Super Soaker Central

Heh, cheers. Ive also got one on Thursday, and another on Friday. Fun eh?

Nothing done today, except ive got a pump-rod now. It was part of the spraying apparatus that was with the weed-sprayer backpack-thing. Did i mention it was metal also?

I ment to ask... instead of using some kind of application of O-rings on my pump rod, could i just make a large deposit of silicon sealant around the end of the rod, and squeeze this into the pump shaft? It would be water tight, and easy.

But do you suppose it would work?

Pure silicone is probably not solid enough to form a usable seal. You could probably get it to work with a very tight fit, though. If you get two sizes of telescoping copper pipe that fit within each other it might work.

Silicone sealant doesn't stick to things very well. Very little force is necessary to remove it from what it was attached to. It is not ideal in pumps, in fact, I've found it to be useless for water guns in general. I used to use a lot of it (back in like 2002) but it's not meant for any pressure so it doesn't work well.

At Last! Ive got my copper piping! (About 3 foot of 22mm and 4 foot of 15mm, with another 1.5 foot of 15mm with chrome coating)

Basically, i've started cuttingout my lengths of piping to use, keeping my gun as compact as possible. I'll need to solder the Olives in place though, but apart from that, it looks like everythings going well for now.

Another Exam tomorrow (Design Technology, 3 Hours!) and then ill have the whole weekend to solder those olives and finish the gun! And yeah, i've been taking pictures all the way, i just need to gte them on my computer. Expect a large post soon, with all details etc on it (like PC capacites, weight, firing range @ 0* and at 45*)

But i wont do anything for it monday... I'll be 18 and out for a drink. only one or two though, another exam the next day (Physics i think)

Have you considered using an expansion vessel insted of a coke bottle? you would be able to pump it up to to a much higher pressure and you could adjust the vessel to your requirements

Hmm...I can't say I've heard of expansion vessels before. What are they? Just large tanks, or something more? They sound useful, at any rate.

By the way, welcome aboard, devvo!

devvo wrote:Have you considered using an expansion vessel insted of a coke bottle? you would be able to pump it up to to a much higher pressure and you could adjust the vessel to your requirements

From a quick Google image search for "expansion vessel", it seems that those would be too big to carry on one's arm; yes, it is high pressure, but the size would make carrying the gun too cumbersome. A coke bottle (which, according to Aurum will later be replaced by a copper pressure vessel) has sufficient pressure ratings for water gun purposes (if you want to go higher, you can do things such as wrapping it in carbon fiber)

P.S. Like SilentGuy said, welcome!

Expansion vessel is another word for bladder tank. Typically they're expensive unless you get them used. With that being said I haven't done much research into them because the ones I could find seemed much too expensive for what I wanted to do. Though, given that I'm working with a $70 HPA tank and a $70 air regulator for that tank and I consider that cheap, perhaps I should look closer into expansion vessels/bladder tanks.

If you have any experience with bladder tanks devvo I think we'd appreciate some insight. I don't know that much about them so if you could explain the basics that would be great! Thanks.

Some things are good but expensive; it seems that expansion vessels or bladder tanks are exactly that. It's unfortunate that many people don't consider some of the many options like these just because they are expensive. There's no harm in getting something that would work well, at least in Dusty's gun.

Cheers for the idea, but im trying to keep this as a simple APH.

BTW... after trying a few methods for a pump, im down to using a "cork on a stick"

Its dead simple- Ive shaved a cork from a wine bottle down to the perfect size to fit in my 15mm pipe, and the insides have been greased for added water tightness, even though the cork is enough. The cork is going to be attached to a thick metal wire. in which runs through the cork and is kinked at both ends, to hold the cork in place.

Apart from taking ages to finish the pump, the rest of the gun is assembled and working fine.

BTW
Im going to experiment with an accidentle nozzle i found. Some bags of water baloons come with a cheap plastic nozzle right? the ones i bought recently had one, with a threaded nozzle! and its roughly 22mm inside, and fits directly (well, with a little bodging) onto my Release valve. i think the nozzle's hole is about 5 or 6 mm wide, but ive still got my blanking disc ill drill to 4mm otherwise

Hmm...do you have any pictures of the cork seal? I can visualize the cork well enough, but I'm not sure how the thick wire is set up. It would seem easier to just drill a wide hole and stick in a wooden dowel. Though I agree the cork is probably a great seal that can adapt to different tube sizes, so good idea.

in my third year at college doing heating and vent we had finished all our coursework a few months early so we could do what we wanted so we built our own, thats why i bring up the expansion vessel, you get them from 500ml to massive 100L ones, in our class of 30 we built 6 silly powerful guns, one guy had a 12L expansion vessel strapped to his back which he charged up to 12 bar with a motorised test pump, with a 28mm barrel he blew everyone away, of course not everyone has free materials like we did, i just wish we could of kept them but the college wouldn't let us run off with hundereds of pounds of fittings!

I hope it's not too late to give one piece of advice. For the T-junction that connects the PC, use a 'swept tee' - one with a wider radius bend. have the curved path connecting the PC to the firing valve. This should reduce turbulence and thus increase flow.

OK, another bit of advice, again concerning the T junction - you can (maybe) get one where the side branch and one main branch are 22mm, while the other main branch is 15. That way you don't need an additional reducer, so your gun can be lighter and more compact.

If you're really lucky you'll find a swept T with the off-sweep side smaller.

Over here, "swept tees" are called "sanitary tees" - I think because they help prevent liquid from moving between two of the branches if oriented correctly and in the right applications. But they're only available in very large sizes of PVC - 2" or 3" and above. Hopefully you can get 22 mm and 15 mm swept tees in copper.

devvo, it sounds like you guys had fun with those soakers. Do you know the maximum range? And how large were the streams?