool for the job.
Tory Belleci...
We only have one shot at this.
and Grant Imahara.
That was a great result!
They don't just tell the myths.
They put them to the test.
Buckle up, because on "Mythbusters",
What's that about?
In this episode, we are working off suggestions
from fans for stuff that we've already done
that we didn't necessarily mess up,
but they have a suggestion of a way we can bump it up a level,
ramp it way up.
Like what?
Hot-water heaters.
Fans love it when we blow them up,
and they've noticed that they make fantastic rockets
when you point them vertically.
But now they want to know what happens
if we point them horizontally.
What kind of cannon would a hot-water heater make?
I like that.
All we have to do is take one out to the bomb range,
strap it down, shoot it at something
and see what kind of mayhem it causes.
That's exactly what I was thinking.
Ever since the first tank turned torpedo,
water heaters have become a "Mythbusters" Favorite.
And the new fan request is this --
if you replace a vertical launch with a horizontal one,
can you really create a cannon?
To find out, the guys wash up at the bomb range
armed with their weapon of choice.
So, how do you want to set this thing up?
Well, if the fans want to see
a water heater made into a cannon,
I guess we got to lie this thing on its side.
And if we're going to shoot it on its side,
I feel really strongly that we need to shoot it at something.
Well, you want to go and find something to shoot at,
and I'll set this up?
I think it's a great plan.
It's a divide-and-conquer-type plan
that sees Jamie getting to grips
with their pressure vessel in waiting.
We've set off these water heaters before,
and we've learned a couple of things.
The first and most important
is that you always want to be able to abort.
I think we're losing pressure somewhere we can't see.
We've just got to abort.
All right. Well, I'll pull the valve.
Sometimes things don't work the way you plan.
So, in this case,
we've got a valve that we can open like so,
and that'll relieve the pressure.
The other thing that we've done
is that we've put a couple of pressure sensors here
so we'll always know exactly what's in this tank,
and we won't approach it
unless these things are saying zero
or unless we've opened the valve.
So, that's the cannon...
and here's the cannon fodder.
Yep, Adam's become the man with a van.
I know it's big and red,
so it's kind of like hitting the broad side of the barn,
but that's not gonna stop me from making a target,
'cause targets are pretty.
And with the target taking shape,
that just leaves the lock and load,
a process which starts
with the addition of 30 gallons of water...
My favorite things to blow up, right here!
and ends with the unit being hammered into place.
We're solid.
With a mini bulldozer parked in place
to further contain the cannon,
the heater gets powered up.
Shall I walk you through
exactly what's gonna go down here?
Actually, I think it's pretty clear what's gonna go down here!
I think my work is done.
But for any of you at home
worried your water heater might also go ballistic,
here's some reassurance.
Why doesn't this happen in your house every day?
Quite frankly, because they've designed it not to.
And here's how.
First, they don't restrict
either the inlet or the outlet ports of the hot-water heater,
so that's one place the overpressure can go.
Secondly, there's a thermostat in here,
which, when the hot-water heater's temperature gets too high,
shuts off the power to both heating elements
until the water heater cools down.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly,
is right here, when you install a hot-water heater,
you must install an overpressure-relief valve.
That means when the pressure in here gets too high,
it goes -- and releases the water,
thus releasing the pressure from the cannister.
Needless to say,
the mythbusters have disabled all of those features,
which is why they've gone to hunker in the bunker.
All we do now is wait.
It's about halfway there, about 150 psi.
I love this part.
This kills me.
From past experience, Adam and Jamie know that
there's no blow until the pressure goes beyond 300 psi.
And 40 minutes later...
305 psi.
They're right in that butter zone.
That was awesome!
That was.
I truely totally
did not expect we would knock over that truck.
In fact, I would have bet against it.
And we wheelied the little earth-moving machine.
Like a geyser on steroids,
the power of the cannon has quite literally blown the van away.
And a closer inspection of the damage reveals
just how forceful their firearm was.
I found our projectile.
That's the bottom of the hot-water heater casing.
And that -- ooh, it's hot!
That's the bottom of our hot-water heater cannister.
With debris strewn far and wide...
That was the windshield.
it's definitely mission accomplished.
But that's given Adam and Jamie an idea.
Dude, it threw our van on its side,
and it weighs 5,000 pounds.
I would not have called that.
Well, our little loader weighed 6,000,
and it popped a wheelie,
as well as this has maybe a ton of lumber underneath it.
So it moved like 12,000 pounds of stuff,
all from boiling water.
It's a pretty effective cannon.
Yeah, but you know what?
I think we can do better.
I think you're right.
Well, that's what the mythbusters are gunning for next.
Next up, a blast from the past.
Okay, so, what have we got?
Well, you guys remember fireworks man, right?
Yeah. That was, like, one of the best stories we've ever done.
Well, get ready for fireworks man: the revenge,
because fans want us to give this one another try.
To see if we can get a successful launch?
Exactly.
Fireworks man told the story of a pyro pilot
who flew 150 feet courtesy of 500 skyrockets.
But when Kari, Tory, and Grant put it to the test...
their small-scale flight wasn't promising.
And their large-scale launch...
was even worse.
But fans want this tall tale tackled again.
Okay, so, people were disappointed
with our flight vehicle the first time around,
arguing that if it were a little more slick,
it would have gone the mythical 150 feet.
I get that, but let's not forget that
this was something the guy built in his garage.
It was never gonna be some carbon-fiber,
super-aerodynamic thing.
Right, but that's what the fans want.
This time, they want something a little more sophisticated.
All right, why don't we figure out what we did wrong last time,
fix it in small scale,
and then take it to full scale?
But this time, let's throw some heavy-duty rocket science into it.
NASA?
Yeah!
So, step one in fireworks man 2
is to work out what went wrong.
And Grant's already got that sorted.
So, the first time we tried this,
we had two problems.
One, the curvature of the surfboard caused lift,
which caused us to exit the ramp early.
Second problem, buster's center of gravity,
which is this line right here,
is above the center of thrust,
which is this line right here.
Now, for maximum stability,
those two should be right on top of each other.
In charge of making those improvements is Tory...
who not only addresses the two pivotal flight-path problems...
"Oh, Tory, that's amazing!"
"Aw, thanks, Kari."
but also adds a couple of stability upgrades of his own.
All right, so, these are the changes that I've made.
I've lowered the center of mass,
so that it is in line with the center of thrust.
Plus, I've added a nose cone to make it more aerodynamic.
I'm also adding larger stabilization fin.
The last time, our fins were too small,
and it went out of control.
So, now that the model is done,
we're gonna take it to the wind tunnel
and see if this is aerodynamic enough.
It's kind of like "Men in black"?
Once inside, they pivot their model at its center of gravity.
It's looking great.
If the model stays put when the wind test starts,
then their design is stable.
But any deviation, and it's back to the drawing board.
All right. We're set.
Okay. Let's turn on the wind tunnel and see what happens.
Bring on the wind!
Under the watchful eye of expert Steve Smith,
the 50-knot wind gets fired up.
But their hopes go down.
Pretty stable.
Steady as a rock.
- Wait, wait... - Fireworks...
That's what happened last time.
All right.
So looks like fireworks man is not stable at all.
Yep. Flipping a 180 and then wobbling in the wind
is about as unstable as it gets.
What if we put the rockets in the back?
That's all I'm saying.
So, we just tested the new design for our fireworks man
in the wind tunnel,
and so far, it is not looking very aerodynamic.
But we're not gonna give up.
We have bigger fins.
Hopefully, that'll give us stability
and that'll be the winning model design.
And with those bigger fins glued in place,
it's time for test two...
where this time, things are looking solid.
It's working.
Looks good.
So, if it really is stable,
we should be able to nudge it a little bit,
and it should restore back to its original flight plot.
Don't nudge it too much.
That's stable.
That's awesome!
I think we got a winning design here.
Still to come, will fireworks man take flight?
"X" marks the spot.
That's where we're aiming for.
But next, Adam and Jamie unleash the big guns.
In 3, 2, 1.
What happened, what happened?
In revenge of the water cannon,
Adam and Jamie have just had a blast.
That was freaking awesome.
Yeah. That was great, wasn't it?
But it wasn't really an honest-to-goodness cannon,
like with a cannonball.
You're right. What are you thinking?
What if we put the water heater
inside a really heavy cannister with a barrel mounted on it?
And let the energy from the exploding hot-water heater
contained by the cannister propel the cannonball forward.
Exactly.
So, now we've seen the awesome power
inherent in the hot-water heater
when you place it on its side, and it's not unimpressive.
In fact, it's pretty incredible.
We tipped a van over.
We knocked a 6,000-pound digger backwards
and lifted 2,000 pounds of railroad ties.
We find ourselves wondering.
What happens if we took all that energy and focus it
and compressed it?
Yeah. That's what we're doing next.
We're going to encase this hot-water heater in steel,
we're gonna focus all this energy out of barrel,
and I think we're gonna come out with
a pretty darned respectable cannon.
So, with the design idea sorted,
you might say it's full steam ahead.
In we go.
First, Jamie dives into the heater-containment section.
It's nice and cozy in here.
Made of half-inch-thick steel pipe,
it should be strong enough,
but Jamie's taken no chances.
We've taken three heavy passes with a welder
on this side of the flange,
and we're gonna do the same on the other side.
It may seem kind of overkill,
but we've seen what these water heaters can do.
Meanwhile, Adam's taken aim with both barrels.
For the barrel,
I'm using two 20-foot lengths of schedule 40 pipe.
That's good.
That 40-foot length should give my cannonball
plenty of time to go as fast as possible.
We have clearance.
We want to harness all of this cannon's steam power.
Indeed.
And after a quick, 40-foot paint job,
Adam's finished lock, stock, and barrel...
I think it looks lovely. Don't you?
which leaves just one thing...
Jamie's base-plate catcher.
So, we're gonna put our water heater inside our cannister
and wait for it to blow.
Now, when it blows its bottom, just like this one,
it's gonna rocket towards the front of the cannister.
But because we don't want it to plug the hole
that lets steam into the barrel,
we've put a heavy, steel plate at the end of the cannister
so that this thing will tilt
and let the steam flow up and over it
and into the barrel without any turbulence.
At least, that's the idea.
It's a good idea in theory,
but will it work in practice?
Well, back at the bomb range,
the steam cannon will have to wait,
because first to fire, is the control.
Before we fire off our steam cannon,
we need to have something to compare it to,
so we've gotten ahold of an honest-to-goodness,
traditional, civil war-era cannon by the name of O Moses.
All we need is something to shoot at.
And that's something Adam's already lined up.
This is our target --
four pallets full of hollow, concrete bricks.
What we're hoping is is the bricks
will have enough stopping power to halt the cannonball
at somewhere along its path within these four pallets
so that we get a nice comparative metric
as how much power the cannon is putting out.
If, for some reason,
the cannonball makes it through
all four of these pallets of bricks,
well, we've got a fifth one filled with sand,
and that is definitely gonna stop it.
All right, everybody, this is for real.
Cannonball, the control, in 3, 2, 1.
I can't see what happened!
What happened, what happened?!
It hit the bricks.
It sure was a direct hit.
But what's important here is not the aim,
but the number of bricks destroyed.
That's the benchmark that their steam cannon will be compared to.
And after surveying the damage...
This is it! I got it!
Yeah. There it is.
those numbers are in, and they're pretty substantial.
So, what have we got?
Well, we had 11 rows penetrated,
37 bricks destroyed,
and 23 knocked off.
That seems like a pretty good metric to start from.
Yeah, well, we'll see what the steam cannon does.
Later, the mythbusters fling some bling.
Unbelievable.
We finally get a luxury car, and what do we do?
We throw it off a cliff.
But next, will fireworks man hit infinity or beyond?
In 3, 2, 1.
At NASA's wind tunnel...
Bring on the wind!
the new and improved fireworks man is riding high...
I think we got a winning design here.
because in a head-to-head stability test,
version 2.0 has trounced their original design.
That's awesome!
So now the team has headed to the middle of nowhere,
for its maiden flight in miniature.
We're here!
Ready for science.
I am so glad we are revisiting fireworks man.
Now we're gonna test our small-scale fireworks man.
So far, we've taken it to NASA,
we've made a more aerodynamic design,
and next we're gonna launch it off into the desert.
Lay down our course with a marker every 10 feet,
up to 200 feet.
This is gonna tell us two things --
one, the distance our model travels,
and, two, if it flies straight,
which hopefully it does.
It's time for launch.
All right, so, we are all loaded, ready to launch.
Okay. Here we go.
Small-scale fireworks man in 3, 2, 1.
Awesome!
I don't know about you guys,
but I would say that's a successful launch.
I mean, that thing went at least 300 feet in the air.
Yeah. I think we got at least 150 feet in distance.
You know, it could have been a little straighter,
but this is definitely worth moving on from.
Yep. I think it's time we take this full scale.
This launch was such a phenomenal success...
that now its big brother beckons.
Let's go to work.
Well, back at the shop,
it's time to get building.
Tory focuses on the full-size flight vehicle,
complete with its large, wooden fins...
That should hold.
and gurney-inspired passenger capsule.
Meanwhile, Grant gives the ramp a revamp.
When we first tried this,
we had a minor problem,
and that was we had a trolley
that our shuttle was riding on all the way up the ramp,
but it separated prematurely.
That is not gonna happen this time,
cause we're doing away with the trolley,
and we are integrating our wheels directly into our launch vehicle.
So it's gonna travel all the way up the ramp,
and by the time it gets to the end,
it should be going fast enough
that the fins take over and we get a straight launch.
That's the theory,
and after a solid day's rocketeering,
it's almost time to put it into practice.
But first comes the all-important test on the ramp...
That's awesome!
and a patented "Mythbusters" Makeover.
Best rocket ever.
And with that, it's time to ship out...
This is gonna be so sick.
to one of the most iconic "Mythbusters" locations of all.
Dude, look at this spot.
I think this is perfect.
We put the ramp right here.
Fireworks man goes launching off into the valley.
I mean, it can't get any better than this!
We're here at a rock quarry in Angel's Camp.
Now, we've been here before.
In fact, we blew up our cement truck here.
We've pushed cars off of cliffs here.
Now we're seeing if over 500 skyrockets
is enough to send a man 150 feet in the air.
It's time to put this myth to the test, again.
But first comes the on-site setup,
starting with the ramp...
All right, why don't you bring that forklift in?
which, once out of the truck,
is raised up to a perfect launch angle of 50 degrees.
A little more!
Stop! All right!
That looks good.
Then the ramp's secured in place
so that it should withstand the full force of launch
without falling over.
This feels pretty solid, man.
I think we're done.
All right. Let's get the fireworks, man.
Next, buster gets dressed for success...
Look at that!
and strapped into the hot seat.
Remember to keep your hands and arms
inside the vehicle at all times.
A quick balance check later...
That's pretty good, right?
and all that's left are the fireworks --
all 500 of them.
So, we're gonna be launching our fireworks man
with this giant bank of skyrockets.
Now, these skyrockets can go up to 1,200 feet,
but that's without load.
We have a 300-pound load.
Now, remember, they only burn for three seconds,
so hopefully that'll give us enough time
to build up enough thrust to get our fireworks man to go
over the 150-foot mark that we're looking for.
This way, we can confirm this myth.
Confidence may be sky-high...
Hey, check it out.
"X" marks the spot.
That's where we're aiming for.
but the team is still taking precautions.
Just to give you an idea how dangerous this experiment is,
We had to bring in a bomb tech, a pyro tech,
the sheriff's department, NASA, and the fire department,
'cause in a few minutes,
we're about to have a flying, flaming,
potentially exploding man go off that ramp.
Here on "Mythbusters," you can't be too careful.
Ain't that the truth.
And with everyone retreated for safety, it's go time.
You guys ready for this?
I think so.
All right. Here we go.
In 3, 2, 1...
Holy crap.
In a complete reversal of their previous effort,
fireworks man flew straight, true, and then some,
crash-landing headfirst 700 feet downstream.
You cannot ask for a better launch.
We had the fireworks man on the ramp.
The rockets all went off at the same exact time,
shot up the ramp.
He went off, went straight,
and all of a sudden fired off like a missile,
going over 150 feet.
We have to confirm this one.
This one was awesome.
So it looks like the adjustments that we made paid off.
I mean, we've got a much stabler flight,
and it went a lot further.
So the physics are confirmed.
Yeah, it's confirmed.
But you know what?
Falling from that height, even into water,
survivability is questionable.
All right. Confirmed.
Just not very smart.
Confirmed.
Yeah. Confirmed, but dangerous.
Don't try that one at home, right?
Next on "Mythbusters,"
will a hot-water heater make a viable cannon?
So cantankerous.
Please do not try what you are about to see at home.
We're what you call experts.
Can't you tell?
At the fans' requests,
we've been looking into harnessing the awesome power
of exploding hot water heaters.
And so far, without any modification,
we got one turned on its side to tip over a 5,000-pound van.
But that's not good enough for us.
We want to make a real cannon.
So this time, we are sealing a hot water heater inside a heavy steel cannister
with nothing but a 37-foot barrel as its outlet.
We've already fired a civil war era cannon to give
ourselves a metric as how powerful a cannon should be.
And we're hoping to exceed that.
Assembly is definitely an "all hands to the pump" affair.
But pretty soon, the cannon's locked...
Okay. Kill it.
loaded...
and zeroed in on the target.
This brick right here?
That's where O Moses hit.
And that's where our steam cannon is aimed.
It's heating up now,
so sometime in about an hour -- well, an hour for me,
more like two minutes for you.
In about two minutes for you,
we're going to obliterate at least
one and a half blocks of concrete bricks.
That's the theory.
But unfortunately, in 20 minutes for Adam
and 20 seconds for you,
there's a problem.
In the realm of not being able to plan for every contingency,
take a note at our cannon down there, the blue and white stripe.
See where it is pointed?
A brush fire has just started on
the other side of the hill where we're aimed.
And we have to stop heating our water heater so it doesn't,
you know, shoot any fireman.
Who would have thought of that?
It's not the fire in the hole they were looking for.
But when the burning bush is brought under control,
the guys ratchet up the pressure once more.
All right, everybody, we're at 150 PSI,
so you can't leave your bunkers, you can't approach the gun.
It's a no-go zone.
This time, the PSI climbs steadily...
210.
just like it's supposed to...
220.
until it reaches 230, where it suddenly stops...
I just don't understand what's going on with this one.
and then drops.
175.
With the tank falling to a pressure that safe to stand next to,
their only option is to trigger the release valve...
Oh, man.
There we go.
and wait for the tank to empty.
It's a rainbow.
It's hardly the cannon chaos they were after,
but failure is always an option.
Well, round one was a failure.
There's no way around it. So we're gonna reset, have another go.
Next in revenge of the myth is another tall story.
Okay, so, what have we got?
Bird balance.
Ah, yeah. That's the one will the bird lands
on the hood of the precariously balanced car,
causing it to tip.
Yes and no.
Yes, that's the myth, but, no, it can't.
Do people dispute that?
No, but they have a good suggestion that they think it's
gonna send this myth to the max.
What's that?
A limo.
Oh, that's a good idea.
A limo's longer than a regular car,
which means the tip of its hood is further from the pivot point.
And therefore it should be easier to send it over the cliff.
The last time the guys tested this classic car cliff hanger...
Two pigeons -- not happening.
only a farmload of poultry could get the car to pivot.
But the longer the lever, the less weight it takes to tip.
So fans have asked if a lengthy limousine
can be unbalanced by a bird.
And that's not their only request.
But there's more.
The fans were not satisfied with our cliff.
They want to see this car go over an actual cliff.
Okay, well, that means real birds are out.
We better start preparing some fake birds.
Yeah, and considering how much mass
it took last time to send the car over,
I'm gonna have to start
building the heaviest flying bird there is.
In case the big bird doesn't work,
I'll build something that will drop large amounts of poultry.
Sounds good.
Sounds weird.
Sounds bird-brained.
But large fake fliers it is.
Now, since we're moving on to a more extreme car,
the limo, it is fitting
that we move on to a larger bird -- a kori bustard.
Now, they are native in Africa.
They are one of the largest birds known to fly,
and they weigh around 40 pounds.
Now, since we don't have them here in North America,
I need to make one.
So, I have a bag of sand that weighs around 40 pounds.
What I need to do is make it look a little bit
more like the bird before we drop it on the limo.
By re-creating the world's heaviest flying bird,
Tory's giving this myth a helping hand.
He's also giving it a helping voice.
What do you think?
Say hello to my robobird.
Tory's avian animatronics is firing on all cylinders...
Good kori bustard.
but it won't be flying solo.
Okay, so I finished the turkey chandelier.
We can drop up to 40 turkeys onto the hood of the car.
At 25 pounds apiece, that's upwards of 1,000 pounds of poultry.
Here we go.
Fire one.
Fire two.
Just like that.
With their bird booty in tow,
the mythbusters head to
the deserts of New Mexico,
where they've travelled in style.
It is about time we get to ride in style on this show!
All right.
I think this is the perfect candidate for our experiment.
Let's push it off a cliff.
It's kind of a shame, don't you think?
Not really.
All we need now are some supermodels.
Well, New Mexico Tech may be short on supermodels,
but for cliffs to balance cars on,
it's ideal.
All right, as you know, I hate heights.
It's not so much the heights that I hate.
It's falling to your death.
That part I hate.
But this myth calls for heights.
We needed a cliff.
And we have the perfect cliff.
This thing is 300 feet tall.
We're gonna balance our limo at the edge
and see if a bird landing on it
will send it over.
I'm getting out of here.
The good news is that
at least Tory won't be in the car when it tips.
Adios, muchachos.
Have a nice trip.
See you next fall.
But with only one limo,
they can't risk losing it before they've even started.
So, first, to find its pivot point.
The plan here is to find the butter zone for the tipping point.
To do that, we have a teeter-totter,
which is a pipe -- it's a rounded edge.
We'll find the center of mass of the limousine
that way and mark it.
All right, mark it.
Then we're gonna lift the limousine up, put it on a slab.
We're gonna find the tipping point off of a knife edge.
All right, looks pretty good.
Somewhere between those two
should be our perfect zone for tipping.
Unbelievable.
We finally get a luxury car, and what do we do?
We throw it off a cliff.
And to do just that, the car is first hoisted into place...
Stop!
and then balanced on its predetermined tipping point.
Remember, this is all about the science of the fulcrum --
The further out we are from the fulcrum,
the easier it is for a small weight
to be able to tip that lever,
and basically tip our car off the cliff.
But will the kori bustard be enough to tip the balance?
The car is perfectly balanced.
We're about to drop our heavy bird -- the single-bird experiment.
I think we actually have a shot at this one.
I think that car's gonna go off the cliff.
All right, you guys ready to do this?
This is the kori bustard,
the heaviest flying bird landing on the front end of the limo.
Okay, here we go...
In 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Coming up next on "Mythbusters"...
I'm not actually sure.
Plus, Adam and Jamie get exuberant with excavators.
Oh! Stop!
We might have gotten it!
With cannons behaving chaotically, it's time to switch gears.
Remember excavator exuberance?
I do. We tried rowing, waterskiing,
and climbing all based on YouTube videos,
and it turned out you could do all those things.
Right. But...
But...?
The fans wrote to us and said,
with all that time and practice with those beautiful,
big excavators, why couldn't we have come up
with our own crazy thing to do with them?
Okay. I like that.
Well, what if you did something counterintuitive,
like little things with big machines?
You mean like comically delicate operations
with huge pieces of industrial equipment?
Exactly.
I love that.
Let's totally do it.
Last time around,
Adam and Jamie's excavator viral videos were three for three.
This has got to be one of the strangest things that I've ever done.
As each stunt,
based on pure mechanical power,
was confirmed.
Holy crap! It's working!
But now, in a viewer-request fest...
This is perfect!
the "Mythbusters" are taking a different tact.
Oh, yeah.
The seemingly impossible challenges they've set themselves...
And now for the thread.
involve not brute force but delicacy and precisions.
See whether that'll do it.
Jamie's in the hot seat first.
Granny here's got a problem.
She's a little bit old, a little bit beyond her years,
and she can't see very well.
She's got socks to darn, but she can't thread her needle.
So dutiful grandson Jamie's gonna help her in the only way
he knows how -- with large pieces of heavy, industrial machinery.
Now this poses certain challenges.
First off, the thing is so heavy that
once you get it going,
it's kind of hard to stop it,
at least if you're talking, like, tiny,
tiny fractions of an inch.
Stop.
Come in.
And the second thing is that the controls themselves -- well,
they're just not that fine.
You're nudging the bucket.
So, whether it'll actually make those
little delicate movements we need or not
is anybody's guess at this point.
But after a few minutes of constant communication...
More?
Yeah, a little bit more.
and patented "Mythbuster" perseverance...
"anybody's guess"...
Oh! So close.
turns into "mission accomplished"!
Oh! Stop!
We might have gotten it!
Yes! It's in!
Yeah!
Pull it through!
Don't believe it? Check this out.
That is one threaded needle with an excavator.
Nice work, granny.
Now you can get back to work on my socks.
That was James Hyneman.
Using a diesel-powered,
38,000-pound hydraulic excavator,
Jamie threaded a needle with surgical precision.
Question is,
can Adam pull off something more impressive?
Let me walk you through how this is gonna go.
I'm gonna try and pour a glass of wine
from this bottle into this glass using that excavator.
I've got an attachment on the bucket of my excavator
that hopefully will allow me,
with Jamie's help and guidance,
to pick up this bottle of wine and tilt it.
When it is properly aimed over the glass,
I am going to pull out a paintball gun
and shoot this cap off the bottle of wine,
hopefully releasing the wine into the glass.
And if all goes well,
we'll have a sip to celebrate.
Once again, the mythbusters
do their delicate digger dance.
Am I lined up nice and level?
Back just a hair.
This time, easing Adam's wire arm over the bottle...
Looking good!
Yeah, you're clear.
Awesome!
Here we go -- lifting the bottle of wine!
Showing all the control of an excavator expert,
Adam swiftly gets into position to prepare to pour...
All right!
Let's uncork this puppy.
With -- what else? -- a paintball gun.
Safety is off!
Here we go.
Uncorking.
You got it!
That is pouring, baby!
It's perfect.
Tastes like paintball and victory.
While this method of pouring your wine might not be for everyone,
I think that we definitively proved
that if it's just you,
your loved one, and some heavy machinery,
it's totally viable now.
Our videos are in the can.
Do you think they're gonna go viral?
Only one way to find out,
and that's to upload them to the net and wait.
Well, let's do it.
Okay.
Coming right up,
Bird balance reaches its cliffhanger finale...
Oh! It's coming off the ground!
and will Adam and Jamie's loose cannon fire?
310; 320.
Go!
Precariously perched 300 feet up,
the "Mythbusters" limo is fixed for
its cliffhanger finale.
Let's let him stabilize for a second.
But will the 40-pound bustard tip it over the edge?
Okay, here we go...
In 3, 2, 1.
Despite the wind,
it's a bull's-eye with the bird.
But there's no shift to the slant.
I thought it was gonna go.
We had the advantage of the lever,
the super-heavy bird, and the wind going nuts.
I can't believe it didn't tip.
All right, let's get some more birds.
All right, I got just the thing.
Yep, it's time for Grant's reinforcements.
This is the turkey chandelier.
It holds 40 turkeys, each one weighing about 25 pounds.
We've got a rope with an individual quick-release
to each one so we can drop them one by one
and see how many turkeys it takes
to send the limo over the cliff.
You guys ready for the turkey chandelier?
All right, turkeys away!
One by one, the out-of-date turkeys tumble
into position on the very front of the hood...
Smashed the windshield.
and just like last time,
the number of birds the car can hold
is taking everyone by surprise.
It's amazing how much weight the car can take.
In actual fact,
it's not until there's 500 pounds of poultry
that the limo starts to lean.
Look at the back end!
It's coming off the ground!
24!
I think it's about to go!
25!
All right, one more.
- Drop one more. -26!
At last, we have liftoff.
26 birds!
That was awesome!
Awesome for sure.
But one kori bustard and 26 turkeys,
or 700 pounds in weight,
means that this myth is busted not once but twice.
Any way you look at this,
it's not gonna happen.
For one, it's very difficult to get perfectly balanced
on the edge of a cliff.
And even if you are perfectly balanced,
it's not gonna take one bird to send you over,
two birds or three birds or five birds.
It's gonna take many, many birds.
And even with a really long limo,
it took 26 turkeys to send us over the cliff.
This one is busted.
Let's get out of here.
Importantly, how are we getting home?
- That was our ride. - Jive turkey!
Turkey! Jive turkey!
With wildfires...
and pressure leaks...
So cantankerous.
the water heater's first mission was a failure.
It's a rainbow.
But having replaced the culprit --
a misfiring heating element...
We are good.
Everything's hooked up.
the "Mythbusters" are nearly set for take two.
Gonna see Jamie and me zapped back in time.
It'll be like, "We can provide you with the ultimate weapon
as long as you've got a day to set it up
and your enemy doesn't move for six hours at a time
and you don't mind a one-day reload,
we will smite them!"
Luckily, it's not the efficiency they're testing.
It's the cannon's power.
Well, everything's bolted in place, and the thing is heating up.
Shall we get to safety?
I think it's time.
Well, this is the second time we're attempting
to set off the hot-water heater
inside our closed-canister cannon.
And hopefully, the results will
be far more spectacular than the first time.
I hope this works.
Remember that should this cannon go off...
200.
they'll compare the subsequent brick destruction...
1450 210.
to their earlier civil war cannon tests...
There she is.
and to ensure an accurate comparison,
the distance between the barrel and bricks
is identical -- 26 feet.
Things are starting to happen really quickly now.
We're increasing about a PSI every 6 seconds.
That's fast.
This time, with no spontaneous combustion...
280.
or strange pressure plummets...
290.
things are finally cooking with gas.
2070 300.
300 PSI?
Yep.
2140 310.
320.
Go!
Wow, that was like a dun! Foom!
And then it was a fire holes.
It sure was both wet and wild,
as their cannon finally went crazy.
But how does the all-important damage shape up?
It doesn't look like it made it past the first pallet.
I think that's the ball right there.
Where's that?
Where is it?
Oh, there it is.
That was really, really lovely.
I'm a little sad that it didn't go farther,
but it still went respectably deep.
Respectably deep is right.
Because while it may be true that the steam cannon had less
destructive power than its gunpowder counterpart,
the damage is dramatic.
That means it's an effective cannon.
It's not practical.
It's not easy to move around a 40-foot cannon
and wait hours for it to go off,
but it's pretty dangerous.
It's a serious cannon.
Well, that was a cannonball,
that was a cannon.
It did its destructive thing,
and I think we proved our point.
I think mission is fully accomplished.
All right. Well, let's get out of here.
Figure out something else to do with hot-water heaters.
I love those things.