Personal Quests

The best plunger padding:
I have already tested a ton of different materials, including vinyl bumpers, felt bumpers, rubber bumpers, and craft foam. The current material I am testing for heavy recoil buffering is 1/8'' thick natural gum foam, Mcmaster part number 8601K41. It seems to be the perfect density, and the product description states that it "recovers quickly after being compressed," which is a good sign. The firmness is 5-10 psi, and the density is 26lbs/cu. ft.

I believe the perfect padding lies somewhere between foam and rubber. Foam can get squished and loses its sponginess over time, as well as not be dense enough to handle for a high-powered springer. Rubber, on the other hand, can be too dense, and would fail to provide much impact deadening at all. Foam rubber, as well as dense foam and soft rubber are all great candidates for the best plunger padding in the world. The best firmness for foam seems to be 5-10psi and the best durometer hardness for rubber seems to be around Shore 30A - Shore 50A.

The best turret seal:
For anyone that wants to get the most out of their turreted blasters, the seal between your turret and your air supply must be solid! So far I have only tried craft foam, but I just got a shipment in from Mcmaster Carr that might be the moneymaker! Say hello to medium-strength oil-resistant Buna-N rubber, Mcmaster part number 8635K164. I figure that the oil resistance will help when I lube up the rubber. You need to do this so the turret doesn't get stuck rotating from the friction of the rubber. I got a 12'' by 12'' sheet of it (1/8'' thickness) that I will be using for all my turret seals now.

Learning how to join materials:
I used to have a section in here called "The strongest epoxy," but I have now encountered situations that even epoxy cannot handle. Epoxy is nice because it works on a lot of materials, but the resulting bond only has limited strength.You really have to look at all the combinations of materials you can bond, and choose the best for each category: 
Bonding plastic to plastic -- Solvents are hands down the best (and only) way to go. They are usually highly toxic, but they permanently fuse the plastics together with no little to no residue. I am currently in possession of PVC cement, PVC + ABS cement, 100% Acetone, and my new favorite, Methyl Ethyl Ketone!

Bonding metal to metal -- Soldering or brazing is the correct choice for this one. I used to use J.B. Weld for anything involving metal, but it failed me in my Longshot brass breech mod. Now I use a butane torch, silver solder, and acid flux to join metals! I'll be doing a write-up soon on how to join metals so stay tuned.

Bonding metal to plastic -- You really don't want to do this. If you can't mechanically fasten them together in some way, then you are going to be hard-pressed to get a solid join. Using my Longshot as an example again, I ended up making the plastic piece out of metal to bond with a solder joint.

Meeting other modders: 
Right now I'm a lone wolf--modding by myself and sharing everything on this blog. I really haven't met any serious modders out there, aside from Danny Boy of NerfNerds.com and a kid named Nick that I accidentally sold a broken Stampede to lol. Maybe some day I'll find some other folks like myself with a real passion for modding and we can all hang out together, drink beers, and create amazing things. I'd also like to find some modders who are more experienced than myself to help me along the way. So far it has just been internet research and leaps of faith that have gotten me this far. I suppose that feedback on this blog or on Nerf haven are the best ways to gauge my progress. This blog will be my chronicle of my creations--T da B sets high standards for his mods. You can be guaranteed quality workmanship and dedication!

The best foam backer rod:
I never realized the importance of foam until I had to pleasure of acquiring some of Mod Man's red foam through the forums of Nerfhaven. Not only can you improve your ranges, but you can also increase the longevity of your darts. The denser the foam, the better. So far, the best foam I have yet tried is Swift Foam, which I got off ebay for an exorbitant fee. 

Wider I.D. CPVC:
It seems like most Nerfers only have access to Flowguard Gold CPVC--I personally have a shit ton of it lying around. Although different sections of Flowguard piping have slightly different inner diameters, I have yet to find a piece of CPVC with an I.D. greater that 1/2''. It sucks that I have one set of barrels for thinner darts and another set for fatter darts. I would like to standardize towards slightly fatter darts, since there is a bit more freedom in barrel choice.

Update (6/19/2013):
I have found something! It is 1/2'' ID 5/8'' OD polycarbonate tubing that I got off a fellow Nerfhaven member named Funky Mutha Facko. The ID is slightly larger than Flowguard Gold and actually fits my fatter darts, albeit tightly.