48 replies to this topic

[Forsaken angel24]

imaseoulman, on Feb 7 2008, 06:15 AM, said:

but just wait 'til you see one of my upcoming projects!

[Kabuki]

Holy. Crap. That is one (okay, five) impressive gun. I'm amazed by your fabrication skills.

[PointBlank]

Thats fricken amazing dude. Nice work

[AODL]

Now that is fucking beastly!

[imaseoulman]

precisionnerfer, on Feb 7 2008, 10:50 AM, said:

Hey, good mod and pj.

Tell me the brand name of that chrome paint you used, and what your clear coat was. Or else.

The paint brand is Rustoleum...it's the only thing I could find with the right colors. The chrome looks great. I'm tempted to just go to town and spray all my guns with it it looks so good. Just make sure you shake it for like three minutes before you use it and continuously while spraying. Make sure you spray very thin coats right after another and it should look very sharp.

[precisionnerfer]

Thanks man. Have you ever tried clear-coating it? If you have a spare gun shell, try clear coating and see what happens, for your own use and for ours, because chrome, is awesome, and a nice clear coat, [which I've heard sometimes fails] would be awesome[er]

[Green Riptide]

You have got to be shitting me. This is basically the ultimate weapon, with a six-pack shotgun blast and twin long-range punch. With that much ridiculous in one place I'm half expecting you to come back next week with a clip mod. ._.

Internal pics would be much appreciated. On the subject of keyrings, you're just using the magstrike trigger for air transfer, right?
So a firing cycle would be
i- pump for half of eternity
ii- hold MS trigger for a few seconds
iii- move fingers to SM keyring triggers/detonator triggers and wait for shot
iv- fire
and then you could loop back to ii but you prefer to just use the SMDTG's after a single round of SM firing...
so basically you don't have to worry about switching triggers incredibly fast, since the majority of time should be spent with no trigger contact (pumping/noncombat situation) and then in combat most of the time would spent on the keyrings waiting for a clean shot.

[imaseoulman]

Green Riptide, on Feb 7 2008, 05:55 PM, said:

You have got to be shitting me. This is basically the ultimate weapon, with a six-pack shotgun blast and twin long-range punch. With that much ridiculous in one place I'm half expecting you to come back next week with a clip mod. ._.

Funny you should mention it, but I am in the middle of a new gun with an insane clip mod!

Green Riptide, on Feb 7 2008, 05:55 PM, said:

Internal pics would be much appreciated. On the subject of keyrings, you're just using the magstrike trigger for air transfer, right?
So a firing cycle would be
i- pump for half of eternity
ii- hold MS trigger for a few seconds
iii- move fingers to SM keyring triggers/detonator triggers and wait for shot
iv- fire
and then you could loop back to ii but you prefer to just use the SMDTG's after a single round of SM firing...
so basically you don't have to worry about switching triggers incredibly fast, since the majority of time should be spent with no trigger contact (pumping/noncombat situation) and then in combat most of the time would spent on the keyrings waiting for a clean shot.

Just to clarify, I don't have to hold down the MS trigger for even a whole second. It doesn't take a whole lot of time for air to flow through the system. Also, the keyrings are in such a position that it takes less than half a second to put my finger on the trigger. So essentially, if my fingers are resting on the MS trigger and I hear a noise behind me, by the time I'm turned around my finger is on the keyring. Also, my thumb is constantly on one of the SMDTG detonators. Oh yeah, if I'm not overly tired, pumping doesn't take more than 30 seconds (but, I do work-out). It takes much less time to pump this than to pump up a titan, for comparison.

This is how it is used in combat (usually in capture the flag):
1) Move into position (within 100' of opponent).
2) Fire off a round or two to take out any campers/l.o.s.e.r.s.
3) Sprint into close-range so that none of the base defenders can use range against me and unload a barrage of six (hopefully) well placed darts.
4) Grab the flag and run or laugh at the squad of guys I just took out single handedly.

Edited by imaseoulman, 07 February 2008 - 11:23 PM.

[Green Riptide]

oh, I see.

Personally if I were going to be going back and forth that much I'd find a different option (as opposed to keyrings), but I suppose having never built an Arachnaphobia II of my very own my opinion there doesn't matter.

oh, and *insert innuendo about how good imaseoulman is at making the pumping motion very quickly*

[imaseoulman]

Green Riptide, on Feb 7 2008, 09:36 PM, said:

oh, I see.

Personally if I were going to be going back and forth that much I'd find a different option (as opposed to keyrings), but I suppose having never built an Arachnaphobia II of my very own my opinion there doesn't matter.

oh, and *insert innuendo about how good imaseoulman is at making the pumping motion very quickly*

Maybe I'm not explaining it very well, but there is no back and forth time. I pump and fill the air chambers before I go into combat. My fingers are then on the key ring. It's about as hard as reaching with my left pinky finger to reach the "Shift" key. Then I go into battle and pull the key ring. After that, while still in battle, if I have to reload (which is infrequent because I rarely miss), then I reload the SMDTG's (which I'm pretty sure I'll be shortening). I'm not seeing a lot of back and forth time there. I don't know, maybe you're referring to something else and I'm just not understanding it.

[Forsaken angel24]

imaseoulman, on Feb 8 2008, 02:18 AM, said:

Maybe I'm not explaining it very well,

I think a video is in order.

[frost vectron]

This gun is bitchin'! I would also like to see a video of this thing in action!

[keef]

I want to see what you could do with a Lightning Blitz, a springer, and the RF20 together.

I love the bladder fills all of the other tanks, thats a great idea. First I thought the CPVC was a singled magstrike.

[imaseoulman]

Forsaken_angel24, on Feb 7 2008, 11:05 PM, said:

imaseoulman, on Feb 8 2008, 02:18 AM, said:

Maybe I'm not explaining it very well,

I think a video is in order.

I agree. I finally did get a camcorder (cheap little MP4 recorder) so when I do get a bit of free time and I'm not maniacally obsessed with finishing my other projects I'll get out and record it. I guess though, just a basic indoor clip of how it operates wouldn't take too long.

frost vectron, on Feb 8 2008, 04:45 AM, said:

This gun is bitchin'! I would also like to see a video of this thing in action!

Thanks. I'll try to round up some friends (the ones who usually allow me to shoot them with my latest creations) and see what we can pull off.

keef, on Feb 8 2008, 05:21 AM, said:

I want to see what you could do with a Lightning Blitz, a springer, and the RF20 together.

I am in the middle of a Lightning Blitz integration, but generally, I don't do springers (I own dozens but I just do the basics: spring replacement, barrel replacement, and new O-rings) at least not in integrations, and as for an RF20, I prefer Magstrikes, but I have been thinking about tinkering with my RF20, maybe it will be part of something amazing one day.

Thanks for all the support guys. As FA_24 has noted before it really is encouraging and creates more drive to finish the next project.

[OfAllTheNerf]

I can't remmeber if I already post in this, but you deserve another compliment.

This thing is a fucking beast! After you post that write-up, I'm definitely going to make my own variation. GREAT paintjob too. I can't paint for my life...

Again, awsome job! Can't wait for the write-up.

PS: Some internal pics would be awsome.

Edited by OfAllTheNerf, 08 February 2008 - 05:01 PM.

[nerfer34]

Amazing....

Can you explain how the puch button works?

And for those check valves that you recomend, they work like regular cheack valves, which keep air in/ out where you want, right?

Thanks

[firstblood]

One word WOW.

[imaseoulman]

nerfer34, on Feb 8 2008, 03:15 PM, said:

Amazing....

Can you explain how the puch button works?

And for those check valves that you recomend, they work like regular cheack valves, which keep air in/ out where you want, right?

Thanks

As far as how the push button functions, it is a three-position push button from the SMDTG's. I havne't sawed one open to look at it so I'm just assuming that it works the same way as the BlastFire, Hornet, Big Salvo, etc., just much more reliable. Inside the small cylinder are three spring valves. The springs push the valves close and only allow air to be pumped in. When the push-button is depressed it moves over the valve and forces it open. Air begins to rush out which actuates the blast chamber. Of all of the trigger assemblies I've worked with that use negative pressure, the SMDTG is by far the most reliable.

As far as the check valves I used, yeah they're just ordinary check valves from mcmaster.com. They allow air to flow one way. The air comes in from the bladder and then flows through a check valve before it gets to each blast chamber and is held in there until the chamber is fired (otherwise the negative pressure would cause the first barrel of the SMDTG's not to function properly and when one SM1500 chamber was fired the other one would lose it's air as well).

Today, hopefully, I'll get a full write-up with internal pics. It's a possibility that I'll get a video up explaining how it works, but I have some other NERF projects I'm working on. I'm hoping to finish my Double Shotgun and get a prototype of my new SM1500 working.

[last man standin]

That paintjob is wicked. How hard is it to figure out which pin to pull in the middle of battle though? Insane mod but It would just make me confused (and more than I usually am)

[imaseoulman]

I finally got a few minutes of spare time, so here is the write-up on the Arachnophobia II. Hopefully I'll get a video up soon of me firing the gun.

So, I'm going to divide this write-up into FOUR sections: MagStrike (shell and bladder), SMDTG (placement and triggers), SM1500 (placement, triggers, barrels), and Tubing (barbed connectors, check valves, putting everything together). Also, this mod assumes general knowledge of taking apart and putting back together NERF blasters. If you don't understand that you have to unscrew the shell or reconnect tubing so that air doesn’t leak, this mod is not for you.

I. MagStrike
A. Banding the bladder. I'm not sure if this has been done before (I haven't seen it anywhere, but I also haven't searched for it) but I DOUBLE banded the bladder with bike inner tube. (By increasing the amount of force necessary to expand the bladder there will be more pressure in the blast chambers when they are filled). If any of you have ever banded a bladder, you know how obnoxious this can be. I did, however, come up with a new method for getting the band on the bladder.
1.) First get a foot long segment of 1/2" CPVC and 1/2" PVC. Take your Dremel and make four cuts on the end of each about two inches long.
2.) Cut two lengths of inner tube equal to the MS bladder length.
3.) Push one of the inner tube "bands" onto the uncut end of the CPVC and roll it down the pipe.
4.) Put the cut end of CPVC over the uncut end of PVC and the cut end of PVC over the bladder.
5.) Roll the tube down the pipe until it’s over the bladder the smooth it out.
6.) Repeat as desired. (I did two layers, any more and then it’s hard to get the end-pieces back on).
B. Cutting the shell. I'm not going to go into great detail here; pictures should do the job fairly well.

You may notice a cut on the right (if being held in firing position) half of the shell near the top. I'm not sure if it's necessary. I did it to make room, but there may be enough room without doing it.
C. Sanding out the inside. Get out your Dremel and a ½" sanding drum and go to town!

II. SMDTG
A. Placement. Now that you have cleared out enough room inside your shell it’s time to insert the SMDTG blasters.
1.) First thing you have to do is gut your two SMDTG's.
2.) Take one of your SMDTG’s and cut all the tubing going from the detonator to the blast chambers. On the other SMDTG cut only one tube (see picture, it's important to cut the right end).
3.) Take the SMDTG that has all three tubes cut and push the tubing through the holes as pictured.
4.) Insert barbed connectors to the ends of these tubes and connect tubing to each, long enough to reach the bottom of the shell and push these through the slot shown in the picture.
5.) Now it’s time to insert the second SMDTG as shown. (I hot glued the push-button cylinder in place, this may or may not be necessary for your gun).
6.) Using barbed connectors (4) connect the detonators to all the loose tubing.
7.) I didn't mention this before, because it’s assumed you know how to do this, but to put the barrels on the SMDTG blasters, CAREFULLY, sand out the inside of the barrel stubs and glue in three inches of PETG.

III. SuperMaxx 1500
A. Double Coupler Mod. The two SM 1500 blast chambers are glued together and attached to the gun where the piston was before it was removed.
1.) First thing you want to do is to attach a ½" CPVC coupler to each chamber. To do this cut half of the barrel stub and apply hot glue liberally (it will hold, but if you’re skeptical go ahead and use epoxy or goop or whatever you like to use) and stick the coupler on there.
2.) After the couplers have been attached you want to hot glue the two chambers together, but slightly offset so that they can almost be pressed flat together. The rearmost tubing nipple should be on the outside and the other should be on the inside (I wish I did it that way to start with).
3.) Put a piece of CPVC (at least 6" long) into the rearmost coupler and place the blast chambers into the shell. Make sure everything fits (the barrel is on there to make sure the SMDTG is low enough and there’s enough room). If it doesn't fit you need to do some more sanding or rearranging of the SMDTG's, but, if you followed the picture guides closely, you should be fine.
4.) After you've made sure everything is in place, hot glue the blasters down to the inside of the shell, hold it in place. It would be good if you could get the shell back on and make sure both barrels fit while the glue is cooling.
B. Trigger System. Yeah, I know, it's a key ring trigger. I hate them too, but since there was no other feasible way of doing it, I went ahead and made the best I could out of it and honestly, if the key ring is in the right place and done well, there isn't much difference between it and a standard trigger
1.) Cut a length of ½" brass just longer than the width of the MS shell where you drilled the hole earlier. Push the brass through this hole.
2.) Cut another length of brass to fit over the slots you cut near the mag-well. Put the shell back together and ensure that the brass is long enough and not too long.
3.) Get your wire (originally I used 15-20lb wire and it was way too thick so I went down to 5lb and it works great) and tie/twist an end of it to one of the firing pins. Run the wire around the brass, slide your key ring over the wire up to the brass (this will be the key rings “resting position), and bend the wire around the key ring to "mark" where the ring will be. Cut the wire about an inch past the mark and then tie/twist on the key ring.
4.) Repeat step three with the other blast chamber.
5.) Cut two short lengths of PETG to fit over the brass. This will dramatically reduce friction of the wire on the brass. The PETG should roll around the brass, but even if it doesn’t, the friction is still greatly reduced.

C. Barrel Setup. To ensure that the barrels were perfectly parallel, I made hinge/bearing thing out of CPVC. I call it a cylindrical bearing.
1.) Cut about ½" of CPVC and then while holding it with pliers take your Dremel and sand a groove into the side of it, sanding almost all the way through.
2.) Flip it around and do the same thing to the other side so it resembles an apple core.
3.) Cut a 9" length of CPVC and insert into the rearmost coupler.
4.) Take another length of CPVC and insert into the other coupler, mark on it where the other barrel ends and then cut it to length.
5.) With both barrels in place slide the joint between them until it seems that the barrels are perfectly parallel. If the barrels are pointing outward from each other then either move your joint to a different spot or sand it down some more. With the joint in place you can also move the barrels up and down to make sure they are parallel on a vertical plane also. (It helps to look in a mirror with the barrels pointing at it for this part). If the joint is too loose make another one but don’t sand off as much.

IV. Tubing
Well, there isn’t much to say at this point except connect everything with tubing and barbed connectors and make sure that you have a check valve behind each air chamber. Just look at the pictures for a guide. Also, to stabilize the SMDTG’s I inserted short lengths of CPVC between the SMDTG’s and the shell and hot glued them in place.



As for the paint job, I started with a base coat of Rustoleum chrome spray paint and then made a masking tape stencil (cut long strips and taped them down and for the curve sections I taped a strip of masking tape onto a piece of sheet plastic then used an exacto knife to cut out the curves, peeled them off, and taped them to the gun) then added a coat of Rustoleum metallic blue paint.

Notes on performance:
Eliminating the need for pumping has made the SMDTG's absolutely amazing. Range is decent but accuracy and ROF are excellent. The key ring triggers turned out better than I thought. I made two ramrods for this gun: a double ramrod for the SuperMaxx barrels on top and a triple ramrod (part of it made from the gutted shell of the SMDTG) for the SMDTG blasters. A firing cycle goes a little something like this:
1) Load all eight barrels (cpvc barrels are attached via couplers)
2) Pump about 60-70 times.
3) Squeeze the MS trigger to fill up all the air tanks (then if you want pump it up 10ish more times to refill the bladder to maximum capacity).
4) For long range shots pull the key rings to fire the SuperMaxx barrels. For an intense close-combat situation depress the thumb detonators.
5) Reload barrels (if I'm in combat I usually don't worry about the SM1500's and just reload the SMDTG's w/ my triple ramrod)
6) Repeat steps 3-5 until you need to refill the air bladder (by this time, combat should be done and over and you should have found cover...60-70 pumps isn't much fun)

I've been asked many times about the complexity of use. It's not too hard. If you can use your wind-shield wiper without turning on your blinker, this gun shouldn't be a problem. If you're the type of person that struggles with that, you have my sympathy.

Also, here's a picture of the new, smaller check valves I got (mcaster.com #7757K11):

Edited by imaseoulman, 12 February 2008 - 07:36 PM.

[jwasko]

Holy crap!

Using the brass as a (sort of) pulley is ingenious!

Questions:
Did you expand the room in the bladder shell at all, or does it take so many pumps because of the "banding" with the inner tubes?

Also, what size of inner tube did you use?

Finally, how many SMDTG refills do you get off of a full bladder?

[imaseoulman]

jwasko, on Feb 12 2008, 06:28 PM, said:

Holy crap!

Using the brass as a (sort of) pulley is ingenious!

Questions:
Did you expand the room in the bladder shell at all, or does it take so many pumps because of the "banding" with the inner tubes?

Also, what size of inner tube did you use?

Finally, how many SMDTG refills do you get off of a full bladder?

No, I didn't expand the bladder shell at all, it just takes so many more pumps (80-90 isn't going to hurt anything) because the bands increase the compression (same volume as unbanded but more air and therefore more pumps).

I can get about 30 SMDTG shots off before I have to refill. It's rare that I need to go that long.

The intertube says it's 27x1*1/8x1*1/4

Edited by imaseoulman, 12 February 2008 - 09:10 PM.

[jwasko]

imaseoulman, on Feb 12 2008, 09:09 PM, said:

I can get about 30 SMDTG shots off before I have to refill. It's rare that I need to go that long.

So, in other words, you get 5 six-dart salvos?

Or, do you get 30 six-dart salvos?

(Yes, I know that you can shoot each barrel of an SMDTG separately, but this is the best way I could think of to ask the question.)

[imaseoulman]

jwasko, on Feb 12 2008, 07:17 PM, said:

imaseoulman, on Feb 12 2008, 09:09 PM, said:

I can get about 30 SMDTG shots off before I have to refill. It's rare that I need to go that long.

So, in other words, you get 5 six-dart salvos?

Or, do you get 30 six-dart salvos?

(Yes, I know that you can shoot each barrel of an SMDTG separately, but this is the best way I could think of to ask the question.)

Sorry, I guess I could have been more clear (typing with one hand while holding a fussy baby in the other hand tends to be a little distracting), it gets 5 six-dart salvos. After that range starts to noticeably decrease.