4 replies to this topic

[Ksimo13]

Hey everyone, this is my first post so please don't slam me too hard if I didn't do this correctly. Yes I did search for this but it might be my error that has prevented me from finding anything out.

Yesterday I received a package of darts from china. They're styled after elite darts but they have stiffer blue foam and a solid orange tip. This is a link to an ebay auction that has the same pictures as the ones I had ordered:
http://www.ebay.com/...705628166&rt=nc

The darts are slightly thicker than stock darts and don't really work at all in my cpvc/pvc breeched nitefinder. I made some "stefans" out of them by cutting them down and hot gluing the original dart heads back on (after shaving them down a bit so they wouldn't rub the barrel).

My question is this: Is there any reliable way to decrease the width of the foam so they would fit less snug in the barrel?
The foam is nice and I like the idea of easily making good looking and mostly aerodynamic stefans quickly.

Thanks for any help,
Ksimo

[pop tart]

You can stretch foam by hanging it with weights at the end or putting it in some sort of rack setup for a length of time but that's really only applicable to long lengths of uncut FBR. I suppose you could htretch each dart itself, but that would be very time consuming and inconsistent. To be honest, if you really like these darts/foam, it's much easier to change your barrels to accept the darts than to change your darts to accept your current barrels. Try checking out some of the stickies threads in the Darts and Barrels forum for more information (though some is outdated).

[Ksimo13]

Thanks for the input poptart. I decided that stretching was not worth my time and effort in addition to the probability of me ruining my darts.

Instead I chose to cut a small length of the cpvc that was the legth of the dart. With the dart inside, I threw it in a sock and threw the whole thing in the dryer on high for about ten minutes.

The results were actually really good. The darts work with cpvc really well and they slide in and out of the cpvc barrel on my jolt as I move the priming handle.

After a few minutes on the band saw I've cut 20 dart holders so I'll be able to pump these out decently quick.

[pop tart]

Glad to hear it worked out!

[Astech]

I like the idea of easily making good looking and mostly aerodynamic stefans quickly.

You've already found a solution, but if speed is a concern, just chuck your darts into a pillow case, wrap the case around a hair dryer output and blast for 10 minutes. it has the same effect, but you can do much larger loads without all that cutting. Of course, this may be case-by-case so you might want to test a few before using them all.

Edited by Astech, 28 May 2015 - 02:31 AM.