Safety first kids. A favorite TV dad of mine would remind us all, “…goggles might make you look cool, but they are also a part of proper safety attire.” – Hank Hill. Before you go there I am well aware of the likelihood (or lack thereof) of injury by blaster being related to electricity – it is extremely improbable, given the fact that at the end of the day all electrical connections and components are encased in plastic which is non-conductive. I won’t debate…

I’ve been doing stuff. Since I’ve first introduced my build about 6 weeks ago, I’ve been doing three things. 1. Running darts through it as much as possible – I’m somewhere in the ~1700+ range now. 2. Making new parts and refining existing ones in preparation for a second build. 3. Breaking it. Yep, I already broke it. After what I think might’ve been ~1400 or so darts the pusher developed a crack and broke. When it first happened I expected the gearmotor to…

Oh you have a new flywheel cage do you? It is no big secret that the flywheel cage is an extremely frequent topic in Nerfing. This one is canted, that one is CNC’d from a solid block of aluminum, and there are several now in open source flavors. My own foray into the caged wheel came about from a goof, an inability I have to deal with imprecision, and the fact that I screwed up the stock one while filing down the pressure fit…

Sing it with me: “It ain’t no fuuuun, if the hommies have an awkwardly positioned launcher/fore-grip at front of their blasters throwing off the balance.” So here’s the thing, I am not some un-feeling, joyless, monster, I honestly have a grin on my face as soon as I hear the pop of that grenade launcher, sending that foam who knows where. Is it fun to lob these in the air as far as possible?, we’ve gone over this – of course it is. Still…

As the great sage Kool Moe Dee once said, “I go to work.” Welcome to part 3 of my retrospective on building my prototype full-auto Nerf Demolisher. At long last this was the phase of the build where I actually started to do some you know, building. I finally got my 3D printer in and I immediately cleared my weekend, and many successive weekends. First order of business was to get to a proof of concept – mounting a gearmotor in proximity to the…