Posts by Wood Guy

Good idea- as long as that's where you need the ballast. You could also add more weight if needed by adding another coupling nut, but that might mean a left handed thread (Does a coupling nut have a left and a right handed thread?). Or, you could just add a threaded shaft with however many ss nuts it took to get the ballast you needed. :confused2:

Maybe it's just me, but I think you made the right decision not wrapping that beautiful teak in carbon fiber. :clap2: It's not that I have anything against carbon fiber, it's just that the look of a really nice teak speargun is, to me, like looking at a really nice piece of handmade furniture- it just gets better looking with age. Hmmm. I guess you could apply that reasoning to a few other things, as well, but I guess that's a little off topic! :laughing:

Yup!! A mill can make it a lot easier to maintain accurracy, as long as you......measure twice, and cut once!:D Good luck on the build. Keep us posted.

The ball cutter that I use for a 9/32" and 5/16" shaft (Tin Man's design) has a 3/16" neck. I'm not positive, but I think the Neptonics ball cutter has a 1/4" neck. No problem for a 5/16" shaft, but a little close for a 9/32" shaft (1/32" difference between shaft diam. and neck size). Tin Man specified a 3/16" neck to leave a little more material above the shaft, so the 9/32" shaft couldn't fall out if the gun was inverted. I haven't used one of Josh's ball cutters for a 9/32" shaft so I can't say whether the 1/4" neck would be a problem with the 9/32" shaft or not. Maybe some of you all have used the ball cutter for a 9/32 shaft and could comment. Josh offers a great ball cutter at a reasonable price for a custom cutter, and I'm not knocking his products. I just wanted to point out the difference in neck size, since the two cutters were brought up.

Quote from blankwalker

funny i have nearly the same problem..

hy there,
i decided to build my gun up with the ball cuter from neptonics5/16 which gives me a clearance of 0,5 which is abit less then the ball cuter 11/32 that Wood Guy used in his gun building thread.
ithink it will also fit a 8mm dia. shaft..
and it will fit for the 9/32 shaft as well..

I will use the neptonics reef mech which allows both shafts
BUT :overkill:

i don t know which shaft will work better..damn
so at the moment it looks like i m gonna buy both sizes and have a try.
Somewhere i read that because of the higher mass a5/16 shaft is able to work with longer distance but tends therefor more to bend if shootn on rocks...
Does one here think this is true?

creets..

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Quote from Jareyberrysplash

why are bubble blowers all so stupid :wtf2:

Dude, it's mid November and you're in RHODE ISLAND. And all those bubble blowers who are diving in Florida,....and Alabama,....and Mississippi,....and Louisiana,.....and Texas, where the air is warm, and the water is, well, above freezing! Maybe they're not thaaaat stupid!!!:rolleyes1:

Looking good, there, Rich! I can see it now... Honest, honey, I have no idea what that stuff on the Food Saver is. It must be something that was in the fish!!:laughing3: Seriously, you might be on to something- a method of vacuum bagging with something that almost every spearo probably has...at least the ones that actually kill fish!:thumbsup2:

Very interesting stuff, Rich! If you look closely, it appears that the joints on the left in the picture are a little tighter than the right. Is this true, or just the way the picture looks? If so, could you speculate on why? Would you mind sharing a few details about the glue- up, like did you plane the lams, did you use filler, what epoxy, and finally, how the joints and ease of use doing it this way compared to the way you usually glue up your blanks? It would seem like this would be a lot less messy with all the excess epoxy in a bag rather than squeezing out all over the shop. I know vacuum bagging is done all the time with boats, but is anyone else doing it with spearguns?

I think it's generally accepted that the lighter shaft will "bleed off" energy quicker from water resistance. What surprized me, however, was that the penetration difference between the 9/32 and the 5/16 shaft was still very large at close range. I was thinking of the target penetration as a crude measurement of relative "stopping power", sort of like the discussion by deer hunters about a .243 compared to a .44 caliber bullet. I'm just not sure if the density of the water just causes much more dissipation of energy, and hence shaft speed (manifested in less target penetration) than we thought, or if the band speed represents a limit we didn't consider before. :confused2:

I hunt on the bottom in what is sometimes a strong currrent. My shots are also fairly close, like 8-12 feet. Most of the time I'm more concerned about keeping the gun off the bottom and out of man made wrecks after the shot than I am about recoil. For a very slender or very short gun, I'm not sure the difference in ballast for a gun that slowly sinks with the shaft in compared to a gun that slowly rises with the shaft out would affect recoil much (It's a tiny bit more than the weight of the shaft, right?), but I've never really tried to compare one with the other, either.

I like my guns to just barely sink with the shaft in, and be as buoyant as possible with the shaft out. I take a mesh bag held on the gun loosely with a looped string holding it. I add weight until the gun just barely sinks with the shaft in. Then I slide the bag toward the muzzle or the butt until it sinks level, butt or muzzle first, whatever I want. I like mine to sink level, but that's just me. When I get it the way I want, I put a cable tie next to the string on the gun. Now I know how much weight I want and where on the gun it needs to be.

Next, I take the weight and calculate what size slot in the gun I want to hold the weight. I screw 2 pieces of wood together, then mill or route a slot per my calcs, melt the lead and pour it into the slot. If I like what I've got, I cut the same size slot in the gun, take the little ingot out, drill a hole in it, and install it in the similar slot I've cut into the gun. Make a removable cover plate and you're good to go. This is how I ballasted Core's gun, except I didn't make the cover plate removable. The first time Alvin needs to adjust the ballast, I'll just mill out the epoxied cover plate and install a removable one.

Advantages to this approach:
1. Lead is cheap, and a poured ingot like this can be tailored to the shape of the gun (in this case, fairly long and skinny so you don't weaken the stock) A poured lead ingot also takes up less of the stock than bb's and is quieter.
2. If you make a screwed cover plate, it's easy to adjust the ballast if you modify the gun, like adding a reel, change shaft diameter, or whatever.
3. It's simple- all you need is a router to cut the slot. I used a mill because I have one, but it's no big deal with a router.

Nice and clean--- I like it!:good: Sometimes the simpler the design, the better the product.

I agree with Phil. The ambient temp. makes a big difference in cure time. A slow curing hardener in a cold garage in a northern winter is a recipe for a bad lam. A cure that is too fast in a high heat, high humidity tropical climate can actually cook off before the pieces are positioned properly, affecting the joint and giving you a bad lam. I've used the twin tube 5 minute schringe thingies for small jobs like gluing a plug in, and they seem to work just fine.

I've also used Titebond III for small stuff like gluing a butt pad on. For something like ballast wings that would be ok, but if the joint is going to carry a lot of load I would mix the 2 part epoxy, even if I had too much (Like the glued on muzzle of the dirty water rollergun). I just have more confidence in the 2 part if I really need a lot of strength in the bond. Since I've only used West Systems for 2 part I can't comment on one brand compared to another. Phil?

Jeff,

Was the pilot hole and spike the same sizes for both white muzzles? Is it possible pressing the spike into Lunkerbuster's muzzle causes a very tiny (and unnoticeable) crack that then propagated until it was visible?

I reloaded the pics as best I could. In moving my files around I apparrently misplaced some of the pics :crazy:- I think most of them are there, however. Thanks for the help, Dan. Much obliged.:toast2:

I do make laminated teak blanks for sale. I have a few aged blanks that are made of top quality teak with no knots or sapwood. I can also make you a custom blank of whatever size you want, but that would take about 4 weeks, since I hang them vertically to make sure they aren't going to warp. After 3-4 weeks I measure them, and straighten them if need be. Before I ship the blank, I make sure the blank is within .015" of absolute flatness along the sides, bottom, and top.

I can also cut the track, install the trigger mech, or do whatever else you don't have tools or time for, up to and including the whole gun.

PM me if you would like to discuss further.

"Stupid is as stupid does, Forrest". I lost them reorganizing my photos. I"ll re- post them if I can.

I did a test using a planer to take a small cut off some uhmw one time and it worked, but I haven't worked with it. I know Tin Man has used heat to remove "fuzz" on uhmw with success, but if the saw marks are down into the uhmw and you need to remove the surrounding uhmw, I would plane the top of the gun with the uhmw installed. If you don't have a planer, I would use a sharp, fine toothed saw blade on a table saw and take a very fine cut- just enough to remove the saw marks (and, hopefully, not create some more in the process).:D

I'm sure you already know this, but the ball cutter won't cut with the neck, so you'll have to use a straight router bit to cut the neck, then the ball cutter to cut the track. Go slow!

Looks like you're off to a good start. Just make sure the blanks are square and straight along the top , bottom, and sides before you start cutting. It will make all the difference when you start putting things together.

By the way, if you refer to "Jeff's specs" they will know exactly what you are talking about and what you want with respect to neck size, rake angle, neck to cutter angle, etc.