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All About Guns What's your weapon of choice, and why? Discuss the beloved speargun here!

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Old 01-24-2014, 07:42 AM   #1
lordyaussie
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Thumbs up My 4th Gun Build, FlagShip 120

3rd Flame of Anor
http://spearboard.com/showthread.php?t=169925

My Flagship gun

I began starting another halfway through building the Flame of Anor, I was incorporating many of the same concepts and more to make this a stronger gun to take heavier fish.

Furthermore I got some inspiration from Daniels Carbon Guns, I wanted to strengthen a thin barrel by wrapping underneath in Carbon.
I decided I’d take the idea of using a sheet metal cage at the muzzle to gain maximum band stretch. I’d recess the bands deep in the barrel on the first 20cm or so to guide the rubbers loading on the muzzle to a horizontal force rather than a slightly upward one. I think this allowed me to not need to reinforce the top of the muzzle too much and keep the gun thin. I was going to bulk up the recess with alot of carbon fiber.

Daniel also gave me an old plastic closed SporaSub reel, thanks a lot Dan. Its blank cylinder shape was just screaming at me to adopt Trygon’s concept of building the reel into the barrel and letting its carbon fibre construction take the load. Although I still wanted to keep my wood look so instead heavily recessed it into the gun, adding a lot of carbon fibre for reinforcement and making the gun wider in that area giving it a cuttlefish design.
Collin gave me an old pipe gun mechanism, it was perfect! Thankyou very much mate.

I glued up a blank in much the same way I did my Flame of Anor. I used my already finished handle I made a while ago from red gum. I am not sure what the timbers are, the two internal are from an old door frame that was thrown from a house in the hard rubbish collection, nice random hardwood calculated its density at 567kg/m^3. The external lams are some other nice red timber that I don’t know but it can be crafted easily and has a real strength to not crack, shatter, fluff when shaped.



This is my gun building assistant, it’s all good fun until he shits on your speargun.




The other gun in that photo was going to be a multistage 60cm roller gun but didn’t turn out well as I used warped timber in the lamination and it came out bent like a recurvebow. I spent alot of time trying to unwarp it with bessablocks, water and the hot hot Fire! but didn’t have much luck..... then it started warping on the other axis lol

I did the track with my new router and was happy with the result.
Then I glued on further laminations, Meranti on the outside near where the reel was going. Also a little bit too behind the reel to better cover the low line release that pipe gun mechs have.




A day of shaping with the angle sander, a really good mask, outside and the gun is starting to look very nice. I made an elliptical cross section, did strong recesses near the muzzle to the point where I sanded the 2 outer laminations almost off and made some very nice touches to the ends of the far outer laminations near the handle using a rotary tool with exploding sanding drums
It looks like some kind of Great Paladin Sword .






I really love making trigger guards from carbon, you can make it look great, it’s tough and can be assembled onto the gun with the ease of epoxy and a little more carbon. I took my Flame of Anor trigger guard mold based on the Rob Allen and did the same old procedure.



Now came the carbon wrapping of the gun, I didn’t have a vac-bag set up so it was the never ending mind challenging, solution innovation, art of hand wrapping for me.
First came the Muzzle and its recesses, how was I going to keep the carbon in there so it supported bands easily.
Solution: with loop of old power bands slightly loaded on the gun and electrical taped.





Then I had to chisel and cut away all the excess, did it with a mask but without the hazard of sanding which I hate.

I wrapped (or more so veneered) the plastic reel to make it look cool, it was pretty easy with just tape.
Installed the sheet stainless steel muzzle cage with its line guides with a little bit of carbon, It would be reinforced later as more carbon work was done.

Finally the big day came when I had to wrap the whole bottom of the gun, with a load of humble electrical tape ready to go I set to work.
I used surf board carbon rail and I thought it worked really well for this job, I put 2 layers on the bottom and put a lot on near the reel, then put the reel in and proceeded to wrap around anywhere else I saw fit.
Taped it all up, I should have made sure to overlap the tape in all places. Failing to do this meant that not only was the tape difficult to get off from epoxy leaking onto it but also the finish showed several dent lines along the gun from where the tape had been.







The first time I ever broke my vow of never sanding carbon was here when I had to install the home made 2-way line anchor.
I had made the line anchor from 5mm 304 S.S plate, drilled the 3mm reel hole and then the 3mm line anchor hole(if it were ever desired) and a 3mm reinforcement hole on the tennon of the part.
I used my rotary tool with its mini-router bit, went in and dug out the mortise very nicely. Installed with epoxy and carbon fiber.




I remember when making the handle that a crack was starting to form (It was old red gum that had been left for fire wood ), I also wanted to reinforce the shark clip and wanted to somewhat satisfy the internet’s advice to make sure the handle was secure! So added carbon to either side of the handle and it looks awesome!

Last edited by lordyaussie; 01-24-2014 at 08:18 AM.
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Old 01-24-2014, 07:46 AM   #2
lordyaussie
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Re: My 4th Gun Build, FlagShip 120

I came to the carvings, I remember two of the greatest dives I’d had with Danny and David where I caught my first Mackerel and Dorado. I thought about how great it would be to capture the fierceness of the Spanish Mackerel and beauty of the Mahi Mahi . So set about looking on google for the best real life photo graphs of them and found the best.
I also took some inlay shapes of a diver and tuna, and my name in a grand font.
Indented the images onto the gun by pressing hard with a pen.
Highlighted them with pencil.
Carved them out with my rotary tool.




Coloured them with various texters, pens, pencils and I found graphite to really bring the Spanish to life.
They came out GREAT! It had taken much time but I was really proud of my work and was looking forward to the beautiful gun.




With my mid-semester break drawing to a close I really wanted to get this gun done, as always it had taken me far longer than expected.
I got it ready for its first coat, everything was just perfect.




I brushed the epoxy on and saw the true beautiful colors my gun would show once it was finished . Went upstairs to make dinner and imagined what a gun I have in the morning. It began to rain although the gun was hidden away underneath the veranda, everything was fine and I called it a night.

Next morning I eagerly went straight down stairs to see it only to find
Wwhat the f@#$ is this!?!!




The moisture in the air had travelled under the veranda and stuffed it.
I was pretty much speechless from it, wasn’t so much angry, just sad and disappointed that I had worked so hard only for this to happen. I put this stupid whole idea aside and went back to uni. How stupid to spend my whole holidays making spearguns when they can be smashed down in an instant along with your hopes and courage.



I knew what eventually needed to be done, Sanding... the whole thing , epoxy, carbon, the perfect carvings GONE. You spend so much time doing a little work on a gun that you look back sometimes and think ‘ If I had to do that all over again I would be a mess’ .

6 months later: I put a sanding drum into my rotary tool, strapped on my $60 mask and let the 20knot winds keep me cool.

Redid the carvings believing I’ll never get them as good which would have undoubtedly shown up in them. All the carvings... except the ‘Shapers’ logo ;-) .




I had to remake the sear in the trigger because of creepers, dam creepers. There was creep on the old bronze sear’s tooth lending to make my 7mm euro notch to come out given the right twist. Remade it with stainless and it works like a dream, looks like those trigger mech skills payed off after all.




Purchased the recommend West System 206, 105 epoxy. They only had the big 4L set but I didn’t even care, I would spend whatever it took at this stage in the game to get the job done right. My tight ass budget was well and truly thrown out the window.
Time to coat, correct measuring cups, paint brushes, gloves, mask, goggles and a nice sunny day all ready to go.






Only problem was..... I wasn’t experienced with this new type of epoxy .
Bubbles formed in the coat from the heat of the day.... what was it I read.. oh yer something about a hair dryer. *puts hair dryer on* About 100 bubbles appear
Put a 2 more coats on, let it dry.
Then I Dry sanded it... dry sanding opened up the bubbles near the surface, Good , then... pushed white dust into the bubbles , leaving the gun with white spots when I put the next coat on.

Then I had to deal with rough sand paper issues, wet sanding issues, rag issues, lapping issues, random milky issues... it just went on and on and in the end I had to accept that I was not going to get a good finish that I paid my money for!
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Old 01-24-2014, 07:47 AM   #3
lordyaussie
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Re: My 4th Gun Build, FlagShip 120

The milky morning 6 months ago didn’t kill me but this did, I just totally lost it.... several times. I know that everyone else thinks that west system is a good product (including me now that I’ve used it for a bit) but for the pain it caused me, I could really REALLY go mad at those bastards.
If it was such an art West System could have at least given some decent directions... or does that cost money too?
Kinetics may have been a shitty product but at least there were people there who actually could give you some help.

But I’d really REALLY like to thank everyone like Pankrationest, Jono.H and Ace who tried to give me advice and support in that difficult place. If It weren’t for them I would have never have finished this.

Every 1 in 3 coats looked finishable and eventually I picked one.




Spent a day carefully rigging, making sure the tolerances in the reel were ok, the mech fitted right etc. Thankyou Collin for the speargun rubber, it’s great! And when it was finally finished I held it in my hands and couldn’t believe it was done...I was astonished.










FlagShip Gun Stats
Gun Length: 120cm from band hole to last notch, 144cm overall.
Dimensions: Barrel 24 high by 40mm wide.
Spear: 7mm adreno tri-cut, 25cm overhang. Went blunt first shot.
Rubber: 16mm amber 64cm loop. Thanks Collin
Mech: Old pipe gun mech, Thankyou Collin
Handle: RAbased homemade
Reel: Old Sporasub, 9cm diameter spool. Thankyou Daniel
Reel line: 2mm corded dyneema (southport trawler supplies – Wombat $60/100m)
Band hole capacity: 2 14mm rubbers
Balance in the water: Sinks front end first, not too heavy to hold so I’m Very happy.


Rigged up with my new home made floatline for a Kingscliff shore dive tomorrow, needless to say I was way too excited to get to sleep that night haha.



For all those who don’t know, Kingscliff reef starts only a few metres from the mouth of Cudgen creek and just continues out to sea to an unknown extent. It’s mapped out as 3 bommies, the third was always too far to swim for us, first and second never held much fish but Sawtail and Sweetlip for tea. Still that was all good fun.

But today was utterly amazing! 6 of us went down an hour after the dawn, buddied up in pairs and swam out to third. It was perfectly clear, fish everywhere! even on the first and second bommies there was prized fish. Swimming to third took little time than I expected especially considering we were diving all the way.



I found a cray shell and proceeded to look madly about for them, once I surfaced and showed the others, Julian went down and showed me how it was done, seeing his fins jiggle before the other Rock ledge and ascending with a big cray! Wow I’d never seen anything like it.




It was terrific to catch several fish with my new gun, chasing a small Moses Perch off the bommie ledge I found Black Drummer hiding in a cave. A fish that I have always wanted to catch, the biggest one turned facing me for several moments when I released the might of my FlagShip. Straight through and I pulled him from the cave.




I also caught 2 Crimson Wrasse and a nice Goatfish. But it wasn’t just the fish but the Coral too, it glowed and showed off like I’ve never seen or appreciated it before.

It really was just heaven, perhaps the best dive I’d done all year. To be at Kingscliff, on the clearest and fishiest of days, swimming over and exploring my favourite part on my own effort, which I have before only rarely ever had to privilege diving with others from boats.




What happened next was my reoccurring case of diving nausea, dizziness and motion sickness. I will not bore you with the details except to warn you of a mistake I made.

When I became too ill to go on spearfishing I gained some distance from my buddy Jason on the way in.... assuming he would catch up and not wanting to swim back to him(as I felt terrible and just wanted to get in) I swam on instead of swimming back to him.... That Was A Terrible Mistake!
I lost him, looking around in the spinning swell I couldn’t see him anywhere. My decision was either to go back look for him and if I fail get to a sick state with this diving nausea I haven’t dared to experience before. Or swim back and dance like a drunk to the break wall to see if he was coming in... if not, get the coast guard.
Well I swam back and after five attempts to clime the breakwall, saw my dive buddy swimming in, I was pretty happy there although felt absolutely terrible for days.


Awesome Flagship gun


Please read on

The WeekEnd Warrior
http://spearboard.com/showthread.php...=1#post1915990

Last edited by lordyaussie; 01-24-2014 at 08:19 AM.
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Old 01-24-2014, 12:56 PM   #4
jstiver09
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Re: My 4th Gun Build, FlagShip 120

Very cool...lots of information there.
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Old 01-24-2014, 01:45 PM   #5
Killingcarp
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Re: My 4th Gun Build, FlagShip 120

You are one industrious bastard, Very cool work. And great reads.
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Old 01-24-2014, 10:30 PM   #6
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Re: My 4th Gun Build, FlagShip 120

cool gun man!

looks like a wood rob allen lol

i liked the way the reel is joined or "one piece" to the gun!
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Old 01-25-2014, 02:23 AM   #7
"Yard-Sale Josh"
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Re: My 4th Gun Build, FlagShip 120

dude that is sick!
The ski instructor was perfect
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Old 01-25-2014, 10:44 AM   #8
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Re: My 4th Gun Build, FlagShip 120

Yoy this is the most difficult way of carbon lay up I've ever seen but the result is great.Bravo,nice work!
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Old 01-25-2014, 11:45 AM   #9
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Re: My 4th Gun Build, FlagShip 120

Awesome, loved the build story
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Old 01-28-2014, 05:20 AM   #10
lordyaussie
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Re: My 4th Gun Build, FlagShip 120

Thanks everyone, I'm really enjoying using them now.

The wooden Rob Allen was and is the main idea I'm basing my style of guns off and I quite like it. Ric does the same thing I believe.

haha I think I'll buy a vac bag next time , it just seemed odd that this gun sank with the shaft in and I'm kind of putting it down to the thick coat of epoxy.
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