66 replies to this topic

[Tinkerer]

okey, vortexmaster's "revelation" just confused the hell out of me, but here's an idea that might bork:

1)replace the cardboard with a paper bag

2)...um...

that's all I could think of.

[Maverick]

You can also use those little Pringles boxes. Fisrt off, make the balls heavier than the regular balls. Have a smoke bomb in the box somewhere too. Poke a hole in the lid and the bottom of the canister. Have the wick of the bomb comming out of the bottom of the canister. Pump air into the top, and tape the hole up. Light the bomb and enjoy the show!!!

[Spectre2689]

Yeah, I have a couple things to add here.

1. Suppose the cardboard actually gets blown up by one of these mini-firecrackers, what prevents the explosion from shredding all of the foam balls into...well...nothing at all?

2. Suppose you get this all working, and you hurl it at someone just walking by. What happens if it explodes in their face? You'll be doing some paperwork there.

3. Why the hell are you using firecrackers in the first place?

I also just came to a startling revelation. The reason why people only point out the bad things in designs as opposed to the good things, is so that you can fix the design. What are you going to do if people only give you good feedback? You can't fix what's not broken.

That being said, this is constructive criticism, not a flame-out. Good luck with your design and try not to make your cat vomit so violently in terror that it flies out the window.

[Bishop]

thanks Spectre2689
And howd you know i had a cat

EDIT: taita_cakes, the fierecracker blows open the box and the foam balls fly everywhere.

Edited by VoRtExMaStEr, 02 May 2004 - 09:24 PM.

[TheHaze]

Your kind always do...

[taita cakes]

so, your telling me, you drop a fire cracker down a pvc [or such] shaft, into a mess of flammable and toxic materials, it explodes and supposedly breaks a thick cardboard box, letting loose an array of foam....

it works in theory, but hey, so does communism

heres some "positive feedback", hopefully you can use it to better the design:
- PVC [or such] shaft + Firecracker = Nasty wound
- say goodbye to your schrapnel.... mmmm Heat
- If your saying the firecracker is not this strong, how the f@rk is it going to break the cardboard and expell its internals...


i strongly suggest the basic method of just two film canisters [filled with either just schrapnel or spring + foam contents], rubber banded together tightly, so that when you throw it, a slight amount of contact will knock off its center of pressure, the rubber bands pulling against each other will fling the film canisters away in different wild directions and the contents will spew out...


or if you really are as stupid as me, you could use a graphic like this...


simple ehhhh?

its up to you to experiment with the levels of force and the contents...

[Bishop]

so, your telling me, you drop a fire er down a pvc [or such] shaft, into a mess of flammable and toxic materials, it explodes and supposedly breaks a thick cardboard box, letting loose an array of foam....

well sorta.

1. Pvc is defenately a bad choice. A cardboard shift is good

2. Only thing with fire is wick and shaft blocks flame from foam

3. The fierecracker is a big outward rush of air no fireballs

4. Yes foam contents fly everywhere

[Zero Talent]

I've never used a Panda (uncultured, I know), but if you can buy 50 for $5, I'd guess VREMSE is right about them being relatively weak. Black cats seem to sell for about the same, so I'll use them as an archetype..
There seems to be a fear of weak explosives on these boards... People on NHQ seem to think that caps start forest fires....

Now I'm guessing VREMSE is talking about the small cardboard box's top blowing open (not apart) with the popping of the panda, hopefully sending little foam bits, which I'm pretty sure will not melt under such low heat exchange (The thing pops, it doesn't fuse two hydrogen nuclei together. The only possible threat is from the wick slowly heating anything inside.), first against the box top, then out the box top as it gives way.

Now the immediate concerns:

Cost: 10 cents plus box a pop. Pretty cheap, so not too bad a sacrifice.

Sealing: The gasses could escape out cracks in the bottom and corners of the box, though the largest holes could be duct taped. Only way to know is to try, right?

Firing: With an aggregate mass of foam bits, I'm worried that the gasses will just escape past and fail to project the bits anywhere, considering the fact that there will be so much empty space between pieces.

Materials: What kind of little cardboard box were you thinking? I'd guess the boxes wouldn't have a lot of life in them after five or six uses, so the initial product would have to be relatively cheap, unless alternatives can be made from cardboard scrap... Which is very likely, and could lead to more efficient shapes for the shape of the charge and the desired spread. I'm not sure exactly what a panda is shaped like... I'm assuming the basic cylinder with wick, Black Cat style.

If this is the case, I'd actually suggest something like a cylinder. For example, two solid (Cardboard, I'd guess) circular plates joined by a thin connector (such as a small dowel) in an "I" shape, with the explosive in the middle, surrounded by foam bits, and wrapped in one layer of thin paper, cheaply kept together by masking tape. I'm not sure if the explosive would break through the paper properly, or even damage the dowel, but these are merely suggestions, operating off my experience with weak firecrackers.

[Vintage]

If all the panda releases is an outward rush of hot air, you might want to just put in the middle of a small brown paper bag, with foam pieces all around it. Something tells me that a cardboard box might be too strong to shatter.

I don't know how well the flame of the wick passes off its fire to surrounding materials, so I don't know how you would isolate the wick from the paper bag. How about a cheap plastic drinking straw?

~Vintage

[Bishop]

Good idea vintage. Good thing you know soo much about pandas.

[blink 182]

Fireworks are not a burst of flames when you light them…Wtf? Sure They Are. When you LIGHT the firework (cherry bomb for ex.) the flame goes down into the tightly compressed cylinder filled with GUN POWDER.

Fire + gun powder= flame
To prove my point, try this. Take a cherry bomb and light it. Through it like normal, when it blows up go and retrieve the left over big pieces. You will notice that they have burn marks on them. I don’t know what more evidence you need. I understand that they also have hot air in them due to the compressed cylinder ( I think this is where the sound comes from) but still there is a flame. This will mostlikely catch the bag, box, cylinder, exc. on fire.

[Ragornocks]

Wanna grenade? Tape some foam to a Flashbang, pull the pin, throw.

Wanna play Nerf and win? Go shoot someone.

[Spectre2689]

Wanna grenade? Tape some foam to a Flashbang, pull the pin, throw.

I'm just not sure why this doesn't sound safe. Right up there with surrounding a wad of C4 with foam and setting it off.

I just don't think Nerf grenades would be practical, unless somebody found some really easy way to make them effective. If the foam doesn't go anywhere, then what's the point? If the foam goes somewhere, but it's gonna put somebody's eye out in the process, what's the point?

[NinjZ]

today ive tested my verison of a "nerf greanade". I wanted to see if the thing would become a giant fireball wich I agreed woudlnt happen. msot of you are talking about gun powders and cherry bombs. we're talking black cats and pandas....

1) take a 35mm film canister and drill a hole in the end enough to fit a black cat in.
2) cutt some small 1/2in peaces of FBR
3)stick the black cat into the hole in the canister so only about 1/4 of an inch of the body is sticking out ( fuse end should be sticking out obviously ) and squert a small tack of hot glue on it to keep it in.
4)cram a bunch of FBR shrapnel inside
5) close lid
6) light fuse and throw !

I tested 10 of these and NONE of them set anything on fire. only a very slight burn mark where the fuse was close to the canister. the FBR chunks exploded in about a 10 foot radius, at most. sometimes they didnt get more than 5 feet. this could have been due to the rather small volume of shrapnel / grenade setup itself. also in none of the cases did any plastic go flying around except the case and cap itself, but with not much force to hurt. you can actually light a black cat and hold it in your hand while it explodes, it doesnt hurt or burn...at all....

now I mainly wanted to try this just to see if these small firecrackers would create these deathly huge fireballs people are talking about and dont bother to try. basically, myth busted.

however, lighting this thing and throwing it is highly impractical in mid war.

I think a better idea, would be to make a spring powered potatoe smasher greanade like from wwII. have the spring inside the handle with a larger container on top holding the shrapnel.

Edited by NinjZ, 09 May 2004 - 10:04 PM.

[taita cakes]

I just don't think Nerf grenades would be practical, unless somebody found some really easy way to make them effective. If the foam doesn't go anywhere, then what's the point? If the foam goes somewhere, but it's gonna put somebody's eye out in the process, what's the point?

read previous posts.

dont click me. file not found, CHMOD'ing won't fix ....

rinse.

repeat.


edit: my host needs castration... how long before cx adds an upload feature?

Edited by taita_cakes, 10 May 2004 - 04:05 AM.

[NinjZ]

If your telling me to read other posts, I have, and is the reason why i tried to make my own firecracker propeld grenade.

when the foam did spread, it was effective. 7 our of 10 of the grenades went 10+feet.

Edited by NinjZ, 10 May 2004 - 12:46 PM.

[cxwq]

edit: my host needs castration... how long before cx adds an upload feature?

Available disk space: ~500Mb and dwindling

Forum users: ~700 and climbing

You do the math. If I allowed people to upload arbitrary crap to my server I'd be over-quota in no time.

Google your path to enlightenment, bwani.

If you're willing to shell out a rather small amount of money, you can get yourself a real web site to do with as you please. $20-30 a year buys you ~500Mb that you can point a domain name at, hotlink at will, and FTP lots of crap to.

[Bishop]

Thanks Ninjz. That is exactly the design i was looking at. Exept it had the advancement of a film canister. Nice job.

Edited by VoRtExMaStEr, 10 May 2004 - 02:05 PM.

[nerfspecialforces]

Ok, heres what you do.

1. Stay away from firecrackers(most likely nobody'll get hurt, but still)

2. film canaster(only the fuji film[white/clear]work) are a good idea. use alcasseser(what ever) tablets. the only problem is they foam( for indoor use).

3.tape cardboard to the top in a ring[not the lid]with duct tape. on the cap, make another ring thats not as durable. fill it with foam.

4 fill the inside of the canaster with water.

5.when ready, drop in a 1/2 tablet[may vary], cap, and throw.

P.S. film canasters(fuji film) blowup with water and alcasseser tablets[try it it's really fun]

[blink 182]

I like the pressure idea. Firecrackers are not the beat way to go. But I’m still a little confused with your design. The idea with the pills and water, that’s a cool idea but is there any Fbr? Please explain.

[Formerly Sane]

That would work, but it involves getting hit with water, and that's not really nerf. This would be really complicated, but I guess a chemical reaction grenade could be built. I'd still stick to springs and rubber bands in film canisters, and try to maximize the power of those.

[NinjZ]

Ive done the whole film canister and baking powder/alcaseltzer thing before, it doesnt really explode all that well....Plus, if youre sticking in foam, there will be like no room for water, not enough to make a big enough explosion to send all the foam flying far enough.

my test wasnt to prove the practicality, just to prove that it could work and be safe.

Edited by NinjZ, 18 May 2004 - 04:12 PM.

[TimberwolfCY]

Hey all. Firstly, I think the fire cracker idea is interesting. Secondly, the film-canister grenades work, but there are three problems.

1) Shrapnel material. It is hard to find decent paterial that people accept, and probably the hardest problem to overcome. On my model I built, wow, I guess three years ago, I actally used corn from corn ears. Its cost effective (particularly in the fall), has good unit density (each individual "pellet" (lol, can't remember the the word for an individual "piece" of corn, let me know I'll edit it in), outdoors is biodegradeable (indoors would be a little odd though), and because they are a good size, they are both large enough to travel far and small enough to fit a good number in (I guess I stuffed in about 25-30). Those little rubber pellets in toy guns (Airsoft pellets? Never played...) would work too. I think any kind of foam would probably be so light its traveling distance wouldn't be far enough to be effective. Basically, as long as everyone wears safety glasses, anything would work.
2) Blast radius. The second worst problem, probably equal to shrapnel material, is the blast radius. Although my "corn-grendade" had a good radius (usually between 10-15 feet), its hard to control the radius itself, and this is what I spent the most time fine-tuning, to little effect. Because a film canister granade relies on 1) force as the detonator, and 2) a single relatively-narrow opening, there is not usually a blast radius, so much as direction. My corn grenades relied on force to detonate, which meant direct or almost direct LOS, which kinda defeats the purpose. Although they always went off in a spray of at least 10 feet, it usually went off in the direction facing away from me, which means that any defenders I would use it against would not be hit (because there is no real side explosion). The alternative would be to throw it mortar-style, which could work, except that the combination of extreme minimum range and loss of accuracy, combined with only about a 50% detonation rate, defeats the purpose of blast radius, which was almost always reduced to 5 feet.
3) Supplies. I don't know about you, but I don't know a convenient place to get film canisters in bulk. Taking lots of pics is great, but its expensive. I am sure this is some easy remedy, but I don't know. If there is one, let me know. Large-bore PVC is a good substitute though...

The detonating mechanism is also a problem. The force of impact on the ground usually suffices, but finding something attuned to both the force of impact and the fragility of carry is a problem. Using a tight rubber band around the canister, over the tape (which is wadded at one end), could act as a sort of pin.

Sorry for the exhaustion, but I thought everyone might want to see my experience. Just as a note, if you spend enough time searching on other sites' forums, and looking though other websites (the links here or at NHQ is a good start), you will usually find some really good ideas, but many lack good description. Good luck.

[blink 182]

Could you please explain more on the “Corn Nad” I’m a bit confused ( I like the idea.)

[TimberwolfCY]

Sorry for the extreme length of my previous post, I wanted to be thorough.

Originally posted by blink 182:

Could you please explain more on the “Corn Nad” I’m a bit confused ( I like the idea.)

How do you mean? Since I'm not sure, I'll do a brief overview of how I made it.

Really, its basically just a standard film canister grenade (at least, I think...lol). Take a film canister (those plastic tubes that flim comes in). You probably would want to clean it to make sure any adhesives used adhere well to the plasic. First, I bought a couple of springs at the local hardware store. Using these, I cut a piece of cardboard as close to the "bore" of the canister as possible. I then a attached this to one end of a spring (after cutting it somewhat longer than the film canister itself, about a centimeter or so) with hot glue, though in retrospect epoxy or the like would have worked much better. I then hot-glued the spring assembly into the bottom of the film canister (again, epoxy would work much better, the sping flew out multiple times). After this had all dried (about 10 minutes for the hot glue), I took an ear of corn and shucked about 30 pieces or so off. I took these, with the canister's cap close at hand, and stuffed the canister with as much corn as I could reasonably fit. After I got enough in there that I could barely hold it, I then snapped on the cap. Finally, while still holding it down with one hand, I took a piece of duct tape and on one side of the cap/canister, taped the cap down, bringing the tape all the way down to the bottom. I took a second length of duct tape (much shorter), and put it also over the cap and canister, but I left the end that attaches to the canister short (you'll see why in a sec.). I went outside to test it. I first threw it mortar style up high, towards the street, and as it came down, the bottom of the canister hit the street, providing enough concussive force to push the spring, which in turn exploded the corn pieces out the tube (the second piece of duct tape is purposefully loose, tight enough to hold it together while in hand, but loose enough to enable the cap to open when it hits a hard surface; I also folded a small length of this tape in on itself (about a centimeter) to make it easier to open if I needed.). This created the blast. Later I added weights (in the form of gravel rocks, though obviously BBs or fishing weights would work much better. It would be best to load the weights at the same time as the spring, so they could all be glued at once.) to the spring end of the canister to make sure it landed bottom firist. I also tested it by throwing it straight in front of me about 40 feet, but as stated before, this focued the blast in a certain direction, limiting the grenades usefullness.

There is the desription of my "cornade"; pretty fitting really, lol. Note also that the shrapnel part could be switched out with something else, liked I talked about before. Also like I said before, one could add a rubber band to the the top around the duct tape to act as a sort of "pin", which you would take off before throwing. Sorry for the exhaustive length, I realize it isn't "brief".

Edited by TimberwolfCY, 19 May 2004 - 12:46 PM.