3 replies to this topic

[ferball]

I know that "concept threads" are extremely erotic, but I work for a living and will not have time to continue my experiment for a few more weeks and I am wondering if anybody else has done any research or development in this direction.

The expanding door and window foam when injected into half inch pvc will cure and create a foam rod the exact diameter of the pvc. This I know because I was able to run a quick experiment between foaming windows today at work. I am thinking that if you took some of those plastic trim clips you can get at the auto parts store and put that in one end of the pipe then foam, the foam would fill around the shaft of the clip so when you push your foam out of the pipe you have a foam bullet ready to go, just trim to length. This would be a quick easy way to make straight darts to any diameter barrel. Use your desired barrel material as the mold.

Given the creativity on this board I have a hard time believing that no one has done this yet. I am just wondering if it has been done why it is not a more common dart smithing technique and if it hasn't I will be happy to report my results as I have time to mess with it.

[Carbon]

I'll try and dig up the link, but past experiments have shows it doesn't work very well. The foam tends to be too stiff, difficult to get out of the tube, and too open celled to be a good dart.

[Draconis]

I use a similar method, but not with PU foam. I just pull ten feet of FBR in to sections of CPVC and let them "season" for a couple weeks. Works great.

[ferball]

I'll try and dig up the link, but past experiments have shows it doesn't work very well. The foam tends to be too stiff, difficult to get out of the tube, and too open celled to be a good dart.

A little more experimenting today shows that the high expansion foam will indeed be to open celled. The low expansion 'window and door' type foam has a nice cell structure. Hopefully I will have time to make and test fire a few this weekend.