13 replies to this topic

[Kilomona]

Homemade rings write up

Recently, I thrifted a koosh vortex tornado missing it's sight but with it's original rings for 50 cents. I had 4 rings, but I wanted more(as always) so I made some. Disclaimer: no, this is not my original idea. Someone in the thread on making these from tape suggested using promo bands. This idea was not explored, however, until I did.
Here is a pic of what the rings will look like when you finish.
Picture at bottom
Pretty, right? No? Well, they work.
The materials you will need are as follows: Scissors, a measuring tool, rubber bracelets, scotch tape, and a heating tool(heat gun, lighter, stove, hot glue gun tip, etc.).
Pic at bottom
The first step is to cut one horizontally. Nothing too complicated here, just a simple, straight cut will do.
Then, measure and cut the band to ~5.7 inches, or 14 cm. Again, just a simple cut.
The third step is to cut a piece of tape approximately 3 inches, depending on the thickness of your bands. Wrap this around the two ends until you have 3 layers of scotch tape, and make sure it is firmly wrapped so it will stay in place while you heat it. You could stop here, if you want fragile and easily destroyed rings, but you shouldn't.
Finally, use the heating tool on the tape to get it to shrink into itself and really bond the ends together, greatly increasing the durability of your rings. This might take some practice, as the tape likes to shrink very fast.
That's my writeup on my homemade koosh vortex rings for ya. Hope my first topic was a good one.

Edited by Kilomona, 20 February 2016 - 12:41 PM.

[The2ndBluesBro]

Amazing. How do they perform vs. the OG rings and how cheaply do you think these could be made?

Edited by The2ndBluesBro, 20 February 2016 - 01:44 PM.

[Kilomona]

Amazing. How do they perform vs. the OG rings and how cheaply do you think these could be made?

Forgot to mention that in the topic (: . They perform almost identically, but a couple of my homemade rings consistenly go off course. I think that is due to bad tape application. They do hurt a little bit more, as they are slightly heavier amd reach completely identical ranges( no exaggeration, I just went outside to make sure and they all landed within 5 feet of each other). To answer your second question, producing these on a very large scale could become "expensive". Ordering 100 blank, hot pink, 1/2 inch, silicone wristbands costs 73.99 minimum before shipping(but you get an extra 100). 73 cents per ring isn't super bad, especially compared to genuine rings, but they come out to ~80 cents each after time and tape. Not bad, but not great. On a small scale however, you can easily keep all the bands you will inevitably get at events makes this almost free when you are just making a few.

[Draconis]

Thank you for reminding me that making a mold for these is on my list of things to design and print up.

[The2ndBluesBro]

Now that we know we can use 1/2" silicone banding to make these, it would probably be far more cost efficient if we could find somewhere that sells the material used to make these wristbands in long lengths.

EDIT: I'm an idiot, they use a mold.

Edited by The2ndBluesBro, 20 February 2016 - 09:02 PM.

[Gemeneye]

Do you have any spinfire rings to compare the ranges?  Real spinfire rings are airfoils and taper at the back end.  They are also made up of two different durometers of silicone, one for the front portion and one for the body of the ring.  This gives the rings rigidity and stability in flight, as well as a softer material to take the impact of whatever you fire it at.  

[Jimu RetroGuru]

I've been making my own for YEARS by simply cutting the tops off Lipton Pure Leaf Tea bottles. The sides of the caps are a perfect match for the smaller rings. Other brands of bottles juice work too, and provide other colors. Larger bottles (same size as the Vitamin Water bottle caps used for Titan mods) work for the larger rings used in earlier Koosh guns.

HINT: I've found that it's MUCH easier to trim the tops of the bottle caps while they are still on the bottles. Same goes for drilling holes for the Titan mods.

Some Google-fu back when I was first trying to replicate the rings myself found a non-Haven mod for cutting select segments off plastic Star Wars lightsabers. I'd recommend experimenting with knock-offs first. There's a Nerfhaven guide for making duct tape rings, too

[Kilomona]

Do you have any spinfire rings to compare the ranges?  Real spinfire rings are airfoils and taper at the back end.  They are also made up of two different durometers of silicone, one for the front portion and one for the body of the ring.  This gives the rings rigidity and stability in flight, as well as a softer material to take the impact of whatever you fire it at.  

Yes, I said that both in the topic post and my reply to 2ndbluesbro. They are essentially the same in terms of performance.

[Gemeneye]

My apologies I missed that previous reply.  I'm glad they get similar ranges.  Good find.

[Majestic]

Do you have a link for the lightsaber rings?

[Jimu RetroGuru]

That was a few years ago. Since then, it's been buried under Nerf Vortex and Star Wars Angry Birds Koosh pages.

All you do is cut rings off the saber blade at the right diameter for your blaster. Remember, Koosh had two different size rings.

The airfoil wedge has little effect on the ring's flight. The main source of lift comes from the rotation imparted by the blaster.

[snakerbot]

Spinning the rings won't generate any lift, but it will add stability to the ring, preventing it from tumbling and generally keeping it pointed the right way.  That said, the airfoil shape really won't generate lift either, because it's symmetrical top-to-bottom.  The only way the rings could generate lift is if the whole body of the ring has some angle of attack, which could be possible, I guess.  I have a couple of those ring around somewhere, but I don't know if I have any launchers.  I'll check tomorrow and perhaps investigate a little.

[Jimu RetroGuru]

NIB RINGS ON AMAZON!

Look for "Zing Air Zyphoon Blaster Refll Pack" (sic). The Zing rings are functionally identical to the smaller Koosh Micro rings.

[The2ndBluesBro]

NIB RINGS ON AMAZON!

Look for "Zing Air Zyphoon Blaster Refll Pack" (sic). The Zing rings are functionally identical to the smaller Koosh Micro rings.

Good find, but almost no one uses any koosh blaster that fires those. We are looking to find a suitable homemade alternative to the larger size rings used in the tornado (and x-2) and firestorm.