Fixing the wobble - why 3D printing isn't always the best solution.

We previewed our new Stock Extenders on Wednesday afternoon and got a great reception to them. They're going into combat testing this evening and there will be other posts about them forthcoming. One of the comments that came up (and has come up in several other threads and request emails) is to do something about the stability issue in the Stryfe/Rapidstrike front end barrel attachment space.

On the face of it, it would be very simple to mass produce these. They're a very simple piece of plastic printed to slot over the current muzzle attachment and it sits nicely behind my Longstrike barrel extension and steadies it.

See? It's a nice tight fit, it locks the extension in place. On the face of it, 90 seconds of print time per collar with lots to a tray means I can print thousands of these each day. Ideal, right?

Wrong. It's frankly overkill. I'm using a high powered piece of CNC machinery to do what I could do just as effectively with a craft knife and some plasticard or ABS sheet. It'd be a lot easier to customise that sort of contraption to your personal blaster, to your specific circumstance than it would be to buy a packet of ours off the shelf. Add in the fact that ours aren't exactly durable if you try taking them off once you've put them on.

It's all about selecting the correct tool for the job. Too often in the Nerf modding hobby do people look at 3D printing and think of it as some sort of magic process that will do anything. It really won't. Even with high infill ABS, the composite layer by layer nature of additive manufacturing results in something that's very different (note different, not weaker) to injection moulded plastic.

For example, when we realised that the vertical foregrips we had produced weren't going to work because of plastic fatigue failure, we went away and looked at alternatives. We came back with aluminium plates and retained our original plastic handles to give us the best compromise between weight, cost and future design changes. To get the best quality outcome, you have to think beyond a single method or process and not just accept its limitations.

As for us, we need a barrel extension on our in-house blasters to help us house some instrumentation for characterising dart ballistics. The model for the spacer came from some work we were doing to replicate barrel attachment holders and transplant them to blasters that don't currently have them. Though these were printed as demonstration pieces, it's still a lot easier to get the craft knife and cardboard out when the need arises.

I suppose that's a lesson for all modders: right material and process for the job and keep your tools in good order! :)

Combat testing - HvZ style!

Since we posted about the Stock Extenders yesterday there appears to be a little bit of confusion about how we go about testing our stuff.

We have a couple of stages to our testing. First there's the office test. We put our gear through it's paces in the office. We throw it around, drop-kick it, step on it and generally abuse it to find any problems before they become a problem. There are many days spent holding blasters at odd angles, throwing them at things and just down right being mean to them,

For the second stage, our guys head over to BUZAN (Bristol University's Nerf group) and test our stuff with their players. We hand our stuff over and let them at it. If it doesn't survive contact with the user base then it goes back to the drawing board. By testing with the people who actually use our stuff, we get all sorts of feedback from durability, functionality and pricing information. We've always designed for University HvZ players and having a group on hand that are happy to host us means we can offer products that are genuinely tailored to that market.

We hand kit out, have people play with and in some cases break it. It's always fun in the first term, freshers get handed a piece of kit and break it so you have to spend an amount of time explaining that we're encouraging them to break it. On occasion, we also have to explain that, no, if you break it you don't have to pay for it!

It's an effective means of putting our gear through our paces. We're very lucky to be able to get our stuff into the hands of eager people before launching to the public. Of course, there is the slight guilt factor of watching a piece of kit fail at a critical moment and seeing people get eaten by zombies! We like to temper that feeling with the many more successful moments where a holster provides that last minute hold out shot and the player in question goes on to clear that jam, down half a dozen zombies and goes out in style, rather than ignominy! :D




NOTE: All our testing staff are associate members of the University of Bristol Student's Union and of the Bristol University Zombie Apocalypse Network (BUZAN) with all appropriate dues paid up - we're very happy to support student projects both in a personal and business capacity. :)

Rapidstrike Tray Extension

The joy of being a maker is that very often product ideas come from what we need ourselves. A goodly number of your best creations are those that you use yourself.

I got sick of having 2 sets of batteries for my Rapidstrike CS-18. I got sick of having to keep two different sets on my webbing. I decided to make my Rapidstrike battery tray larger to accommodate my 1800mAh 3S LiFe Stampede battery so I can use it in my RS.. I've got a few more plans for this one, including an integrated torch kit and other things. If people want these then I'll happily pop them in the shop, I just thought it might be nice to show off. I can probably arrange custom jobs, too for different packs. :D

-Mike, BSUK

Rail Mounted Magazine Holder: First Look

While we produce a wide array of gear for carrying your magazines on your webbing there are times in life when you need something a little different. Perhaps you can't wear a rig because it's already full or because it's too warm. Where else are you going to put Nerf magazines? Well, your blaster has a number of hard points just waiting to be used.

Want more accessory than rifle? No problem! What else are these rails for?

Enter our Rail Mounted Magazine Holder system. We've designed this in true Blastersmiths UK fashion: to be combat effective and as customisable by the user as possible. The system will be supplied as a kit for users to screw and stick together as required.
 

We've designed this so it can be assembled into one of two configurations to allow magazines to be placed in either vertical or horizontal positions on your rails.

The mount plate of the main holder contains 2 part Velcro with each half sewn in place to prevent loss of the strap during fire-fights, transport or storage. Despite not having an elastic component, when sealed correctly the Velcro will retain its charge in all battlefield situations and has only failed under the most extreme of tests*. The lack of elasticity also restricts lateral movement of the magazine when swung back and forth. The Velcro also strong enough to allow the magazine holder to be used as an emergency grab strap for the blaster, though we don't condone this, there's a huge chunky ABS grab handle just a few inches away!

Each kit will contain 2 magazine holders to allow the effective carriage of either 2x 6 or 12 dart magazines or 1x 18 dart magazine. Despite what the photos show, 18 dart magazines are most stable when held by two adapters.





*For the purposes of this article, 'most extreme of tests is use of the rifle in question as a battle axe to smash your way through a table"

Return of the Vertical Foregrip Handles

MkI old breakable foregrips!

A great Nerfer once said "Do not accept the limitations of your materials at face value, if you want to do something, find the best thing for the job and do it" (Or words to that effect). We couldn't agree more!

We built some prototype grip handles using our 3D printer a couple of weeks back. We were ready to abandon the project when we ran into stress fractures and other nasties that posed serious problems. While we could get a game or two out of our handles, the fact the plastic mounts would fail resulted in the near mothballing of the project.

It was then another intrepid Nerfer
contacted us with an idea. Just use a better material. Initially hesitant, I put out feelers and commissioned a set of replacement rail grips for our 3D printed handles. This is the result:

New and improved fore-grips that don't break!

That Rapidstrike is held by my single hand at arms length with nothing but the grip holding it in place. I've just spent 20 minutes swinging it around my head in the hallway and generally stress testing it. The whole assembly has just looked at me and gone "nope.avi". It's wonderful. Granted, it's not slide on, you have to clamp it in place with screws but trying to twist it off sees the Rapidstrike's body fail before the plastic and aluminium used here.

This is obviously a prototype but we'll start selling black units (black anodised aluminium to match the plastic) later in the month. Orange and other colours will follow in the future. In the meantime, we'll open a register of interest for people to start forming an orderly queue. No money will change hands until we have these in stock, the register will just be a way to gauge interest and to ensure we are able to produce at the quantities needed to avoid disappointment.

Current price projections place these around £10-12 for UK/EU customers (includes VAT @ 20%) and £8-10 for non EU customers (though local sales taxes may apply). Once the initial order queue is cleared, we'll operate a stock policy - i.e. no lead times but you'll only be able to order if they're in stock. We'll get some video of how the prototype holds up in the next couple of days.


Please note, if you are great Nerfer who we badly paraphrased earlier, thank you for your pearls of wisdom and apologies for such terrible lexical butchery!

First Look: MkI 'Juliet' Tactical Vest

It's been a long time coming but this is a pre-production version of the MkI Blastersmiths UK Nerf compatible Tactical Vest. Codenamed Juliet, it represents the top end of our carriage solutions. Why Juliet? Well, I threw a dart at all 26 letters of the alphabet and came up with J (Juliet is the NATO radio alphabet for J.)

This is a pre-production in University of Bristol colours for a BUZAN member who asked us really, really nicely. Production versions will be in black on black with black

Inspired by the IOTV and other plate carriers, our MkI vests will be tailored to each individual customer (we'll ask for your measurements on ordering). Available both singly and as part of a series of bundles, this vest offers our largest area for carriage to date.

The Juliet arose from the need for a physical representation of armour in Live Action Role Play (LARP) systems.  LARPers require a great deal of flexibility in their equipment as they may see several different characters die in the course of a weekend event. The MkI vest was developed with this in mind. There are a number of add ons including water pouches, back mounted sword sheaths and padded under arm panels for those cold winter months. We're also working on ballistic collar inserts to provide a little more coverage and warmth in winter.

Extra padded chest sections are something we are also considering for the release version. The upper chest area is a little thin on the ground so we're looking to beef it out a little. We'll certainly be expanding that Velcro loop tape to allow people to attach larger sized morale patches and the like to their rigs. It'll also add a nice space to aim for in Dart Tag games!

The version above is shown without its matching tactical belt which expands carrying capacity even further to allow the rig to be worn in combination with other elements including our range of drop-leg holsters.

More pictures and details will be forthcoming. The MkI Vest will be available from our web store from 27th November 2013.

Update on a few projects

We've been exceptionally busy these last few weeks and development has taken a bit of a back seat. We're very grateful for the support all of our customers have shown us by buying into the Blastersmiths project and it's wonderful to see our kit out there in the world being used as it was intended (and in some cases, other uses are found, you know who are you :P).

I thought I'd take the chance to update a few projects that we have rumbling in the works. Of course, there's the fact we're now producing 3D printed parts. There are lots of nice things in the pipeline for that, we're striving to do things that haven't been done before so don't expect any iron sights this side of Christmas! Of course, things don't always work out. Our Vertical Foregrip prototype is being shelved because no matter how much plastic we throw at those rail grips, they keep fatiguing under combat stress. Until we find a solution to that, they'll sit here as prototypes because I'm not happy letting a sub-standard product reach the market.

Elsewhere, we have the Juliet rigs. Our prototype has proven its mettle and there are a few changes that need making. We've made those changes and the first production variant is slated to be made up on Tuesday afternoon. There will of course be pictures but it's not in the standard black, just as a heads up.

The blaster sleeve is still on the table. We're trying to balance everyone's needs with what's actually practical. We're still going with the little and large approach - so a separate holder for the Stampede and Rapidstrike and a different one for the Stryfe and Retaliator. There's a prototype here in the office but I'm not happy with the balance between retention and accessibility at the moment.

The Vambraces are good to go, I'll launch those as soon as I get a moment alone with the website.

Finally, we have a battle belt on its way. Essentially, a wider tactical belt complete with MOLLE webbing, you'll be able to strap it around your waist and dig in. I'm thinking of expanding the system to integrate it into a torso piece for a slightly more flexible armour phys-rep. There will be pictures on the blog and Facebook page when the prototype battle belt is finished.

I'd like to say thank you to everyone again, you're all amazing and your support is what keeps us going when things get busy. I'm off to a little dance and then get back to work.

All the best,

-Mike, MD Blastersmiths UK Ltd