FIXING A LEAKY AIR BLASTER
The first thing you want to do when you have a leak is find out where it is. The easiest way is to take it apart, pump it up, put your ear close to the gun (of if it's leaking fast enough to feel the air coming out, your hand) and figure out which part of the gun it's coming from. Once you have a general idea of where it's coming from, just look in that area for a crack/hole/tear or a seem (where two things connect, such as tubing to pump, tubing to tank, one part of the tank to another, the seal (barrel end) or firing pin). If you don't see anything amiss or can't feel the air coming out of a seem, a bubble test works well. There are two ways to do this, get a soapy solution, brush/spray it over all possible leaky locations, and pump it up and see where the bubbles are coming. The simpler way is to pump it up then emerse the whole thing in a bowl/bucket/tub of water (don't pump it up while it's under water) and look for bubbles. After you find the bubbles you have a few options:
1) If the bubbles are coming from the tubing, GREAT! easy fix, just replace the tubing.
2) If it's coming from one of the tubing connectors, it's still pretty easy. You may need to replace the tubing, but usually just unscrew the connector (if it's that kind of connector) put on some plumber's goop and reattach and rescrew the tubing connector. If it's tubing fused/bonded to a cylinder or other hard plastic (no screw cap) cut the tubing close to the cylinder/hard plastic, but a piece of rigid tubing (brass/PEX/PVC/etc. depending on the size) over the tubing and as much of the hard plastic as possible. Use a barbed connector to connect the tube where you cut it and then fill in the gap (between the flexible vinyl tubing and the rigid tubing you placed over it) with goop/epoxy (I've found that DevCon Plastic Weld Epoxy, found at Wal-mart, seems to work best and holds up under EXTREME conditions). This should seal any holes at the base of or inside of the rigid tubing.
3) If air is leaking from the seal between the tank and the firing pin, good luck...Sometimes you'll get lucky and spraying some silicone in the tank will fix this, if not ask somebody else for help, or you can get creative with step 6).
4) If air is leaking from the barrel (or turret) end of the tank. Again, sometimes some silicon spray will fix this problem. Or you can get creative with step 6).
5) If the tank itself has a hole in it, you need to cover it with a piece of PVC/CPVC. Put a bunch of epoxy on the tank and slide the PVC (pipe or couplers both work great) over it. If you don't have room in the shell to do this mod, try just putting a small amount of DevCon Plastic Weld epoxy over it. If the hole is small enough (i.e. it's not a crack but just a small hole) the epoxy alone is enough.
6) If you blew your air tank (the back separates from the front) the only fix I've seen work (over a long period of time) is to get a PVC end cap or plug that fits around your air tank. Drill necessary holes in the back of it for the firing pin and tubing to fit out of. Apply DevCon Plastic Weld Epoxy and slide the end cap into place. Also, if you have a blast chamber/air tank that seems unfixable, go ahead and cut it open, try to replace/reinforce/lubricate the seals and use this method to put it back together.
Hope this helps. If you can find out exactly where the hole/leak is and need further guidance, go ahead and post a pic and I'll try to help as best I can.
Slightly off topic, do you guys think we need a sticky topic in modifications about how to repair various common (and maybe not so common) problems with blasters? It might really cut down on the number of "How Can I Fix This" threads, and it would also be a great resource to have everybody's repair experience in one place. Just a thought.
FIXING LOOSE DART FIT IN PETG
I don't know if this is the best for this, but it fixes a problem, so here goes. I LOVE working with PETG (it's cheap, low friction, and fits inside of most stock barrels to make barrel replacement/nesting much easier) but it's usually just a bit too loose for my darts. This is fixed very easily by adding "tightening rings" to the base of the barrel before nesting/attaching the PETG. Just take your pipe cutters and circle them around the tube about 1/4" from the base until there is a "ring indentation" (a tightening ring). Repeat this about every 1/4"-1/2" for the length of your dart (i.e. if your darts are 2 inches, your last ring would be two inches from the base of the tube). This will allow you enjoy all the benefits of PETG without any of the negatives! PETG just got a little bit sweeter! PETG for Sale
TRIGGER PULL TOO DIFICULT (BIC PEN MOD)
If you've ever plugged the pump on anything from the SuperMaxx line (and many other air guns) you may have noticed that it is difficult (and sometimes impossible) to fully pull the trigger. This is because there is so much pressure in the air tank that it requires more force to pull the firing pin than it does to compress the spring at the end of the firing pin (which your trigger is pressed against). You pull as hard as you can and just end up compressing the spring. An easy to fix this is to cut a small section of bic pen and place it behind the point where the trigger connects to the pin and in front of the end piece. Another option is to just make a hot glue colum. Simply apply hot glue over the spring so that it cannot compress and your trigger pull will be much easier.
Edited by imaseoulman, 21 February 2008 - 11:24 PM.
