CaliforniaPants

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I was just wondering if you do or could do prizes/awards for some of the rounds or certain events or even just for fun type stuff like craziest maneuvers or whatever. I am curious because I would like to contribute in that regard ( at least for this war lol ) since I've acquired a lot of blasters of all varieties. And hey a free blaster is a free blaster lol. If so plz let me know and I'll start getting a few things together.

we don't, but if you just wanna give stuff away nobody will stop you. by all means spread the joy.

if electronic mods are allowed all the work still has to be done there right? like soldering with a lighter?

the most exciting part of this is getting away from nylon rod. why the switch away from the handle with a trigger guard? was I the only one who liked that?

The second round of freeze tag where Ryan and Jlego chased me around the school and I started a chain reaction that made the game go on for another few minutes was pretty fun. Zorn got some good photos of me turning a baseball slide into a summersault.

I dont have that one, but...

this was fun, this was lots of fun. when I woke up this morning I was genuinely a little sad that I didnt get to do it again.

pros:

-so many people. there were so many adults and kids and just PEOPLE. battle parents with rival blasters made me happy

-everyone was in an extremely good mood the entire day, nobody got (significantly) angry. except for me. 

-the death clicker for deathmatch was extremely fun and the first round of the day was way closer than I wouldve guessed

-lots of young people running around having a great time and being super good and chill. to the kid that said RIP to me after I was shot in the crotch: you made my day multiple times

-cameras: lots of people had them! please post your stuff 

cons:

-darts. scary domes, slugs, FVJs, and poorly made silicone domes felt like being shot by rocks repeatedly, especially in the face and head. which leads me to...

-getting shot above the neck. it happened a lot, and I mean a LOT. and almost all of them were from under 30 feet away. thats not cool, thats really not cool. I was genuinely worried for my teeth after awhile. it was happening to other people I talked to over the day as well. please do your best to be careful and dont try and get off ant wild game making shots from ten feet away, its just a game. we're all here having fun, please be considerate. 

it was a wonderful time and I wish I could do it again next week. I'll be posting my videos soon

geddon 2016: a refreshing cold one

what you need to do is put a dart stop into the plunger tube, since you removed too much material nothing is keeping them in place. your dart stop can be a little bit of hot glue or epoxy putty like has been suggested, but a better and more sturdy idea is to install a piece of wire perpendicular to the plunger tube. 

I have never messed with a stampede, but I'm fairly certain you can drill a hole right here:

drill it through both sides the same size as a wire coat hanger or other similarly sized wire, insert it through and seal it up so its air tight and you'll be good to go. of course if this placement fouls something I don't know about then don't do that, but you understand the idea.

time to reveal the secret: this war is the day after my birthday. 

Im a welder and metalworker by trade, but there's not much work around here for that anymore so now I just do it in my free time and projects for people when they ask (feel free to ask).

a gas tank from my last job that was lots of fun to make

and sometimes when I feel motivation and inspiration I build a prop

whatever you're comfortable working in. as long as you can export it to an image file and make sure that it prints true to size the sky is the limit. 

boomco continues to make some of my favorite things in this dart/ball/rocket/whatever shooting hobby. the plastic is fantastic, the engineering is solid, and the blasters are fun and interesting as well as fit adult sized hands (most of them at least). buy them, have fun with them. the darts themselves are hella weird and you should see them for yourself. Im sure this info is somewhere else but I wanted it to be on NH and easily searchable/added to the directory.

an aside: not all these photos are perfect, I have shaky hands and it makes using a phone camera an absolute nightmare

at a glance, nothing extremely special but also nothing disappointing. the screw heads on mine were pretty "loose" so I opted for a larger screwdriver wherever it would fit, also I'm not sure if the blue part that holds the pump in is supposed to be glued in or not, but mine wasnt and that was a good surprise.

the tank and overpressure valve

the tank is interesting, its not a backpressure tank but a standard pin style valve. its screwed and sadly glued shut, but because the valve is at the bottom you might be able to just drill a hole in the top and add an expansion if you were so inclined. if you try it please post about it, Im super curious. that litle blue part with the two screws above it is the overpressure valve, not located in the pump like most others are; and its a curious one

this is the overpressure valve laid out in sequence. I just realized that the blue part is flipped around, you can figure it out though since it only fits one way. I believe in you. because of this design if you found a higher rate spring and replaced it you would be able to tune your tank pressures while keeping the safety net of the overpressure valve. this is neat, I love this. if I find more springs that fit Im going to mess with this a bit. 

the turret

I love this turret, its hardy and has a lot of resistance to being turned and has a nice lock on both the rotation mechanism and the shell itself to keep it in place. as you can see the screw that holds the rotation mech to the turret is real long and doesnt really want to be removed, have fun with that. 

the rotation mech fits into the turret itself in a certain orientation, I did not realize this. learn from these mistakes and notice that one of the corners of the square is missing and match it up with the turret.

removing the three center screws from the front of the turret will let you pull the backs off along with letting you detach the third lobe(?) of the turret that you popped in when you pulled it out of the box.

the turret then breaks down into these three pieces, the middle part is a rubber grommet that seals it all together and I think seals against the darts as well? its neat. 

the base of the turret is again held together with screws and then glued together, which means you're in for some dremel fun if you want to rebarrel this and keep the turret functionality. you can see how the air comes in the back of the turret and is pushed through to the base of the dart pegs. 

the turret locks into the shell at this point as well as the rotation mechanism itself. if you want to keep the turret function while rebarreling it, you will need to keep this part of the turrets at least if not the entire outer "cage" portion with just the ends cut out. remember that the individual turrets are held together with the screw down the front, not the ones in the back, so if you get rid of that portion you will have to glue the halves together. 

in the future I would like to experiment modding this and if I do it'll be added onto this topic. any questions will be happily answered. 

boy and girl colors are a social construct

purple is cool

Which maybe reminds me of something: We've long looked down on concept threads; what if we created a sub for them and coupled it with some pinned posts on how to make a real concept? Provide a guide to materials that work for blasters and what they do, a guide to all the basic follies of the Newb concept, and what constitutes a real concept.

I think this could be very interesting from the point of "helping people solve an engineering problem", but could also be really useful to just encourage people to try new things and learn skills. aeromech posted a failed design in the homemades thread and I thought that was really cool to see, posts of "this didnt work and here's why" are a ton of help for people trying to learn. 

 

Ok, thanks for the further clarification. I was trying to search up on the forums and youtube for a review by cheerios and saw that i did not have darts similar to that. 

 

So I'm interested in June and that would be my first nerf war. did you guys have any gameplay links on youtube i can watch? and also im not really sure about what tactical gear would be appropriate for this event, as well as an appropriate number of darts to bring. 

bring as many darts as you can, mark them with an initial or something so you can pick them out of the pile after dart sweeps. painting all the backs a bright color so you can see them in the grass since they're black foam is a good idea.

"tactical gear" is up to you and what blasters you use. if you love magazine fed blasters you might want a way to carry extras, if you dont then a mesh back with a clip onto your belt loop for darts is a good way to go. remember: its summer and you will be moving at least at a walking pace for a lot of the day. i recommend shorts, they're comfy and easy to wear. 

shit post 4 LYFE

i thought you were talking about the eye on the end, thats what i meant for files. my bad. however there;s a thing called a tap and die set, it works very well for cutting threads. people have been using it for a long time.

now i understand the plunger setup, does it have any problems with it riding against the inside of the tube and dragging? my worry would be that over time as the spring shortens it would not have the same pressure against it and would cause it to go a little cocked down the plunger tube and rub away at the material, then making the seal not be square and causing issues. places 2 and 5 being the concerns. obviously this is a long term thing but still a concern.