Pool Noodle Swords

They connect!

The blade is 1/2" thinwall pvc glued to a threaded coupler. I added some shelf liner to the grips for a sharkskin look. The pommel is a slice from a football/missile. I had a dream that I cracked my tv screen. 2 Days later I made this. Evidence for ancient aliens? Giorgio Tsoukalos's hair is skeptical. These are really fun and well balanced in use. I have always loved Japanese swords and now I have 2! And need 4 more! I want another like this and 2 short swords. I might even add foam handguards.

This is cheap and simple to do. I trimmed the pool noodles to shape with a razor knife and a sharp serrated kitchen knife. The sword with the pommel has a pvc male threaded coupler glued to the blade. And then it's handle uses a threaded male conduit coupler, 1/2" pvc handle grip (for weight) and a 1/2" endcap pommel. I covered the endcap with light blue craft foam and sliped a slice of a football/missile on the end for style. I wrapped the grips with blue rubber shelf liner and used rubber bands to hold it on. Then some cloth tape to keep everything together. When I eyeball it all straight I'll goop the pool noodles to the blades. The additional sword that connects to this uses a longer length for the blade and a female coupler as a pommel.

Silicone Dart Test

These are some test darts made along the lines of shmmee's oogoo darts and KaneTheMediocre's Vans. I took my pool noodle blanks and created a cavity inside with a makeshift add-on to my hotglue gun. Then I pumped in some Dap brand silicone and shaped up the heads.

Here's my janky makeshift tool. I'll have to streamline this soon.

Dollar Store Toy Baton Barrels

mig and badwrench have been working with these toy baton barrels, as they have rifling built in. I haven't had alot of success with them with stefans. I have seen benefits for streamlines, but it hasn't worked consistently for me. I tried sanding the interiors today and saw good results. Streamlines are more consistent now even at range. I still get spiraling darts occasionally but even they land close to the target. I think with some dart cherry picking I can actual use streamlines now! With some tweaks this could also be an alternative to petg that's available locally (for some).

Please excuse my dollar store sandpaper as I don't use much. I mention it because I doubt good 60 grit sandpaper will be right for this task. Try something finer I guess. I found a tube which was a good fit when 1 layer of sandpaper was duct taped to it. Sand in 1 twisting direction till it's close and then try sanding through the barrel. Clear out the sanding debris alot. I went through 2 pieces. I sanded until I got an air fit. The tubing was .435. It wasn't tricky although one end was sanded a little more than the other.

Easter Basket Deal$

My local Deal$ clearance store has nerf easter baskets for $5 right now. There's a nerfhoop, sspb and a vortex football included. Not a bad deal on some items that are harder to find. I'm going to have to look at other, small clearance chains for sspb's now. I have to go back and get more!

Beta UMB Primary Tweaks

I took the opportunity afforded by this badass day to tweak my umb primary. I had already added some support to the tank and barrel, a little comfort and some orange.   

Today I adjusted the oprv to 1 1/2 pumps, tweaked the trigger, added an oring to the inside of the female coupler and fitted the face of the male coupler. It didn't add much range but really helped dart speed and accuracy. I need to make a new wye next.

This is still the beta for my idea of a double UMB tank primary. I'll use a dual action pump, reduced deadspace between the pump and tank, an sspb oprv for added pressure and a little extra tank volume next. This crappy trigger works so well I might keep it! It takes about 1 minute to make! I'll give it a good stress test and see if it damages the blast pin.

UMB Powered Reflex

 
I built this as a compact, ergo little missile launcher. The guts of a Buzz-Bee Ultimate Missile Blast are chopped up and re-kegiggered to create this little beast. It has a good sized, sten style, tank expansion from 1/2" pvc & a cpvc endcap. The pump is plugged and takes upto 12 pumps. The pump handle was chopped and replaced with cpvc. The bushing for the pump is a 1/2" pvc coupler (filed to fit in the pump tube) with some thinwall nested inside. I removed some material from the back of the grip and extended it as well with white hard foam. The shell is reinforced. It's a tank! Here's the guts :

The trigger is scrap pvc channel grafted onto the stock trigger.

The performance is great with 60' slightly angled shots (Buzz-Bee Missiles) A larger expansion or pump replacement would be nice but there's not too much room! I plan on a full write-up on this one after I'm done with other projects.

Clingy Darts

These are fun little darts/arrows with a special sticky tip. You're probably familiar with this material from other small toys. They fly pretty nice and stick to almost anything. The heads might be useful for nerfy projects and the foam is close to mega sized. Check the heads for straightness in the package. They don't hold especially well to the foam either but I haven't had one rip off yet. The foam is lower density. Pictured with a mega sized blank. My dollar store has a ton of these!

Prep for my first War!

koree and hongfuu are hosting a Philly war soon. It'll be my first war ever so I am quite happy. I've been shifting things around and this is what I have to bring so far.

The 3b and air rifle are my primarys, the sspbs can fill that role pretty well too. The double shot is probably going to get used alot! Couple of hold-outs. The reflex and the overpowered snipe blast are for showing off and any alternative ammo. I need to make a ton of darts, learn about game types, figure out how to get there, finish a bunch of stuff... Lol!

Mini Reflex Review

This is a dollar store blaster I couldn't resist. It's not bad performance-wise with 13' average ranges (stock nerf darts). Streamlines get an extra few feet occasionally. It's a direct plunger but the barrel ports the air into the darts hole. Dart fit is very important. There's probably not too much modding potential due to the horrible quality of the plastic. Mine had some stress marks on the priming rod screw port already! The plunger tube's I.D. is a very close match to CPVC.

It comes with 3 short yellow darts. It works with all the stock darts I tried.Primed with a tagger. Priming is a little tricky as there's not much to hold onto.

Cracked open. There was an ammo holder to be removed first. I pried it loose and it slid off from the front. No pic due to losing it. One screw was already stripped and I lost another!

Plunger details. Gets a decent seal!

Not the worst dollar store blaster, as it will launch a dart past 0 feet. It's pretty fragile though which likely relegates it to the curious. There might be some potential for modding but the plastic is soo flimsy. Proceed with caution!

Dollar Store Arrows

My dollar store carries some nerfy stuff. My favorite so far are these arrows. The are labeled "Silly Shotz" & use a rubber band for launching. I've found them to be have decent performance out of UMB's and the like.

They fly fairly accurately with some punch! They hold up to some power too. My little reflex launches them to 45' flat and can send them 55'+ angled. They work fine with a UMB's missile launcher for an adapter. They have a rubber band running through them. Better range might be had by modifying them a bit. They are not solid foam. That's probably why they don't destroy themselves.

They had that little bitty reflex and I had to pick it up.

Semi Homemade Air Primary

This is the progress I've made today on my BB UMB primary. The pump needs a little more effort than I'd like. The OPRV kicks in nicely at 2 pumps. The check valve in the stub of the tank works nicely. It seems accurate. The trigger is a length of vinyl tubing! This is as close as I have come to a homemade and I'm really surprised that it works. It's getting 110'+ with glue domes and no tweaks. Of course this is still beta.

Double BB UMB Rifle

This is a 2 tank rifle that's in a very early stage. I hope to get this working soon. There's a checkvalve for each tank. I hope that I can get an OPRV to work with this design. The triggers will likely be seperate. I can already see that it's going to be hell to get both tanks to point straight!

Modified Buzz Bee Double Shot

I tried NeverWriteTwice's BB DS mods out. I did a few things different. There's a wrist-strap for priming, it's a bit more compact and I threw on some Tek-3 turrets. Oh, and a tank-expanded SSPB hotglued right where it works best for range!

I think there's a way to add some extra power to the DS. I hope it stays together though! NWT placed in taerkitty's Awfuls contest with this design and I really like it. I, like him, don't plan on moving the CPVC couplers anywhere as it points very nicely this way.

If you're thinking about a side-arm with some interesting twists a BB DS might make a great blaster for you!