Super Soaker Central

I'm new to soakers, but modifying plastic toys has been a near lifelong hobby of mine. I'm Falcon from the NerfHQ and Nerfhaven forums (Duxburian will probably know/remember me) and have been nerfing for just over 10 years.

I've got a 2100 that I'm going to K-mod later this week, but I'm working on replacing the pump or something right now, before I even try to get into freezing up the overpressure release valve or actually k-modding it. The plastic track that goes around the pump which the pump handle slides along has cracked lengthwise in 2-3 places, so the track is now useless. Unfortunately, the inner diameter of a nerf pump casing is larger than that of a supersoaker, and the pump isn't connected via tubing on the 2100 either, so I can't take the pump out of the shaft from a nerf gun or just hook up a nerf pump to tubing. So I took my dremel and cut the broken shards of the track clean off, but now I need to make a conventional pump handle to go on the pump. That would be fine, but the pump shaft goes too far into the casing to be able to just wrap a bulk of duct tape around the end and use the blob of tape as a handle. If I did that, the pump wouldn't be able to be pushed all the way down. Does anybody have any suggestions of ways I could extend the pump shaft so I can put a handle on the thing?

I'm also just about finished with a CPS homemade I started a few days ago that just needs a bit of tweaking. I've got the bladder from a Nerf Wildfire (it's a cylindrical bladder not too different from that on, say, a CPS 2k in design) inside its clear casing and hose clamped onto the threaded end of a piece of 1/2" Sch 80 PVC, which leads to a pop-in car tire stem valve (connected to my hand bike pump) and a ball valve. I'll put up a pic or two when I'm finished (probably by tomorrow~ish).

So I'm at least getting into things a little bit. I'll never become a hardcore soaker participant, but I have my reasons. There isn't as much room for customization as there is with Nerf, and the rules seem a bit sketchy (it looks like it'd be a bit difficult to really determine a legitimate hit in a war setting apart from the use of tissue paper.) But I've got two large water fights coming up (really just a run around and soak until you call it quits deals, but whatever) so I'm gearing up nonetheless.

There is one other thing I'm wondering about, though. Please, nobody take offense to this, but what on EARTH is going on in those two war videos?

In one, you NEVER saw the other team. In the other, it looked like a few people on the first team split off so it'd look like there were actually opponents.

It looked to me like the whole thing was staged, and from what I could tell was being said, you guys take things a little too seriously...

I mean, if you want to make it really milsim-ish and all, that's fine, but yelling into walkie-talkies (forgive me if that's not what they were) for "reinforcements" and talking about Snipers and Scouts and all that is a bit rediculous, when just about everyone is carrying similar guns. Sure, they vary a bit, but they're mostly just the big guns that are actually good. So you've got "Snipers" carrying nearly the exact same arms as "troopers", "scouts", and whatever else I've seen mentioned.

Honestly, I think you should worry less about "organization"; just pick two teams, fill up, and soak the hell out of each other...

Again, I don't want anybody getting offended by this, so if you get upset I'll back out, but I think it's a bit rediculous to be putting people into different roles and such when the total span of firing ranges on the field only differs by about 10' up or down (obviously with exceptions) and the max you'll ever see (short of a rediculous homemade) is going to be no more than ~65'.

Hey, I do remember you, although you haven't been on here in quite a while. A year or two.

I have a suggestion for the pump, however, a picture or two would help before I say something totally off, since it's hard following a written description.

I'm also very interested in seeing the pics of your CPS homemade. Not many people have made them!

At least one of the old war videos was staged. As for taking it too seriously, you haven't seen serious if you're judging by those videos. Wait until the Ridgewood Militia puts up a video of one of our wars, a real one. We don't believe in positions and do very little talking, but we do paint guns, ambush, and use tactics for 1 hit kill battles. The Ridgewood Militia is a rare Nerf/Water War team, so you'll see crossover tactics if we ever film a Nerf war.

In Soaking, stats work differently. Nerf ranges are often measured over 100ft, but in soaking, 60ft is a lot, while 10ft more is a major gap, since it is more difficult to get a stream of water to shoot further. It takes an extreme amount of power to get ranges of 70ft or higher. However, in terms of output, some water war homemades approach firehose outputs. Most stock sockers these days have outputs from 1-5x. A water cannon can put out 110x, while a Constant Air Pressure Homemade can riot blast 120x. Homemades can also be powered in more ways than Nerf. Nerf homemades are either air or spring or CO2, that's about it. Soaker homemades can be piston pressure, air pressure, constant air pressure, CPS, an air/piston combination, pressurized reservoir, etc. An interesting thing to note is that a certain type of water cannon can function as a multi-shot Nerf homemade and a water balloon launcher as well as a water cannon. In fact, any homemade can shoot darts if the barrel is switched.

And then water wars have artillery. Pneumatic launchers easily put water balloons hundreds of feet at safe pressures. So there's a curveball. Suddenly a spot 400ft away isn't looking so safe anymore!

Welcome to Super Soaker Central! Hope you enjoy your stay here.

I've read some of your posts at NerfHaven, but not so much at NerfHQ simply because I don't visit there often. I mostly lurk though... been lurking for quite some time.

The pumps in pump Nerf guns pump air. The pump in the CPS 2100 and similar water guns pumps water. You wouldn't be able to replace a Nerf pump even if it was attached with tubing for that reason - different valve assemblies.

Since the a tracked pump was used, there obviously is a problem with simply replacing the pump handle because tracked pumps' rods are shorter. I'd stick a dowel rod down the center of the rod and epoxy it in. You'd have more success with a longer rod obviously.

Take a picture of your repair and I should be able to offer more specific repair advice. I think I got it right, but I'm never quite sure from a description.

I'm also just about finished with a CPS homemade I started a few days ago that just needs a bit of tweaking. I've got the bladder from a Nerf Wildfire (it's a cylindrical bladder not too different from that on, say, a CPS 2k in design) inside its clear casing and hose clamped onto the threaded end of a piece of 1/2" Sch 80 PVC, which leads to a pop-in car tire stem valve (connected to my hand bike pump) and a ball valve. I'll put up a pic or two when I'm finished (probably by tomorrow~ish).

This won't work. Rubber-based CPS systems do not operate on air pressure and any air pumped in won't increase power - the air would only reduce the capacity of the rubber. The rubber allows for expansion of all pressurized fluids. The rubber itself is what is ejecting the water. You need to pump water into this system for it to work.

You're probably not familiar with the valve assembly needed to pump water because you are familiar with Nerf guns, so visit our old crappy APH guide to see the check valve configuration. The check valve configuration is the same for all water guns that pump water. It basically pushes the water into the pressure chambers, either expanding a CPS bladder or giving air less room to build pressure.

Or you could base something off my old CPS homemade water gun internals (note that you can't see the direction of the check valves in this image, but it's still the same). Just be aware that the finished product looks nicer and has a thicker chamber.

The threads on a sch. 80 pipe nipple also aren't very idea for a good CPS homemade water gun. I'd really be afraid that would fly off with layering. Get a good tubing barb and I'd feel safer. Power requirements for range increase exponentially, so you'll need a chamber about twice as thick as one that can shoot 40 feet to shoot 50 feet, and all I know is that a lot more bike tubes are needed over that to get it to shoot 60 feet. I'd higher suggest additional layers for those reasons.

As for the war videos, I myself have no idea what's going on in them. I never knew what was going on in all those Nerf videos I saw either (I'm talking Armageddon back at NO), so it might just be me. These videos were made back in 2003, posted about a message board, and seemed to be well liked. So later I acquired them and put them on this website. I'm surprised someone actually looked at them however, given that they account for 0% of my bandwidth.

That sort of fighting actually is representative of what was recommend back then (I would give links, but Hydrowar is down and none of the other old sites with that crap are still around). We still have some old guides recommending positions and such, but those are to be removed. I'm not the kind of person to dress up in camoflauge or do much more than capture the flag or a plain free-for-all, so it's not representative of my style of fighting. I think future videos will be better.

Welcome to SSCentral. I'm not a Nerfer, so unlike the others, I wouldn't really know much about the Nerf-soaker connections. However, the valve configurations and pump diameters from Nerfing are probably best forgotten, and I suggest you read the basic articles here--which it looks like you've done. The HowStuffWorks guide is also good reading.

If you're looking for a way to extend the length of the pump rod and, I'm assuming, eliminate the tracked part, I suggest you read RacerSoaker445's custom pump handle article. The intent of that article is slightly different--it's basically changing the grip, especially for soakers that have terrible ones--but you can do something like that, but with a longer piece of PVC between the handle and the original pump rod.

The videos are quite terrible, and I completely agree with your criticism. However, if you're looking to get an idea of the real tactical scenarios, you could check out Duxburian's battle reports. They can be found in the forums here and at his site, Soaker Media. SM is currently being redone, so most of the links won't work--but the battle report pages have been completed.