Boot

College life has kind of taken over my life in past months, and so I haven't been very active on this site for a while, but this is just too good to leave un-complimented!

The staggered breech is brilliant, I worked on a similar project a while back, and the biggest difficulty was always allowing a single handle to operate the pump and breech while simultaneously allowing for multiple pumps without double-feeding. I ended up working with a split handle (so that you pumped and then loosened your grip to continue to pump), but this looks significantly better, keeping the stock aesthetic, and also would probably be more reliable in an actual nerf war setting.

I think a nice improvement would be to put a small buffer at the point where the breech cannot extend any further without chambering another dart. A small increase in friction at that point would make the blaster easy to operate by touch alone, without having to look at the breech (although my guess is that once you get used to it double-feeding gets pretty rare).

Great job!

Thanks for all the replies! It makes all the work worth it just to know that people will be incorporating ideas from this blaster into their builds in the future.

Does the pully help decrease the draw strength needed otherwise by a 'straight pull?
What happens to the 'slack' of the cable when it's primed?

This has more or less been answered by others, but I think I should clarify. The plunger cable is not wrapped around the pulley multiple times. The reduction in draw strength is comparative to simply dragging the cable around a bolt, and is a combination of using Carbons "revolutionary" (see what I did there ) extension spring system.

I cannot believe I forgot to mention your second question in the original writeup... Thanks for bringing this up. The original plan was to use a small neodymium magnet to hold the primed cable in place, however one of the benefits of using a stiffer wire is that is roughly retains its shape when primed (since it would have to bend more to put out slack, and it naturally defaults to its more "comfortable" least bent position). This, combined with the end cap with small hole drilled in it means that any minor slack (of which there is never more than a few mm) is compensated for.

...I especially like your use of the surgical tubing...

Thanks (for both the compliments and the clarification on MiG's question)! I cannot stress enough the benefits of using surgical tubing. While some have said that it potentially dries out, I have never had this problem, and as long as the tubing is contained within the blaster it should be fine. Otherwise it effectively eliminated all plunger friction originating from places other than the plunger head itself, and provides a much smoother power to draw weight ratio.

Oh, I've been waiting to see what you would do with a surgical tubing blaster, and it was worth the wait. This blaster is full of ideas that are begging to be incorporated into other builds.

That is high praise, thank you very much. I can't wait to see what you will do with these ideas!

...

Thanks, I always thought that reversing plunger draw was the way to go for downsizing blasters, but it never seemed to be optimized enough.

How did you heat the PVC before bending it?
Seconded^

It's good to see people striving to make new things!

I didn't heat the PVC, at least for the materials I am using no heating is required. Also, I am a HUGE hypochondriac when it comes to plastic fumes, and so I would never feel safe heating PVC in my poorly ventilated workshop.

Finally, @ hamoidar: I will always be striving to make new things. Thats the part of this hobby that interests me most. Hopefully there will be much more coming throughout this summer.

From this I think he is literally just bending it and it is holding its shape...

You are absolutely correct. How it is mounted does not effect it however. You have simply to bend the PVC beyond it's elastic limit (in my case about 70 degrees) and the shape it back to your desired angle and it will hold more or less indefinitely. There could be no forward mount for the "SRSCB" and it would still hold its shape.

...hopper...bending spring...

...air slip...

...deadspace...

I'm glad to hear you'll be trying this out yourself, it was your wyeless hopper that actually got me thinking about looking at hoppers again. It is also good to hear that my understanding of the physics of a hopper is more or less correct, as I have only ever seen a hopper in action once...

Your solution to the dead-space issue did make sense without a picture, but I am not sure how big a difference it would make, since the narrower tube diameter would also limit the flow rate back into the SRSCB of the air that "overshoots" its target. The nice thing about this build is that if the ranges are unsatisfactory you have only to increase the draw length or tubing tension.

It's not perfect, but it's pretty cool. Based on what I've seen of each, I think this is more deserving of the title "pinnacle of Nerf evolution" than the Hail-Fire. ...DraganFlyer X6, PlayStation 3, MacBook Pro with Retina Display, and now The Dwarf. I wish everyone success in incorporating those innovations...

Wow, comparing my work to the DraganFlyer X6, MBP and PS3 is certainly very high praise, thanks a lot! You are right though, it is not perfect. If it were I would just share a picture and be done with it. The purpose of all explanation is, as you said, to let others incorporate those ideas into their own builds. Thanks and good luck!

...sand...

...charging action...

...implement into next build...

...slots...

I have heard of the sand packing technique, but I am not sure if it actually works when heat is not applied (although it may). If people are trying this with a thicker material like CPVC it may be and effective alternative technique.

I am very glad you like the priming action, and will be incorporating ideas from The Dwarf into your next build. The one thing I was a bit worried about was what people would think of the "bolt action" like priming system as opposed to the conventional pump action setup. It is also great to know that this writeup will actually be useful to other people, and will aid future projects!

Fugliest thing I've ever seen. Fantastic job. I think I want it's babies.

I was actually pretty proud of this builds looks, but then again my baseline for looks comes from my previous builds, which included this king of fugly. Thanks. (you may have to build yourself one to procreate with though, I don't think I would be comfortable providing you with this one).

I'm not going to respond directly to everyone because of the quote limit, but thank you all for your support and compliments!

Hah! I love the name, it's even better than "Big Bertha". It's not just Tiny Tim's older cousin, it's his scary body building crazy cousin that he carefully avoids.

Awesome names aside, it would seem to me that this would function much better with a longer barrel. Tiny Tim operates on less than 1/3 of the volume of a BS tank, so I would assume that this would need at least a 6" barrel. Is there a particular reason you are using the barrel shown in the pictures? If you are already getting 120' ranges I would believe that this could potentially hit 130-140', enough to be banned at most wars .

Great job taking a mildly ridiculous blaster and pushing it many many levels further.

Also, have you tried shotgun loading it? Assuming the BS tank is also being pressurized to around 80PSI I could easily imagine this being able to propel 4 or 5 darts out of a single barrel, and still outrange any other blaster of its size.

EDIT: And to think people were raving over the Jolt's power, way to steal Hasbro's thunder .

Very nice! I especially like the ARSCB. It is very cleanly integrated into the system.

I may have to start experimenting with hard tanks with regulators again, you seem to be getting equivalent, or even better performance (in terms of capacity) than an equally sized bladder, and with the regulator it would be easy to adjust performance for either better shot capacity or ranges! (I think a slight improvement could be to allow access to the regulator without opening the shell, however I'm not sure if that is possible with your regulator, or if war hosts would feel safe with that feature).

I have a few questions though. First, do you plan to lengthen the barrels? Although that may interfere with the swappable turrets it would probably boost ranges (I have found that singled salvo tanks seem to operate best with around a footlong barrel depending on barrel material).

Also, what is the ROF like? In some cases I found that barbed connectors restricted airflow, and the salvo tanks wouldn't fill all the way if you tried to shoot too fast. This may not be a problem for you due to your barrel length, and would be easy to solve simply by using larger diameter tubing.

Finally, I've never actually been able to get my hands on off the shelf three way valves. How quickly does the one you are using vent?

Anyways great job! Very well executed.

None of those scenarios is at all likely, in my opinion.

It's true that the problem would normally be with the hornet tank, but I was just looking for what else could be wrong considering he said the hornet tank "seems to be working just fine".