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[alberty]

Edit 1/20: added some revisions






Version 1 video
Version 2 video
Here's my first writeup!

I thought of this after seeing the Peasant's Guru mod (BBB + Big Salvo integration). At first it was going to be very similar, but then I saw the Marvelous Salvo mod (Big Salvo + SMDTG trigger) and decided I wanted to use an SMDTG trigger setup like that to have at least two rounds of shots instead of one like the PG. Shortly I found that I wasn't going to be able to acquire Big Salvo tanks for cheap so I wondered if I could use tanks from my broken Hornet instead. As a whole piece, one of the top of the six Hornet tanks can also clip into the BBB arrow holders, and the big gray piece holding all the tanks together helps keep it from falling out through the back of the holder.

In the end, this came out to great mod for me, a novice modder without a lot of tools and who only plays indoors with stock darts. With this, you only need parts from 3 guns and everything is easy to get, except for the SMDTG trigger. No glue required (Edit: if you are careful not to snap your pump's rod)!

Note - some of my steps were crude, and should be done with something less temporary. That's why no glue was required...

You will need:

- BBB (Big Bad Bow)
- Hornet - tanks and pump at minimum
- SMDTG (Spider-man Dart Tag) blaster - trigger piece at minimum
- 1/4" vinyl tubing
- 3 1/4" quick connects or barbed connectors for tubing
- 3 1/4" T quick connects or barbed connectors for tubing
- scissors
- filing tool or sandpaper
- electrical tape
- screwdriver
- OPTIONAL: 3/4" thick wall PVC coupler
- OPTIONAL: some kind of saw
- OPTIONAL: putty or hotglue or something to plug a hole
- OPTIONAL: razor blade, x-acto knife, or something to remove glued-on tubing




First, take off the bow pieces to your BBB, if still on there. Then, unscrew the front shell (the inner back shell can stay together throughout the whole thing). Take out the barrel piece, and two pieces that make up the air restrictor will come out. You should leave those out, though I recommend keeping the white circular piece for other mods, especially for future mods to your BBB.



Next, you will need a pair of scissors (or pliers will work too) to stick inside the front barrel piece. Twist it around and around until you have clipped off the 4 tabs in the barrel piece. Those prevent you from barrel mods that use the existing barrel. Next, use a filer or sandpaper to smooth out the inside.





Optionally, cut 1" inch off a 3/4" thickwall PVC coupler and put it before the spring in the BBB. That gives you some more power by compressing the spring more.




--> Regarding the barrel replacement...there are so many different barrel mods for the BBB available that I didn't write about any specifically. If you want to know what I used personally, I use a Crayola / Rose Art marker barrel. That keeps the mod beginner friendly, and it's great for barrel material to shoot stock darts that you don't need to leave the house for. Remember what I did with the scissors to the BBB barrel? You will have to do the same thing for the Crayola barrel, but even more thoroughly; however, with a Rose Art barrel, you don't have to. Crayola has some tabs inside that will shred your darts if you don't get them out. Also, you will need to wrap electrical tape around certain parts of the marker barrel and to fit it in (you want a snug fit, but you don't want to also make it impossible to get out, even with tools if you want a better barrel in the future). CLICK HERE's for a tutorial on the marker barrel for BBB, OR CLICK HERE for a better tutorial on just Crayola marker barrels itself. If you do the mod like I did though, you can put the marker barrel flush inside of the BBB barrel so that you can still shoot arrows, and the plunger head won't knock the barrel from in the inside either.

After this, you can put the stuff back together, but don't close the shell back up yet! Also, don't lose these pieces, these are actually part of the catch pieces.



Also, you probably wrap electrical tape around the barrel like this, once:



This helps stabilize the barrel, a lot!

Next, take your SMDTG blaster and open it up carefully. Eventually you will get the stuff out. Use scissors to separate the SMDTG barrels from the trigger system. Unless you plan to use the SMDTG barrels for something else, cut the tubing so that you have a more generous amount sticking out of the trigger piece. Don't forget to cut off the pump too, it sucks.

Edited by alberty, 15 March 2010 - 01:15 PM.

[alberty]

Next is the overpressure release. Nerf pump guns have devices like this that make sure the tanks don't get a certain amount of air after a certain volume; this is bad for you because the SMDTG trigger won't let you get as much air as you want through to the tanks. Use something like putty or hotglue to close this up. If you don't, you may have more air escaping than you want. Thank you Zorn's Lemma for pointing this out. ALSO, this now means there's no safety for you if you overpump for some reason (like over 30 might get some plastic explosions).




Then, take your Hornet and get the tanks and pump out by cutting the tubing to separate them from the main trigger piece thing. The hard part now is to get off the tubing (they're usually glued on) and stick the new smaller 1/4" tubing on the six tanks and the pump. The reason to go through this much trouble is because the Hornet tubing is some weird size that is bigger than 1/4" and smaller than 3/8", so I personally haven't found any way to use them with their default tubing. If you can, then you don't have to go through this painful step.



Now with the pump, you need to get it to stay inside the shell of the BBB through the front "sights" area. Unlike the Magstrike pump in the Peasant's Guru mod, the Hornet pump is narrower and shorter. Since my aim was to keep going without having to glue or sand anything down, I used a not-so-secure method of wrapping a lot of electrical tape; at the front to keep it from going in, and in the back to keep it from going out.



It is still not 100% secure, so you will want to come up with a better way in the future. I was trying to do this quickly without much, so it's just temporary.

Now, connect all the tubing together. For each pair of tanks, use a T connector to link them. Each pair will be one output on the SMDTG trigger. The pump will input into the SMDTG trigger as well. Refer to the pictures to see which goes where.




Before mounting this new Marvelous Hornet setup, try it out and see if it works. If there are any leaks, check your tubing connections, especially if you're using quick connects.

Now, choose your side. I personally chose to put the tanks on the left because I figured that the pump renders the BBB sight useless anyways, so I may as well use my right hand (dominant hand) to pump. You'll learn that it'll take about 25 pumps for a good blast from the Hornet tanks, unfortunately. Well, it's about the same number as a stock Magstrike's pumps, so it's not terrible, just not fast, so make sure you keep it pumped before you need it.



To keep the tanks and SMDTG trigger from flopping around, I used a short bungee cord. You don't need to cut up the Hornet tanks casing, mine was just like that. It took me forever to use the bungee cord to wrap around without pulling the tanks in the wrong direction. Again, this is one of those crude steps in which you can probably find a better way.



There you have it. If I have time, I will try to add another set of Hornet tanks. From there, I can switch the pump to a Magstrike pump (which is better because it has 1/4" tubing, no overpressure hole, and gets more volume quickly; also has a smaller handle, won't accidentally get in the way of darts). Also, I then also have many setups possible, like having 1 SMDTG trigger fire 4 at a time, or 2 SMDTG triggers to control each set, etc...I may also try different barrels later.




Hope it wasn't too bad for my first writeup. I will definitely try to improve it in the future, but I'd also like to see other people's versions. Thanks everyone in the trading section who sold me stuff to make this happen, and my friend Jarett for the BBB spring. I found this BBB in the trash one day, and it had everything but the spring. Now look where it is! I'm glad I picked it up.

I didn't show that I also added Recon spring to the BBB, and the Hornet air restrictors are removed. Those are extra and what gave me the ranges.

Related mods:
Peasant's Guru
Marvelous Salvo
Crayola barrel for BBB
Crayola barrel making
Marvelous Titan

Edited by alberty, 08 January 2010 - 01:57 PM.

[Zorns Lemma]

Very nice! The only thing you might need to consider is at higher pressures the SMDTG trigger doesn't dump enough air for multiple tanks hooked up to it to fire properly. Two will probably still work, but if you encounter issues, one way is to switch the barbed Ts out for barbed Ys.

[alberty]

Very nice! The only thing you might need to consider is at higher pressures the SMDTG trigger doesn't dump enough air for multiple tanks hooked up to it to fire properly. Two will probably still work, but if you encounter issues, one way is to switch the barbed Ts out for barbed Ys.

Oh right! Well, this is where I had some other mods I forgot to mention. My SMDTG trigger is plugged (just stuck some putty over the hole), and not related but my Hornet tanks have the air restrictors removed. Thanks for noting that, I will edit that.

[Samzilla]

Wow this is a great first writeup. Which reminds me i need to post one up one of these days.

[HOTH]

Great job. It looks very clean in a clusterfuck sort of way.

[alberty]

Because of my poor method of placing the Hornet pump into the front sight, I accidentally snapped a piece of the pump. To remedy this, I've gone through the trouble of filing the inside "vein-like" things and then using Gorilla Glue for setting in a Magstrike pump instead.

More importantly, the not-super-tight fitting of my vinyl tubing on the T connectors kept letting air leak or the tubes shooting off in my face while pumping air into the Hornet tanks. I put Krazy Glue to make each attachment at T connectors permenant.

Edited by alberty, 20 January 2010 - 07:11 PM.