19 replies to this topic

[arfink]

So I was browsing around on the JSPB site which is apparently operated by 3DBBQ: https://sites.google.../site/jspb3000/

And I came across this:


This is, apparently, what they use for all their games. It looks like just foam and PVC "rescue tape." I attempted to mimic this with FBR and e-tape, and shots seem to get the advertised 60ft out of my 3DBBQ-like gun, which is what he claims his model shoots. Accuracy isn't great though, but I was using junk blanks which hadn't been cut straight to test with as well.

I want to try this with a little 26AWG Kynar wire wrapped around the dart shaft under the tape to give the tip some weight. If that works for weighting the tip then I'll probably switch to PVC rescue tape, which will basically never come off the dart, perfectly encasing the wire and preventing it from coming off. I'll have to do more testing and report back.

[venom213]

I decided to try my hand at constructing and testing some of these. The wire I used it standard picture hanging wire, a really thin and flexible sort. I tested the performance using my pull-back Rainbow and pump replaced Big Blast, both equipped with hoppers. The wire+etape darts had no difficulty feeding through hoppers. The performance seemed fairly equal to both craft foam tipped and felt tipped darts weighted with one #6 washer each. There was one wire+etape dart that was very inaccurate, but this one had considerably less wire than all of the other darts. I did not use a measured amount of wire on each dart; I essentially eyeballed the amount on each dart and tried to make it somewhat consistent, aside from a few that I made with intentionally small amounts of wire. Somethings I might try in the future include: making hybrid darts, using different wire, and using different lengths/diameters of foam. Give it a shot for yourself!

[Ozymandias]

If you have one, could you test this in an Angel breeched Longshot?

[arfink]

I decided to give this a try for myself. I, like Venom, did not attempt to weigh the darts once finished, so I don't know how it compares to other darts. I do know that my wire-wrap darts fly like my BB darts, and they have nice fat foamy heads to boot. After trying it out on a wall and seeing the result, I shot myself at point blank range with my Pulse Strike blaster of doom, which can dent wallboard at 40 feet. It hurt like getting airsofted (I mean, it IS singled Pulse strike...), but left no welt and a slug or BB would have broken skin for sure.




Didn't try mine in a hopper, but with an RSCB they fly just fine. You probably can see I left alot of foam above the tape. That's to provide more padding.

No word yet on longevity of these, I have only fired mine about a dozen times each. Gotta abuse them some more and see. Looks promising though. Thanks for trying it out Venom!

[arfink]

Been abusing mine for a bit longer now. They seem to be holding up very well, and so far have had no issues with jamming or coming apart in flight. One dart did start to have the e-tape peel back a tad, so I just stuck it back on with more tape. I'll hopefully be able to try this with PVC tape before long, so i can report on how well that works.

[Ozymandias]

I would also throw in Teflon tape for consideration. That should translate to less friction, but that is purely guess work.

[Y-Brik]

I would also throw in Teflon tape for consideration. That should translate to less friction, but that is purely guess work.

You sir have never used Teflon Tape- 'tape' is used strongly with this stuff, it shreds like wet toilet paper and has no adhesion. Etape or PVC tape , if you look at the darts have a smaller final OD than the foam of the dart- no contact with the barrel means no friction already.
Meanwhile, I'm detecting a potential winner for the 'new dart' challenge- I love the concept of wrapping the weight around the outside of the dart instead of slapping it right on the intended contact point. Will watch this thread carefully....

[Ozymandias]

Ah, thanks.

[arfink]

You sir have never used Teflon Tape- 'tape' is used strongly with this stuff, it shreds like wet toilet paper and has no adhesion. Etape or PVC tape , if you look at the darts have a smaller final OD than the foam of the dart- no contact with the barrel means no friction already.
Meanwhile, I'm detecting a potential winner for the 'new dart' challenge- I love the concept of wrapping the weight around the outside of the dart instead of slapping it right on the intended contact point. Will watch this thread carefully....

That is some serious praise there. Thank you. And yeah, the tape "cinches" down the shaft of the dart a good amount, so it never really makes contact with the barrel in my experience. In fact, these darts have less barrel contact overall than normal stefans as a result, though I have not noticed any performance changes other than the "cinch" making it a tad easier to load these into tight-fitting barrels like speed loaders.

I intend to to a proper batch of these soon so I can get more accurate results. And one thing I'd like to note about building these- I prefer to use really thin wire (26AWG is the thinnest I keep handy) because it allows denser winding. I have not experimented with anything much heavier yet, just some stranded 20AWG. Stranded wire is not suggested for these kinds of darts, solid-core is much less likely to unravel in flight. In fact, the only wire-wrap darts that I have made which came apart in flight were ones made with stranded wire instead of solid core. Besides the increased durability, another advantage to solid core wire is that it makes building the darts easier, since you can wind it on and it will stay put without being held in place while the tape is applied.

[TantumBull]

One thing that I'm wondering about is the accuracy with these. Your essentially moving the darts center of mass a centimeter or so from the front, where it is in traditional stefans. It may not be enough to make a difference, but even so, I still wonder. Could someone maybe run some experiments with equally weighted darts that have a traditional tip (slug style in this case so that the aerodynamic profiles are similar)? If they are indeed significantly less accurate (which I doubt quite a bit), then the nerf rifling kiddies may have a reason to think the way they do. Dear god...

[Edible Autopsy]

I just made a few of these using ordinary soldering wire.
I haven't had a change to see how the fly very much because it's dark out right now, but as far as I can tell they are shooting about the same distance, if not further than my #6 slug darts. I'm considering converting over to these from slugs, because they are extremely easy and cheap way to make darts.

[Draconis]

There are several methods of improving consistency with this manufacturing method.
First, measure out the mass of the wire you want. Most of the big wars are begining to have acceptable dart masses in the maximum of 1.0g. Depending upon the gauge and material your wire is made from (use steel, because it will be the cheapest), you will simply need to cut sections that correspond to the desired mass. That way, all of your darts have the same mass and will get consistent range.
Second, build a jig which allows you to begin your wire wrapping at a set distance from the tip on every dart. This may also need to include a top stop, or a point at which you should double back over the first layer.
Third, electrical tape , as proven by its track record in other aspects of this sport, is sub-par (do not confuse with sub-optimal) at best. Better quality and thinner types should be more flexible, and wrap more tightly and securely around the narrow dart shafts. A different material would be a better idea, though. I'm wondering about heat shrink tubing, though I am concerned that the shrinking operation may damage the foam. I'll try it and see.

[Ozymandias]

Third, electrical tape , as proven by its track record in other aspects of this sport, is sub-par (do not confuse with sub-optimal) at best. Better quality and thinner types should be more flexible, and wrap more tightly and securely around the narrow dart shafts. A different material would be a better idea, though. I'm wondering about heat shrink tubing, though I am concerned that the shrinking operation may damage the foam. I'll try it and see.

One idea: cover the wire with a thin layer or few dots of super glue.

Edited by Ozymandias, 27 June 2011 - 07:36 PM.

[arfink]

There are several methods of improving consistency with this manufacturing method.
First, measure out the mass of the wire you want. Most of the big wars are begining to have acceptable dart masses in the maximum of 1.0g. Depending upon the gauge and material your wire is made from (use steel, because it will be the cheapest), you will simply need to cut sections that correspond to the desired mass. That way, all of your darts have the same mass and will get consistent range.
Second, build a jig which allows you to begin your wire wrapping at a set distance from the tip on every dart. This may also need to include a top stop, or a point at which you should double back over the first layer.
Third, electrical tape , as proven by its track record in other aspects of this sport, is sub-par (do not confuse with sub-optimal) at best. Better quality and thinner types should be more flexible, and wrap more tightly and securely around the narrow dart shafts. A different material would be a better idea, though. I'm wondering about heat shrink tubing, though I am concerned that the shrinking operation may damage the foam. I'll try it and see.

This is the kind of feedback I like to hear. As for the e-tape, as I mentioned it's just for testing purposes. PVC tape should work good, and if I can get vinyl vapor barrier tape in smaller width than "freakin huge" then that should work very well also. I just haven't tried it yet. Shrink tubing could be ok, but I'd be more worried about the heat application damaging the foam more than the shrink tube itself.

As for consistency- measuring the wire to be used is key, as is wrapping from a set starting point. I imagine a jig similar to ones used for fly fishing could be rigged to make this faster and easier, but for the few testing darts I made just eyeballing it has been pretty accurate.

EDIT: from my testing, consistency in the diameter of the wraps is not too critical, as long as the wire "cinch" is a smaller diameter than the "tail" of the dart. However, if you tie it too tight you run the risk of severing the head, which would be bad.

Edited by arfink, 27 June 2011 - 11:36 PM.

[Draconis]

One idea: cover the wire with a thin layer or few dots of super glue.

The problem with hard adhesives like that is that we have then returned to the same problem we are trying to remove from the designs... hard and or sharp spots that may cause injury. A better option would be to use PVC jacketed wire and a little PVC solvent weld. At least that way it would retain some flexibility.

[shmmee]

I think heat shrink tubing should show promise. Beige hot rod FBR is designed to hold up to 410 degrees F. I don't know what temperatures are needed to shrink the tubing - or what type of shrink tubing would be best (heatshrinktubingdirect.com also sells Teflon shrink tubing) but if the heat application is applied in a controlled manner I think it would be worth trying out. It seems to me that we'll need a soft or semi flexible shrink wrap so we don't core people once the padding on the head looses gets mushed to a pulp.

Keeping weight semi-consistent might be as easy as counting the number of wraps made.

It's last minute, and they haven't been approved yet, but I'm a bit short of darts for Armageddon. Our blanks are 1.25". I'll try banging a few hundred of these out for Saturday. These look like they should hopper feed without any problem. Has anyone seen e-tape thinner than it's standard width, or know where vinyl "rescue tape" is sold?

1.25" is way too short for this method. I'll be sporting gumdrops, and some slugs I bought off a friend in UT.

I found some 20 ga "beading wire" in the craft section that should work well. It was about $3.

Edited by shmmee, 01 July 2011 - 10:25 PM.

[Edible Autopsy]

Couldn't you potentially just put some heat shrink around your already wrapped darts, throuw them in a pillow case again, and throw them into the dryer for a few minute to shrink the heat shrink?

[Ozymandias]

Couldn't you potentially just put some heat shrink around your already wrapped darts, throw them in a pillow case again, and throw them into the dryer for a few minute to shrink the heat shrink?

The heat shrink could shake loose before tightening. At the very least, it will probably make your darts less consistent.

You can, however, do this in an oven, with a hair dryer, or (if the temperature is in the 90s-100s) in the trunk of your car.

[TantumBull]

Most heat shrink tubing I've seen will shrink around 170 deg F. That may be too much for the foam to handle (but I really don't know)... it could work with a sort of hot air blower as opposed to an open flame.

Edit: Maybe the beige/red hot pour foams will do better. I have some red foam from the concrete industry that was designed for joints that would be heat sealed. I also have heat shrink tubing. I'll try it out and post my results.

Edited by TantumBull, 02 July 2011 - 02:54 PM.

[arfink]

Most heat shrink tubing I've seen will shrink around 170 deg F. That may be too much for the foam to handle (but I really don't know)... it could work with a sort of hot air blower as opposed to an open flame.

Edit: Maybe the beige/red hot pour foams will do better. I have some red foam from the concrete industry that was designed for joints that would be heat sealed. I also have heat shrink tubing. I'll try it out and post my results.

Please do, that would be totally awesome of you. I just have Ace FBR so I can't do heat shrink.