21 replies to this topic

[cxwq]

The other day in a conversation about modding, VACC compared me to someone else by saying that I take a "perfectionistic" approach to modification. I hadn't really thought about it that way before but it's definitely true. I plan my mods out ahead of time and mentally try out all the options before I start cutting. I try to keep my external case mods limited to things that enhance the size, balance, or beauty of the gun.

At the other end of the spectrum are people who jump right into the mod and hack away at stuff until it works the way they want it. They frequently end up with something completely different than they intended. Perhaps something that functions brilliantly but resembles a giant mass of duct tape.

Where on the modding spectrum are you? What approach do you take to modification? What do you consider a successful mod?

[Groove]

Hmmm...good topic. I'd consider myself a person who jumps in and does something right away. I usually hack away and plop things in and out until it looks all nice and pretty. I have a pre-defined image of what I want it to look like in my mind, it's just that it usually takes me a while to get there. I'll start something, leave it there for a week, reflect on what I really want it to look like and what I've done to it along the way, then finish it. What I would consider a successful mod would be one that not only improves the performace of the gun, but improves the gun overall (stability, reliability, overall feel and look, etc...).

If it's up there, and I see it, I'm going to make it like that.

[Sandman]

I usually take time to do modifications, but my results aren't always pretty to look at. I'm also bad at leaving projects on their lonesome. For example, I've got the remains of a SM3000 leftover from two summers ago, STILL sitting under my bed.

[VACC]

I'm the worst with this. You see I have no patience, so I simply come up with a plan/scheme, purchase my supplies, and then simply fuck around with the thing until it works. I mean, I'll diagram a plan, but that's the most prep my methods usually allow. The real analytical part of the process comes afterwards when I test my mods in battle. Then I can toy with them until they work just right. As far as appearence goes, I give really no forethought to that.

VACC

[merlinski]

I tend to know what I'm doing before I open up a gun. Mostly because if I start expirementing, the chance of that gun ever being put back together decreases to about 5%. I have quite a few half-guns laying around my room that I never really finished. As for appearance, I couldn't care less about that as long as it works, and works well.

[JiF]

I'll very rarely originate a mod. If I attempt to, I'll ususally end up with a pile of useless plastic. I normally wait for someone else to do it, and follow their lead. Nonetheless, I do have a few piles of plastic sitting around. Two piles are lock N loads, out of pure laziness to find replacement springs.

[Zero Talent]

This may send you into peals of laughter, but yeah, I preplan my mods. I just wasn't good at planning in my early days.

Yeah, you get that tug of suggestion to just whip out the hacksaw and go at it; Sometimes it works, or not, other times. Usually the latter. The odd thing is, I've never "tweaked" a mod, really... Whenever I mod, I come up with a new idea as I finish the last one, so my weapons are forever in modifications limbo.

[Paradox]

Heh, I'm kind of in the hack&slash catejory. Its never really botched a mod, but I haven't done allot of experimental modding either... Xpheyel was my only truly unique mod, and it started as an attempt to add a clip to a BBB (lucky for me it came out pretty too once I camoflauged it).

[Supreme Admiral FDG]

I am somewhere inbetween, I try to plan my mods, but I also think about what I could do to get it to work better as I go along, because my plan may not work out as I expect, so I make a change that give my design an improvement over what it was going to be in my plan. I don't like to just hack and slash, but I am not good at planing, so my stratagy is somewhere in between.

[Sacapuntas Cabesa]

Planning ain't the kind of thing that's in my bag......baby.

[Frenzied fury]

I try and find some stuff out about the , wait till I feel motivated enough to go by the stuff, then just try stuff till I get results. Last Saturday I bought 1' 19/32" brass, 1' 9/16" brass, and 1' 1/2" cpvc. I wrapped the brass in duct tape and shoved it down the main barrel of my Secret Shot 2, then I took the 1/2" cpvc, wrapped it in duct tape again, and shoved it down the barrel of the small arms part of the perceptor (it works rather well as a modification, and I still have the 19/32" brass, but I'm considering cutting it and getting more to modify my roto-track.

[WebbZter]

I plan my mods really well except I don't like measuring. I usually just estimate the dimensions of the guns and start hacking away. Because of that I usually hack away more or less than I actually plan to.

When integrating something I always take the part that I am integrating and stick it into the casing of the gun to see if it will fit.

[Kuhlschrank]

When I am modding I look at the internals for a few moments just to see exactly what I must hack and mangle to get the mod to work, and thus the plastic supports inside the gun are always twisted and torn in odd angles. Just a lack of patience I guess.

[VACC]

I think the most blatant flaw in my system of modifying can be seen in the sawtooth. It was one of the first guns I ever took apart and I've regretted every time I've done it since. I mean, famine and I took two or three apart for some reason or another when we first started modifying guns, and NONE of them worked when we put them back together, and we never did know why. My point, though belated, is that it is important to truly understand how a gun, and I mean the whole gun, works before fucking with it. Nerf engineers are not geniuses, but they are sneaky little bastards, and they are, if nothing else, clever. The spring that touches nothing and is shaped like a cirlce with perpendicular protrusions? Yeah you know the one I'm talking about. It may SEEM useless, but it's probably not, and it will fuck something up at the opposite end of the damned gun...well you get my point.

VACC

[Zero Talent]

Yeah, that's a definite. It was the entire reason I opened up my guns in the first place! Just wanted to know how this crap worked.

What sucks are the ones that like to spew springs like so much mucus when you open them up... You have to spend a few minutes trying to figure out how the gun should work, as opposed to how it works...

[Cadmond]

I almost always try to work around the internals when I mod, and just take out one piece, work on it, and put it back in... unless it's all IN one piece, like the ss2. I've lost way too many guns just yanking stuff out after trying to memorize where everything goes.

[Sniper5000]

Usually I don't plan out anything. If I do then its all in my head, never written down or anything like that. I just sat down one day and decided to brass my BBB. That was the extent of my planning. I had problems modding it, but it all turned out fine in the end. I guess it is better to plan out things more though, since I have had several complete disasters. One was when I tried to replace the firing spring in the WF. Never did get it back together. Then again, experience does teach you.

[rawray7]

If it is a gun i am not familiar with, i usually look at CXWQ or Yakman's mods, then decide if i am going to do exactly what they did, or tweak the mod a little bit. then i open up the gun, and stare at the innards for a bit, to make sure i have my plan correct...then i start hacking away...and if it doesn't work, then i go back to it and try and fix it, or turn it into something else. Although, if i care about the gun alot, like my crossbow or powerclip, then i try to do as little to the gun as possible, to get the best preformance. If i find the inside parts tricky, like the 5000, i usually follow directions exactly. i guess i would say that i am impatient with mods, as long as i don't love the gun...then i am semi-perfectionist.

[thewee1]

I think for a while. If my head starts to hurt to much I start, do some things, wait a while trying to figure out what to do then start over again. In the begining I would just open the gun and work from their but it didn't go over to well, neither did writing it down.

[Puddle of Foam]

I'm the type that thinks about the final product, and then mods it like crazy. Probably somewhere in between what your two answers were.

[Dan Wask]

I think the most blatant flaw in my system of modifying can be seen in the sawtooth. It was one of the first guns I ever took apart and I've regretted every time I've done it since. I mean, famine and I took two or three apart for some reason or another when we first started modifying guns, and NONE of them worked when we put them back together, and we never did know why. My point, though belated, is that it is important to truly understand how a gun, and I mean the whole gun, works before fucking with it. Nerf engineers are not geniuses, but they are sneaky little bastards, and they are, if nothing else, clever. The spring that touches nothing and is shaped like a cirlce with perpendicular protrusions? Yeah you know the one I'm talking about. It may SEEM useless, but it's probably not, and it will fuck something up at the opposite end of the damned gun...well you get my point.

VACC

Belive me VACC I know how you feel. I once had a beutiful EAB. I completely forgot to even look for a mod and jumped right in. Well, I dropped my dremel and it sliced off part of the catch. I spent hours and hours trying to get that thing strong enough. And when I did it broke in a completely different spot.

It turned out ok though, because I took my triple strike and integrated into the shell. It was pretty kick ass until I was shot-out and I had left my gun in the parking lot of the park. Well, lets just say what happend next wasn't pretty. A god blessed truck ran over the damn thing. I loved that gun.

But anways I sort of think about what I am going to do. I get out the dremel, the pvc or what ever else I need and start cutting. I do usually look at someone elses mods and elaberate on those.

[Milkbelly]

Yeah, I'd say the RB is the most blatant example of that that I've seen Zero. The EAB has all sorts of weirdness in it, but all that stuff is usually removed when modding it.

And VACC, how can you really say that those Sawteeth were such a loss? Didn't the gun rather suck balls unmodded? I'd say it was worth the risk to break into 'em even if the results were less than stellar.