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[Zaxbys]

Brass on Brass At3k Mod

By: Zaxbys

This is a tutorial over how to do a brass barrel replacement ,and "pump plug mod" to an At3k.


Supplies

--- You' ll need 1 Airtech 3000, found mostly nowadays in twin packs at Dollar General.



--- Expoxy quick setting kind ( has to be)
--- 36 inches (or 3 sticks) of 17/32" Round Brass Tubing (found at most hobby stores for those who don't know which can be bought in 12in long pieces.
--- 12 inches (or 1 stick) of 9/16" Round Brass Tubing
--- Some type of Brass Polish (perferably Brass- O)
--- An old rag
--- Hotglue gun
--- Hotglue


Tools

---Hacksaw
---Exacto Knife
---Screwdriver


Now onto the write- up.

This write- up will take you through the following mods:
1. "Pump Plug" Mod
2. "Brass on Brass barrel replacement
-a preparing the turret
-b preparing the barrels


Part 1. "Pump Plug" Mod



First take your stock Airtech 3000 and remove all the screws making sure not to strip them, remembering the screws on both sides of the pump handle ( We will refer to tfhe gun as an At3k for the rest of the write- up). You should now see the internals shows in the picture above.



Now locate the part shown in the picture above and pull it out.



Look at the end of the pump, and using your hotglue gun pluge the hole in the center making sure the glue is flush to the plastic around it, and slide the pump back into the place where you removed it from.

Warning: Now that you have plugged the overpressure release valve I would not suggest pump the gun up more than 3 pumps at the fear of something in the gun such as a plastice tube bursting! So remember no more than 3 pumps!

Now we'll move on to the next phase of our write-up!

Part 2. Brass barrel replacement

A. Preparing the Turret


(Thanks Cxwq for the picture)

Now close up the gun that was all the dealing with the internals that you'll have to do. Start the barrel replacement by locating the line on the turret barrels about 3/4 the way back. You want to cut the barrels, using your hacksaw, 5/16" behind that line to leave you enough of the barrel stub to work with your brass. Making very sure that you dont damage the auto- rotate mechanism in tehecenter of the turret.



You should now have something that looks like something shown in the picture above.

B. Preparing the Barrels

First you'll want to take your 36inches (3 pieces) of 17/32" brass and cut them into 6 inch sections. Then take your 12 in. (1 piece) of 9/16" brass and cut it into 2 inch sections.



Now take one 2in section of 9/16" brass and slide it over 1 6in section of 17/32 brass so that you getr something resembling the picture above. (This is why the mod is called "Brass on Brass barrel replacemnt!"?) Repeat this with all six barrels.



Now get your At3k now with cut barrels, your newly constructed barrels, your epoxy, and lots of patience!



You'll want to start by preparing your epoxy, and putting a small amount of the epoxy inside of one of the barrels on the At3k as well asl on the end of the 9/16" brass now attached to your barrel (shown above)



Now this is where quick setting epoxy comes in handy because now you'll need to properly center and set you barrel where it is straight and level like shown above. Make sure you hold it in place until it sets because the barrels will shift and accuracy problems can occur later.



Repeat gluing the barrels until you have glue all six barrels in the same manner until you get something as shown above.
When all the barrels are finished glueing and have set so that they no longer move, they should be allowed to cure overnight before being fired as to not risk the glue breaking it bond with the plastic.

Now after the epoxy cures:

1.Using your exacto knife clean off any excess glue
2. Polish the outside of the barrels with Brass- O to get that slick finish brass can have

Next enjoy you newly modded At3k! B.O.B. Style!

Questions?, Comments? Just PM Me!

[All Star]

Great mod! I would recomend putting Electrical tape around the barrels for stabbilty Though.

[Maeric]

General store eh? Would a Dollar General count?

I actually thought these went out of production. Nice mod though. And I agree, you need a spacer and some e-tape to keep the barrels straight.

[six-five-two]

Still have a few of them at my local Toys R Us... I tried to modify mine but I couldn't open all of it, something was glued together.

[All Star]

i find the twin packs pretty frequntly on the internet.

[SHADOW HUNTER ALPHA]

Simple and effective. The one thing that you forgot to mention, although I assume that everyone knows it, is to clean out and deburr (remove the sharp plastic remnants) the nubs you leave of the original barrels. Sand the surfaces you want to epoxy, too, to let it bond better.

[Zaxbys]

How well does one size of brass fit over the other? If you leave the inner brass unglued, you would be able to reload so much quicker. But if it doesn't fit well enough, there's no point - the barrels would constantly fall out.

The barrels fit airtight, and are not easy at all to remove, other wise this setup would establish a good coupler system.

[Zaxbys]

Barrels are supposed to be hard to remove - otherwise they will fall out. If you epoxy the inner barrels together and put in a spacer, you'll be able to pull all the barrels out at once for reloading. It may be hard to pull out, but I'm sure it will be worth it.

Good concept and I will have to look into it. I don't think it would work with 17/32" and 9/16" but it might with
17/32" and 19/32" because of the space difference. It would kind of act as a coupler but when I think of a coupler I think why not just use e- tape and some 1/2" CPVC Couplers or even better something similar to "wishbone barrels"

But aside from talking about designs, and theory I would like to thank everyone's thoughts on this and hope this end up in the directory some day.

[Thom]

Brass is 1/64" thick. Therefore, 17/32 nests perfectly inside 9/16. If you tried to nest 17/32 inside 19/32, there's be a 1/64" gap all the way around.

[Zaxbys]

Brass is 1/64" thick. Therefore, 17/32 nests perfectly inside 9/16. If you tried to nest 17/32 inside 19/32, there's be a 1/64" gap all the way around.

But as your face said if you instereted a spacer of some kind inside then in theory you could make the barrel removable.

[Forsaken angel24]

I would recommend using two spacers for the barrels one at the base and one at the end of the barrels. Then run a strip of hot glue along the sides of the barrels to also help keep them in place. This will allow you to pull out the entire assembly at once. I would recommend flaring the edges out of the 9/16". This will create a slight funnel effect allowing you to put all 6 barrels back in the gun more smoothly.

Remove all 6 barrels at once, load each end, place the barrels back in all at once, fire 6 times, rinse and repeat.
This should cut down on reload time.

[Zaxbys]

I would recommend using two spacers for the barrels one at the base and one at the end of the barrels. Then run a strip of hot glue along the sides of the barrels to also help keep them in place. This will allow you to pull out the entire assembly at once. I would recommend flaring the edges out of the 9/16". This will create a slight funnel effect allowing you to put all 6 barrels back in the gun more smoothly.

Remove all 6 barrels at once, load each end, place the barrels back in all at once, fire 6 times, rinse and repeat.
This should cut down on reload time.

Great Idea ! I'll look into that.