simple River Rafting syringe type soaker

[sharris007]

Hi everyone,
A group of friends do a float-trip river-rafting day every year in which water fighting is the activity. Most use over the counter "Stream Machines" for their arsenals. I've seen homemade versions made from 2 and 3 inch pvc pipe that are monstrous, but I haven't been able to figure out how to make it work. Has anyone had any experience making one? I have searched the internet at nauseum and have not managed to come up with any published examples. The trick is the internal piston connected to the ram-rod. How to make it so that it creates a good seal while drawing in the water from the river, and then pushing it out at high velocity. I see a lot of info on pressure-pump "super soaker" like water guns, but nothing on this type, which is essentially a big Syringe. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks, Sean

[Ben]

Welcome to Super Soaker Central sharris007! I have upgraded your membership account. You might want to work on your grammar a bit (some things don't make sense).

You could use a big O-ring to create a seal easily. I've made a piston/syringe type water gun using a bunch of electrical tape to create a seal, but it sealed very poorly. The design is extremely simple and I doubt that you'll have trouble now that you know what to use to seal.

[Spinner]

I think Leprechaun made a piston gun which he was pretty pleased with - check out this topic. You should be able to adapt it to using the river water (instead of a backpack) quite easily.

Oh, and please don't bother rewriting your topic title in the subtitle...there's not much point in it.

[sharris007]

Thanks very much for the advice.
I had already thought of using O-rings, but not having done this before I was hoping someone might have a parts list I could draw from.

I attempted a prototype using Neoprene for the gasket today, but it just couldn't hold up to the punishment. I'm probably going to have to make due with the Stream Machine for this year again since I'm about out of time.

By the way, your concern for my writing is noted, but having never received a grade lower than an "A" for English throughout all my school years, I'm fairly confident that I don't have much to worry about. You might find, after finishing school and going to work, that emails and work correspondence are often done much as "plain english" or "common talk". It saves time and is generally more efficient. More care is taken for grammar and formatting when writing official reports or papers that serve as references. I don't think I've ever found that a web forum qualified for such standards. I apologize however for a few typo's that I did not notice before submitting the post. I'm not sure I have ever before visited a forum that was so strict on writing styles, but I'll try to keep it in mind for any future postings.

[Ben]

I didn't say that your grammar was necessarily a problem, just to watch out for things that don't make sense. You shouldn't treat most any forum as a thesis, yet you also shouldn't treat them as an instant messaging service.

I hope you understand, we've have many people in the past with little or no sentence structure, so we have established spelling and grammar understandability rules.

Nothing to worry about for you in short.