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Homemade Firefly Turret


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#1 Retiate

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Posted 21 October 2006 - 01:28 AM

Many of you have probably seen, and maybe even done Echo's Firefly Clip Mod.
Here is the topic, complete with a nice write up.

Well, I have done this to my Firefly, but I didn't have any extra Firefly turrets hangin' around. So I decided to make my own.

Materials required:
8 Crayola Markers (I do not know if Roseart will work, because you need it to have a skinny and fat end)
8 Elmers Glue Sticks
Outer casing of Firefly Turret
Hot glue gun with extra glue sticks
Electrical Tape
Screwdriver
Firefly (Clip modded, just like in the link I provided, it has to have the orange thing that you flip up and down so the turret can stay supported)

Sorry the pictures are limited and don't show the steps too well, I made this clip, then decided to make a write-up on how to do it.

Well, here it is.
So first, you gotta open up your Firefly. Remove the turret and strip it down until you got this.
Posted Image
Make sure you get rid of that pink thing on the back of it so it can lie flat on the ground.

Then, get 8 Crayola markers and 8 Elmer's Glue sticks. The glue sticks' case looks like this.
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They need to be these kind because they have this inner casing that fits over the Crayola markers perfectly.

So now hollow out the Crayola markers until they can be used as barrels. Then find the end that fits darts better (The fatter side). Shove the glue stick casing on the tighter end of your Crayola marker, with some pushing, it will go all the way on. Do this with your remaining Crayola Markers/glue stick casings.
Posted Image

Now put all of those barrels on that white piece you got earlier, notice how the glue stick casings fit in the barrel holes perfectly. It should now look like this, just without that black thing over it.
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Now for that black thing. You'll need the outer casing of your Firefly turret for this. See where the turret starts to increase in diameter? Cut that part off and sand down the cut so it won't hurt you. Then wrap the inside in a couple layers of E-tape. Fit that outer layer over your barrels. Look at the above picture to see what it should look like.

Alright, now come's the part I had the most trouble with, glueing it on. I used a dual-temp glue gun and switched it to high. this is going to be kind of hard to explain, but I will describe it the best I can. Your goal is the glue the barrels in without moving them in any way, and no glue can be oozing out all over the inside of the turret. Remeber, that silver thing needs to go inbetween each barrel, so there can't be any hotglue in that path. I poked in the tip of my glue gun as far as it could go and angled it toward the barrel I wanted to glue. Then I poured hotglue along the side of that barrel, moving the glue gun out of the barrel so there was glue along the top portion of the barrel. I did this to all the barrels, on both the left and right sides, and I did it to the top and bottom half of the turret. The bottom half was tough because I had to weave the hot glue gun in between 2 barrels, the black turret thing, and the white bottom piece. I had to do it in halves because the glue wouldn't go all the way down and cover the entire side of the barrel. Here's the best picture I could get, that cloudy stuff on the sides of the barrel is hotglue.
Posted Image

I am still working on getting a center piece in the middle of the turret so I can flip up the orange piece in to keep the turret supported. I am thinking I could use that Lexan plastic or something.

Edit: Got the face plate done.
For this part your gonna need:
A dremel
Hot glue gun with glue sticks
A permanent marker

So, I didn't have any Lexan, so I had to come up with something else. I decided to go with a CD case.
First, put the CD case on the turret and draw a circle (with a compass) that is a little bigger than the inner diameter of the turret (By inner diameter i mean the diameter of the circle that the sides of the barrels make). Cut that out, then draw out where the barrels are going to be in the way of the your circle. Then go ahead and cut those out. Make sure you mark which cut out piece goes to each barrel, I marked a Y for the yellow marker.
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And now you need to put the face plate in the turret, so go ahead and slide it on. And go ahead and heat up your hot glue gun.
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Now it's time to glue that face plate in there. make sure it is not tilted, I used a glue stick to push it even.
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Now comes the tricky part. you need to find the exact center of your face plate. One you have that, go ahead and drill a hole there so you can now flip up the orange piece to make sure your barrel in on straight.
Posted Image

And now your done with your homemade Firefly turret.
What about the ranges? Don't worry. I got 'em right here:
With stock Dart Taggers I am getting about 3'-4' less than the original turret's ranges, which was only like 20'-30' with the Taggers. I am very impressed with this, I will try out my Stefans in this, which should bring the ranges back up to at least 35'-40'.

Edited by Retiate, 22 October 2006 - 11:36 AM.

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#2 echo104b

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Posted 21 October 2006 - 01:46 AM

Thanks for Posting this! I too do not have a replacement Turret for my Firefly. So i'm willing to try this out. I do believe Lexan should work just fine for the front plate. It will also stabalize the barrels when you pull it out of the rubber backing. CPVC should work for this as a barrel materiel as well. I've got way more of that than Crayola markers that i can tear apart. (plus, it's cheaper) I'll give it a try and get some spare Lexan to make a Front plate. a half inch Drll bit and some Epoxy should do the trick.

:P

thanks! I'll be editing in a Link to this in my Mod!
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#3 Megamannt92

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Posted 21 October 2006 - 09:27 AM

Awesome very nice! What ranges do you get with it on?!
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#4 Retiate

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Posted 21 October 2006 - 09:45 PM

Ok, so I tested the range on the new turret. I shot at my door, about 7' away. I tested with Streamline darts, and they pitifully bounced off the door at about shin-level. So I went and used some better darts, they hit the door at about shin level, but with a lot of power. Now don't get discouraged that the ranges were so poor, I don't have a front plate on the turret yet, so it was sagging down quite a bit. I'll fix that and post results with official ranges as soon as I can.
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#5 echo104b

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Posted 21 October 2006 - 11:01 PM

Ok. it's Official. This works with CPVC/PEX you just have to put a small (very small) piece of E-Tape that goes around about 1/4 of the base of the barrel to get it to stay in place. If i just fire it plainly, the darts dont even leave the barrel. However, when i Hold it up straight when firing, it gets to my wall (about 10 feet away) and hit with a good amount of force. No Drop at all. I'm currently working on another method of stabalizing the turret while firing. without having to make the Face plate. Hopefully it will work as well as i think it will. It involves a section of 3 or 4 inch PVC and some Lubricant. Plus some Hotglue.
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#6 Retiate

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Posted 22 October 2006 - 12:41 AM

I'm currently working on another method of stabalizing the turret while firing. without having to make the Face plate. Hopefully it will work as well as i think it will. It involves a section of 3 or 4 inch PVC and some Lubricant. Plus some Hotglue.


Hmmm. I look forward to seeing that.
I'm also curious to see how the CPVC works out and if it works better than the markers and glue sticks.

Well I got a faceplate on, but now I am having problems with the turret hitting the flashlight thing, so I'm going to take that out, not that it was useful anyways. I'll edit my first post with a write up on how to make the faceplate.
I haven't tested ranges yet because I haven't opened up the gun and removed the light.

Maybe we will be able to make more turrets out of some other materials, since we don't have that outer turret piece any more... Maybe cutting up a bottle or something?
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#7 echo104b

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Posted 22 October 2006 - 05:23 PM

I'm currently working on another method of stabalizing the turret while firing. without having to make the Face plate. Hopefully it will work as well as i think it will. It involves a section of 3 or 4 inch PVC and some Lubricant. Plus some Hotglue.


Hmmm. I look forward to seeing that.
I'm also curious to see how the CPVC works out and if it works better than the markers and glue sticks.

Well I got a faceplate on, but now I am having problems with the turret hitting the flashlight thing, so I'm going to take that out, not that it was useful anyways. I'll edit my first post with a write up on how to make the faceplate.
I haven't tested ranges yet because I haven't opened up the gun and removed the light.

Maybe we will be able to make more turrets out of some other materials, since we don't have that outer turret piece any more... Maybe cutting up a bottle or something?


It didnt work. :/ The darts dont even move when i fire the gun after i put it in.

I think that the CPVC is too Tight for this gun. I may be stepping down to the Crayola and Gluesticks as well.

Nice job on the Faceplate BTW. looks awesome :lol:
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#8 Retiate

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Posted 22 October 2006 - 06:44 PM

It didnt work. :/ The darts dont even move when i fire the gun after i put it in.

I think that the CPVC is too Tight for this gun. I may be stepping down to the Crayola and Gluesticks as well.

Nice job on the Faceplate BTW. looks awesome :lol:


Yeah, sometimes that happens to me when I push the darts too far back, or when the barrel is a little tighter.

Thanks. Though it's now got a crack in it since I accidentally pushed on it. Though That doesn't change performance.

I have encountered a problem with my turret; the face plate was back too far so my barrels were hitting the orange piece that held the turret straight. I had to cut down a bit, and now it works fine.
Another problem I found was that the turret was pretty hard to fit into the gun, I think this is because of my poor glueing job. But I found it does fit in pretty well when the barrels are placed in a certain spot. So I marked a barrel and a section of the shiny silver thing so I know which barrel fits best where.

I also got some more ranges, this time with CDTS's.
The gun was held at upper chest-shoulder level.
The original turret hit the wall (about 10' away) at about mid chest level.
The new turret hit at about lower chest level.

I am going to try and get a replacement spring so the more restrictive marker barrels will add range.
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