2 replies to this topic

[ambushbug]

First of all, this is going to seem like a big time yawner following Carrtoon's air-pressured clip system for the 3B but I had already started working on this a couple of weeks ago. So bear with me.

Second, this is only a slight modification of the original Bacon Bow


First the barrel: I used several pieces of 3 different sizes of brass to achieve the nesting/breech setup.

- Piece #1: I cut out the rectangular breech from approx 4" of 1/2" brass. This was permanently gooped to the original (orange) barrel stub.
- Piece #2: I also glued a 17/32" stub directly to the front disk of the plunger tube (after drilling out the centre, of course).
- Piece #3: An even shorter piece of 9/16" brass was nested over ths stub to form a nice solid series of nested brass to support Piece #1.

you can see Piece #2 at the base of the breech in Piece #1 (Piece #3 is in there but not visible):


- A fourth piece was about 9 inches of 9/16 tubing which acted as the barrel. This barrel slides back when the spring/plunger head is pulled back/cocked.


Unlike Piss Bacon's and Lukeinator's version though, I decided to take advantage of the existing (sliding) guide rod located above the plunger (below and forward of the built-in "scope").



I drilled out a hole at the front of the cavity that accommodated the sliding rod and added a length of PETG to extend the guide rod anteriorly (forward). I used some Crazy Glue and hotglue with a piece of the air restrictor from a NiteFinder to connect the PETG to the rod. Sorry, I only took AFTER pics. You can see some of this from above the rod cavity (the front "sight" was hacked off).

here's a view from above the cavity (notice you can see the PETG dimensions on the sticker and part of the NF air restrictor)


This PETG is the "arm" that moves the brass barrel backwards to close the breech. The PETG and barrel were linked using a a copper T coupler, some hose clamps and a piece of picture frame hanging material (metal) bent into a loop (looks a bit like the Omega in the greek alphabet). Oh yeah and some glue and a cable tie to secure the union of the coupler and the bent metal.


Here's the assembled blaster (breech closed):



(more in sec.....)

Edited by ambushbug, 02 April 2006 - 03:20 AM.

[ambushbug]

Now for the clip:

I was struggling for ages to build a decent spring-fed clip (a la Ompa's) but I couldn't find a system that worked reliably (the crappy spring I made from old SM3K air restrictors) kept jamming.

So for now, I'm settling for the gravity-fed (non-removable but reloadable) clip.

This one's made from an old plastic container that used to house my snowboard wax. I thought it would be useful because the lid slides on these little tracks:


The container is a little wide (for the length of my darts) so I filled some of this space by gluing halves of 1/2" CPVC tubing to either side. Also because of the dimensions, I had to add a rectangular piece of plastic near the bottom of the container that funnels the darts into the breech:



The container has some space to accommodate the barrel drilled out of the bottom - I hotglued the container to the barrel (mostly to the orange barrel stub of course; hotglue doesn't really stick to brass). Since the original concept was to use a clip-fed system, the gravity-fed clip can't be positioned perfectly upright (perpendicular to the floor) but rather at an angle.


It works fine though, so long as the weight of a section of CPVC used as a weight (pushing the darts downwards) stays in place. By some stroke of luck, the CPVC is just big enough to not fit all the way down the "funnel" so it does not interfere with the chambering of the last dart.

The clip holds 7 shots (plus one in the pipe):


The clip occasionally fails to chamber a dart (fires a blank) but simply re-cocking the blaster fixes that. Reloading the clip is not too difficult (well, at least while you're not moving) because the clip has a sliding door. Since the clip is attached to the orange barrel stub, the whole thing (with the brass breech) can rotate, though obviously when firing, the clip should be upright as possible.

I'm still trying to figure out a good spring-fed clip system (removable) but for now I guess this will have to do.


P.S. I fought the temptation to give it a name (like the "Bug Bad Bow") - to everyone's relief, I'm sure.

[Forsaken angel24]

Your mod is very close to mine. I have been working on mine for a couple weeks now. In fact I am putting on the clip tonight. Good work though.