26 replies to this topic

[Pineapple]

Following a wise-guy remark by a fellow member of NerfHaven after I criticized his homemade, the challenge was laid down;

"anonymous member" said

I bet that you guys couldnt make that, and if you do, than post it here, otherwise you are sissies, so just f**k off.

So I took it as a personal challenge. I took apart my FAR (which I would probably never finish because I'm a simplistic bastard), and my SNAP-3 (which was basically a couple of tubes), and got crackin' on it...

Here she is...

My "Anti-Crossbow", of sorts. Yeah, I love purple.


Here's the chargerod that I placed in the stock, as per Carbon's SNAP 1.5 variant. I used 1/2" CPVC for my plunger rod, to save some weight (and hopefully increase plunger speed). The chargerod handle sticks out about 1.5" so I epoxied a marker cap (nice lime green so I can see it) over the end of it, and now it's threaded for removal for maintenance. The chargerod is positioned so that it won't hit any of my body parts while aiming in a normal rifle-type manner.


While I liked my little carbine-length barrel, it wasn't efficient at all. Now resides 11" of PETG nested in a PVC sleeve. Future plan will have two of them in atypical Crossbow quick-reload, flip-breech fashion.


I don't have the proper SNAP spring, all I had handy was some 6 inch pop-up sprinkler springs from a couple of Hunter heads. I stuck one into the other, as each individual spring wasn't much to write home about, finished slappin' her together, then did some test runs.

50 feet flat! Wow, it works!

Now mind you, this is with totally wrong springs. Which also led to it's first premature failure.

The springs being big and rather coily (as opposed to the proper spring wound tightly around the plunger rod), the springs or catch must've gotten caught on the plunger gasket (rubber fender washer), and now there's a tear on it, and while it still shoots 25-30 feet, it was taken down again.

Of course, I now have enough parts to build 4-5 more SNAPs, and I'm heading to HNL for business tomorrow, so I will be in the joy of joys; Home Depot, Lowes, and an ACE store that has springs. And I'm a buyin' some stuff to bring home. And, I'm replacing the torn rubber washer.

I won't build any more SNAPs until my new baby shoots good and straight, and I get to take on my 16 year old nephew (he's the one with the old Expand-a-Blast that I got to shootin' 80 feet consistently) and give him something to worry about.

But for now...oh SNAP!

I won't tell you who the anonymous member is, nor will I ask the NerfHaven members to compare his homemade to mine. I guess I have to thank him for the inspiration and boost. Everyone should build a SNAP. They kick some butt.



-Piney-

[CaptainSlug]

'tis the Bees Knees. That lamp handle looks particularly comfortable.
I'm hoping to make progress on my homemades in August. Until then I'll just keep staring at these pictures.

[wintermute]

looks awesome
I'm hoping my homemade project turns out as nice

[Groove]

Awesome job, Piney. I'm digging the purple.


-Groove

[Carbon]

Now that's sharp looking. The combination of the handle, the metallic purple, and that cleanly mitred stock makes it look clean. It'll be a beast when you get the right springs in it. Very well done.

As far as your tear on your gasket...do you have endcaps with a rounded end, or more square ends? Someone posted about torn gaskets in the SNAP-4 thread, and they used round ones (I think it lets too much gasket get in between the endcap and the PC wall, pulling too much and eventually tearing).

[PREDATOR]

Sweet job Piney! Purple is the best color.

[Dart Attack]

B-e-a-utiful!

I might have to try this.

[SHADOW HUNTER ALPHA]

Clean and badass, Piney. It looks big, like an elephant gun or something... Although in truth, the FAR is based on a rather simplistic mechanism. There is no real difficulty to it. Like my shotty, which I will begin Tuesday afternoon when I get out of school. If you can build this, I encourage you to try the FAR again.

[NerfMonkey]

Personally I'd probably stick some simple sights on there to make it a little easier to aim since there's no seam to use as a guide, but you may be able to look down the body of the gun just fine. I just tend to use the seam to aim so without one it'd feel weird.

Very nice, I'm digging the purple and green combo. I'm going to try a homemade.

[Tim]

I wonder if the people at Crayola know what we really do with the markers. Great Mod, and once again, the purple is officially awesome, for lack of a better non-vulgar term.

[SHADOW HUNTER ALPHA]

Tim, on Jun 3 2007, 10:54 PM, said:

I wonder if the people at Crayola know what we really do with the markers. Great Mod, and once again, the purple is officially awesome, for lack of a better non-vulgar term.

Not necessarily a mod, but a rendition of a classic and simple homemade. I guess I have to agree that the purple/black/green is cool, nevertheless.

[nerfer909]

Thats awsome, but when i said all that bad stuff that you put as anonomous user, i meant make a minimi, not something as awsome as that.

Hents forth, all that bad stuff, that piney quoted as anonomous user was me, nerfer909.

[Forsaken angel24]

I can just see it now. Barney goes nuts and just starts unloading round after round of stefans on all the little kids that couldn't remember their damn lines.
It was the purple and green that gave me that daydream.

[Pineapple]

I'm in my office doing some last minute work (on Sunday no doubt) before I pack 'n leave.

Thank you for the kind words. It really is fun to build, and I had a slow work week so I had a couple four hours to stick, then a couple more for paint, and a day to let it dry.


Nerfer909-- no hard feelings...thanks for the motivation; I probably would still have my FAR pieces and unbuilt SNAP3 if I didn't get inspired by the comments.

Maybe I should insult all of you so you'll start makin' things. Good things.


Forsaken_angel24; I never even thought of that...Barney. "Hi kids! Fear Barney! Uh-huh-uh-huh!"

S.H.A.; It's not really all that big, as are most all SNAP-1s and 1.5s. It's a little longer than my son's Longshot without the front gun attached. Quite compact, actually. Which is pleasantly surprising considerng the really good power for the weak spring. Can't wait 'til the proper spring is put in!

I didn't say, but my next SNAP project will be a commemoration of one of my favorite guns, the "Roadblocker" (Ithaca MAG-10 shotgun set up for law enforcement use). I managed to cobble together the pressure chamber of 2" sch40 PVC, and a really nice spring to go with it. Plunger, gasket (washer), and rod was put together but not completed (need to bevel the trailing edge of the plunger and cotterpin the plunger rod). I don't know if a normal SNAP trigger and catch would work, but I'm going to try to move on that....later.



-Piney-

[Carbon]

Pineapple, on Jun 3 2007, 10:54 PM, said:

I don't know if a normal SNAP trigger and catch would work, but I'm going to try to move on that....later.

It should hold....I've never had one fail on me yet. The part which actually starts to get weak is the junction between the trigger piece and the clothespin, not the catch itself. Looking forward to seeing that project.

[Dart Attack]

What kind of paint did you use?

[firstblood]

That has got to be one of the coolest things I have seen in quite a while!

[PointBlank]

I love it!

[frost vectron]

That's a pretty beautiful SNAP, pineapple.

By looking at that chargerod, I assume you're a lefty?

[Prometheus]

Kick-ass paint job. This is the coolest one I've seen in a while. Any intentions of increasing the ROF with a second, as in a breech system?

[Pineapple]

Thanks e'eryone. I finally got a wi-fi signal somewhere near my parent's house in Honolulu, and I got to get on for a bit.


The paint is Dupont Metalcast, two-part system. It's the closest thing to anodizing you can do for your Nerf blasters, and comes in all kinds of cool colors. My favorite color is purple, and I figured to make the SNAP my "Anti-Crossbow", so I tried designing it around those parameters. Stock from my 1500, PC was from the SNAP-3.

I'm a righty, and I charge my weapons with my right hand, left hand on the forearm/ front end. I did that with my Sawtooth, my son's Longshot, and now with my SNAP. I understand that you can get some pretty quick action with the Longshot, if you use your non-firing hand on the charging lever (my son shoots his that way), but again, the few times I shoot springer long guns, it's in the "opposite" way of the mainstream crowd.

About the second barrel, absolutely. If you look at One Man Clan's x-bows, in fact, much of the East Coasters, they use the dual-flip-barrel "breech" system. I like that. I'll probably slap a 1/2 SCH40 PVC coupler on the front, and change the barrels around a bit. That has proven to be one of the most effectve multi-shot systems for REAL Nerf warring. Gravity clips, tube mags, etc. tend to fail or jam up, the last thing you need when the foam starts flying. The flip-barrel is almost foolproof, fairly quick to reload under stress, and is consistent when done properly. What else needs to be said?

I'm pissed. I checked Home Depot, Lowe's, and one ACE store here. No one has springs. There's something pretty much wrong with that. I'll probably end up ordering some AR-15 springs. Duh.

Yeah, I like this SNAP.


-Piney-

[Ronster]

So...that paint won't chip off like other paints on plastic???

[Pineapple]

No, sorry, I should have been a bit more clear in what I was saying about MetalCast.

It's paint...no doubt about it. It scratches, it gouges, it abrades. It's paint.

But the COLOR is incredible. This stuff looks like purple anodizing, and it really is purty. Anima and Baghead were some of the first to really move on using this stuff, as well as some other painters.

Someone asked about the handle. It wasn't from a toy, or another Nerf blaster. It came off of a 2 million candlepower hand-held spotlight that had gone bad. I changed the element (bulb), recharged the battery several times, before I found that the battery had shorted out, and no charging was going to help it.

So the light element became an auxiliary light on our "fake" Segway, the battery was recycled, and the handle almost became a foregrip for my next AT2K project. Instead, oh SNAP!



-Piney-

[CaptainSlug]

Should you make another homemade I would heartily recommend using Vinyl & Fabric Car interior paint. It's basically a spray-on Vinyl Dye that will penetrate and recolor the plastic itself. It will never rub off. Unless of course you physically try to sand off the surface of the gun.

Not sure if you can find it in purple though...

[The Inventor Guy]

NerfMonkey, on Jun 4 2007, 12:20 PM, said:

Personally I'd probably stick some simple sights on there to make it a little easier to aim since there's no seam to use as a guide, but you may be able to look down the body of the gun just fine. I just tend to use the seam to aim so without one it'd feel weird.

Piney plays Stock-Class Paintball, so I'm sure he won't have a problem aiming this beauty.

-Tidge.