I finally finished painting the Panther that I did a modification tutorial on. It works really well - getting great ranges with 4 - 5 pumps. As you can see in the tutorial, I PVC couplered it and replaced the pump with a dual action bike pump. What I didn't show in the tutorial was the sweet paint job that I gave it.
I themed the paint job after a black panther because the blaster is called a panther, just as a joke. I think that it turned out remarkably well, especially the eyes. The reason I added the white and gold, aside from aesthetics, was to keep it from looking like a real weapon.
Because I replaced the pump, and didn't want a hole where the stock pump used to be, I machined these polycarbonate plates for the front of the shell.
I just used my scroll saw to roughly cut out a rough outline of the front of the shell, and then sanded it down to fit perfectly. I then cut it in half down the centre to allow the shell to open.
I am really impressed with this blaster, for it shoots extremely well and looks really cool.
I have been getting a lot of interest in my Nitemav over the last while, so I thought that I would share some internal pics with the general public.
Here are the internals, which took me a long time to perfect. The trigger was not particularly troublesome, but you have to make sure to shave down the maverick internals where the nitefinder catch goes.
Sealing the plunger tube to the turret was the real problem that I had, for the turret refused to rotate once I had a good seal. Once the turret would rotate, my seal was bad. My fix for this, as was also recommended in Rogue's writeup, was to glue craft foam to the plunger tube and then rotate the turret several hundred times. This squeezed the foam enough that it still formed a good seal, but also allowed the turret to rotate.
The last thing that I did, was to add this spring to the trigger:
Doing so helps the turrets rotation, for the trigger returning forward advances the turret the rest of the way. Without it, I could only shoot the gun once before having to rotate the turret manually.
I highly recommend making Nitemavs, for they make great sidearms and look great when painted.
Welcome! One of the ways I will be using this blog, is to give you more information about the modifications that I post on my channel. This will be a more efficient way of conveying small details that turn short videos into extremely long ones. Let's dive right in to this first gun.
The symbol on the side means "greater than average" in mathematical terms.
First off, I call this the sink finder because it is made out of parts that are normally found in a sink- like the 1 1/2" sink drain that I am using as a plunger tube, and the 1 1/4" bathtub or drain plug that I am using as a plunger head.
I attached this to the stock nitefinder plunger rod with washers on either side to ensure it isn't ripped apart by the spring. I clipped down the edges of the bathtub plug so that it still has a great seal, but slides very easily through the plunger tube. You are going to have poor ranges if your plunger rod doesn't move quickly- regardless of how good your seal is.
This blaster has a super cool holster too. I got the idea when koree posted this writeup on Nerfhaven. A magnetic holster sounded pretty cool to me, so I thought I would try it. The dots epoxy puttied on the side of the blaster are the magnets, which attach to the magnets on this strip covered in duct tape like so:
The strip has belt loops in it so that it is actually usable as a holster. I can run around with the blaster attached with no problems, even when jumping. The magnets do yield when I pull the blaster off to fire- it would be kind of embarrassing if they didn't.
Because I have so many different barrel systems that I use on nerf guns, I wanted to be able to use the widest variety with this blaster. It is my primary after all. I installed a universal coupler system so that I could achieve just that. Getting the cpvc coupler to stay in was a pain, but I finally got it to stick using gorilla glue. Now I can use a super modern speedloader! They have the highest rate of fire ever!</sarcasm>
Anyways, this was a fun project to do, and well worth the time and effort. I am currently hitting 90+ feet with it. I hope you enjoyed, and will see you next time.
