Gengar003

It's been a while since I last visited NH... dropped off right about as the Recon was released, though my fervent modifications stopped around a year earlier.

I'm here because I got an e-mail that I had a private message here... So I figured I'd check around at the posted Recon mods, and see if anyone had done what I've been working on yet.

Nope, they haven't. I've got a Recon that just needs some epoxy putty and to be put back together (silly me thought I'd test it without the epoxy putty... and its spring assembly decided it would rather chill on the other side of the room), for one heckuva badass Recon.

I post this so that maybe I will have some reason to get off my duff and finish the darn thing. Y'know, expectations and whatnot, though I know that's not usually well-received here.

And then the Vulcan came out, doing away with my desire to recapture the Razorbeast of my childhood dreams. Oh, the plans I have for that $50 beauty... price tag being the main reason I haven't dived in yet. But that's a different topic.

I'm afraid, due to the exceedinly long timespan since I started and my (hopefully inevitable) completion of this mod (can it really be more than a year?), that I won't be able to offer step-by-step instructions with photos as I usually do.

Still, NH, hold me to this! I'll have it for you by Thanksgiving, gosh darn it!

But enough ramblings - as it is, it will be at least a month before I can get back to my Recon, so let me conclude with this:

The Recon's gimmick was that its "modularity." I have yet to see a mod that preserves the modularity of the barrel, stock, and primary gun pieces, while improving each one in its own right. I sought to rectify that, and succeeded, minus epoxy putty. See you 'round Thanksgiving.

I recently got myself some SSPBs for the purpose of experimenting with integration into other guns. One of the things that would have to be done to each gun before integrating it into anything is re-barreling it... and I was so pleased with a simple CPVC barrel on one of them that I did it a second time, and now I rock games of assassin with my friends - I can put one in each pocket and not even feel it there, and they each get a good 60'.

Then I noticed that the only SSPB writeup in the mods directory is a converstion to gun-form. This writeup isn't anything original, new, or spectacular, but it's not there, so I figured it should be.

So, to re-barrel a Secret Strike Pocket Blaster...

Go and get ur toolz:


That's a

• Secret Strike Pocket Blaster
• CPVC barrel (I used 3")
• Screwdriver
• Sandpaper
• Hacksaw
• Hot Glue Gun
• Epoxy

I broke the bottom loop for the keyring holder off to see if I liked that better than leaving it on the shell. Either way, unscrew it.

Doesn't that look like the base of a sword? I'm so doing that to one of my SSPBs

Anyway, lookie here: The pump is easy to locate, but where to cut along the barrel? I've labelled the parts of the blaster for you.


Now cut it like so:

If you can, leave as much of the little plastic ridge that connected the pump to the stock barrel as possible - you'll want it later.

And sand down the plastic stubble on the end of the air tank until it is flat. Before you continue, pump and fire it a few times to make sure it's not leaking and that it's working correctly - I think pieces of plastic that were sanded off caused mine to act up. I washed them out and it's fine now.

I did not plug the pump, and do not reccommend it, for three reasons:

• The whole thing is one piece, and would require sawing/dremeling and gluing back together to get at the pump
• The air tank is not a solid tank, but has a rubber membrane that bulges as you pump - which looks much harder to fix than a crack in a solid plastic tank, if not (near) impossible.
• It shoots 50-70 feet as-is. For something this small, that's more than sufficient for me.

Grab that barrel - I used 3" of CPVC, which is a bit much for the little gun. A dart placed all the way to the rear of the barrel will actually shoot out partway, and then retract on 4 or less pumps. However, the longer barrel allows me to fit my standard 3 shotgun stefans down the barrel with ease, and it's not long enough to get in the way. You can use ANY barrel material - PETG, Brass, CPVC, Aluminum, PVC, or Crayolas - and the procedure's the same.

According to the correct way to epoxy things, rough up the base of the barrel a bit, then glue it on.


Now, if you were to put pressue on the end of the barrel, it would probably snap right off... so you want something to keep it from moving, like that bit of plastic that was connected to the stock barrel that you just cut off. Never fear, just slather the gap with hot glue!



It may help to have some kind of cup or bucket of cold water nearby to dunk it into to cool the glue faster, as that much hot glue will take a good while to completely harden.

When the glue's done, put the case back on if you want, and now you're done. You may have to melt a little groove in the hot glue glob for the little yellow piece on the front of each half of the shell that goes between the pump and barrel - the two pieces want to touch, but excessively globbed hot glue will prevent them, and make the shell not close.


Shazam! I carry at least one with me everywhere now, and it's neither uncomfortable (I don't even feel them) nor noticeable. A nasty surprise more than once

And when you get tired of that, just take off the case and it's ready to integrate into almost anything. Gotta get more!

Some friends and I were talking and there was one of those "duuuude... you should totally [some idea]" moments, where [some idea] is at least a little crazy and has almost no chance of happening.

The other day, [some idea] was "modify a remote-control car to launch fireworks/firecrackers."

I done did it . The "Jihad Jeep" uses 1 9.6v Ni-Cad battery pack, 6 AA batteries, 2 9V batteries, and another 9V for the remote.

The Jeep itself has had the plastic decorative covering (a red "Jeep Grand Cherokee") removed, and replaced with an aluminum tray, to protect it from burning things, and a "trunk" to store and protect its electronics.

That aluminum, incidentally, was the extra stuff leftover after using a measly 4 square inches or so of the giant pieces of aluminum that I had to buy from Lowes, for lack of smaller sizes, to reinforce my crossbow.





The remote has the internals of another remote control car's remote integrated into it, and wired such that the two buttons on either side of the remote will cause the car's motors to turn... or would, if the motors were still connected. A switch in the upper-left turns the ignition remote on or off, and a LED lights up green when the circuit is active. The center red LED lights up when the car is active.



Inside the Jeep's "trunk" are the internals of a second remote control car. 6 AA batteries power the receiver. In place of the car's motors are transistors which, when activated by the buttons on the remote, allow current from one of the 9 volt batteries to flow to the alligator clips. The orange LEDs light up when the corresponding side is active. To ignite things, usually a model rocket's "electric fuse" is clipped in them.



[Cue Music]


Now, I don't have any fireworks yet, but you can watch a video of it just burning the igniters here

So it's a modification and an integration... just not of a Nerf gun.

However, because the buttons on the remote power the alligator clips, ANYTHING electronic can be mounted and controlled on the Jeep... like that Skeet shooting nerf gun. Heck, a small motor to pull an RF20's trigger could be mounted...

So, you've got some stuff that needs gluing. Maybe a coupler to the end of a plunger, a Longshot bolt to its barrel, or something similar.

So you epoxy it, but lo and behold, the stress of your gun firing breaks the joint. Your epoxy is not too weak, but your kung-fu gluing methods may be. Here's how to epoxy things correctly.

Case 1: Longshot bolt to barrel. This longshot has an AR-15 spring added to the stock spring, and shoots 90+ feet. The bolt is epoxied to the brass barrel, and has held for over two months with no loosening.



Case 2: Crossbow coupler. This crossbow has a Defender T3 Arrow-shooter spring in its plunger, and is shown with its bungees. There is a coupler identical to the one on the end epoxied directly to the plunger tube, with a short length of CPVC extending to the visible coupler. At least 3 months now, and no loosening or coming off.



Case 3: Big bad bow coupler. This coupler, when glued incorrectly, WAS, in fact, shot off by the force of the gun. It was an "experiment" of sorts; now, glued correctly, it is rock-solid. (Looks ugly because red FBR got on it while it was still sticky)



Case 4, no picture: Nitefinder barrels. Same problem as BBB - they get shot off if glued incorrectly or weakly. The ones I've glued correctly have no such troubles.

Let's take a nitefinder air restrictor as our example (because it's what I had on hand).



You've cut out the middle, and are ready to attach a barrel of some sort, be it brass, PVC, CPVC, PETG, crayola, or a coupler. If you were to put some epoxy on there, and stick the barrel in place, you would be WRONG.

Epoxy is strong, but it has to have something to hold onto. Smooth plastic and a smooth barrel give it nothing to hold onto, so the epoxy is going to loose its grip on one or both pieces when put under stress. You need to give it something to hold onto. So grab some sandpaper, and sand every surface that will have glue on it (including whatever barrel or coupler you'll be using), until it looks more like this:



In some cases, this may not be enough. Case #3 (BBB) was one of those cases. I needed MORE, LARGER grooves and cuts for the epoxy to sink into and hold onto. So I took a dremel and cut little grooves into the area that was going to have epoxy on it. In the BBB's, case, this was 8 grooves around the outside of the front orange piece at different angles, and 8 grooves around the raised inner ring.

Here, for the Nitefinder air restrictor, I've just cut four on the raised inner ring. It is hard to see, but they are at approximately the 1, 4, 7, and 10 o'clock positions around the ring.



Sandpaper must be applied to ALL surfaces the glue will touch, if possible. The cutting of grooves should only be done in areas where it will not seriously change the overall "geography" of the surface - I cut several small grooves in the large, flat, orange area of the BBB's front orange piece, such that the coupler could still sit on there and be aligned straight. Small grooves, not large gouges.

Now, when your epoxy hardens, it will have lots of little footholds on both surfaces that were glued, and will be much less likely to detach under pressure.

Also, the more surface area that is covered in epoxy, the stronger your bonds will be. Take a look at Case #3 (BBB). There is epoxy not just where the coupler meets the gun, but along the outside of the coupler, spilling over the entire surface of the orange piece - more area for the epoxy to hold onto.

In case #1, the bottom of the bolt and the top of the brass barrel were sanded.

In case #2, the front of the crossbow plunger tube and the base and sides of the coupler were sanded. Grooves were cut into the front of the crossbow plunger tube.

In case #3, the sides of the coupler, base of the coupler, and entire orange surface were sanded, and 16 total grooves cut into the orange piece.

For my nitefinders, I sand the back and sides of the barrel/coupler, the entire front surface of the air restrictor piece, and cut 8 grooves (4 on inner ring, 4 on flat side of AR).

NO gun that I've glued this way has EVER had a problem with epoxy weakening. The plastic holding one of my nitefinders' plunger tubes in place weakened and broke before the barrel came off.

Hope this helps.

Edit: I use Loctite 1-minute epoxy for most of my gluing needs.



That image will probably break sometime in the future.

This is what you'll be making:



A standard 1/2" CPVC coupler'd nitefinder. The special thing about this modification is how clean and seamless it looks from outside. This cleanliness also contributes sturdiness - many of you, I'm sure, can relate to your Nitefinders shooting their barrels/etc off the front from the force of impact.

Range: 50'

First, get ur toolz:



That's

• Dremel or
• Power drill
• Nitefinder
• Epoxy
• 1/2" CPVC Coupler
• Screwdriver
• Sharpie Marker (optional)
• Ruler (optional)
• Hot glue gun
• Hot glue
• Hacksaw
• 1/2" CPVC Pipe

Now, unscrew all the screws on your Nitefinder, including the one on the black battery-holder-thing on the bottom of the grip.

Unscrew the two black screws that hold the large orange tube (the plunger tube) in place, and you'll have all these pieces loose.



You only need these.


Discard/save the rest somewhere if you want; this modification won't use them. The air restrictor's peg has been cut off. Do that to yours.

Now take a look at the two round pieces. Using a dremel or drill bit, drill out the centers, as shown by this before/after picture:



Once that's done, cut a 1" section of CPVC, making sure that at least one end is as perfectly straight and level as you can make it. Epoxy that end to the air restrictor piece, like so:



When the epoxy has dried/cured/hardened/set/etc, re-assemble the barrel assembly in your Nitefinder. The CPVC will stick a little bit into the little yellow thing that used to hold the barrel.

Now stick the coupler on the CPVC so that it fits right inside that little yellow area. It is almost a perfect fit.



Now take it off, stick some epoxy inside the coupler, and put it back on.

That was the "clean" part. Now the "sturdy" part.

Get your hot glue gun, and GLOP it all over the insides, between the air restrictor piece, along the CPVC, and against the front of the gun. Fill the little yellow round piece up front, too.



Every part of the Nitefinder shell that is near part of the barrel assembly has been filled with hot glue. When it dries, the barrel assembly will be immobile, because the hot glue will be occupying any space it might try to move into.

Close your gun back up. Something to keep in mind is that if you're modifying Nerf guns, if you open it once, you'll eventually have to open it again. With that and the ridiculous amount of screws found in guns today in mind, don't put all the screws back in. I rarely put all the screws back in, because it makes it SO much easier to re-open the gun. Here I only put screws in in roughly a circle around the gun, and/or at important parts. The screws I put in are circled.



You could apply this to other guns as well, and it might make your life easier.

Also notice how you can hardly see anything out of the ordinary. If you wanted, you could cut off the little "sight" from the stock barrel, and put it back in top of the little yellow round thing in the front, and paint the 1" length of CPVC Nerf Gun Orange, and it would look even more stock/normal.

The normality ends when you add a barrel though. I've found that 4" works great for nitefinders, so cut yourself some barrels from that CPVC pipe you had at the beginning, and stick 'em in the coupler. Hot glue + Electrical tape two of them together to form a speedloader, if you want.

Either way, you're done now. Ain't she a beaut?