Ermes Avatar mods thread

[popgun pete]

In the early Champion Arbaletes they hammered cork plugs into the barrel ends and these proved to be effective unless the gun was taken deep and if the cork did not rot. I have noticed "O" ring plug guns with an alloy barrel like Swiss cheese at the end where water sits with the gun in storage, usually the handle end. I bought an old Aquacraft gun like that to get my hands on the grip handle, but the barrel was toast, unless you chopped about a foot off the barrel length.

[kavachi]

[quote=spearq8;……..[/QUOTE]

solid advice there thanks Majd
have used your cut-foam-with-5200 technique on a few pipeguns now, works perfectly and much lighter than rubber or silicone plugs.

[armandozx]

Originally Posted by popgun pete

An almost foolproof way to plug the barrel from water entry is to fill it with a foam core. Years ago one company Imersion produced a series of plug lengths that you pushed into the barrel and then had some end sealant to stop water creeping along the tiny gap between the tube inner bore and the outside of the foam cylinders. Increasing ambient pressure tends to move rubber ends plugs, but they cannot move when the foam core resists. Movement of end seals and barrel expansion and cooling, e.g. a gun in the hot sun goes into cold water puts any sealing system to the test. Another approach would be to pressurise barrels with air, in which case any restricting medium would be keeping plugs from popping out rather than being pushed in.

In fact they still make the Merou D'Or. https://www.imersion.net/product/merou-dor-inox/

have to be careful with these foam systems you may be referencing. Marine foam whether high density or low density have a water allowance spec. In aluminum barrels the 4lbs could absorb less water but is also twice as dense as the 2lb, it's hard to say if the heat during the curing process affects the integrity of the carbon barrels since they are polyester based and emit a lot of heat.

In the marine world, if foam is not sealed once shaped, it will just hold water in voids if it cannot absorb it.

I've never had a barrel flood on me past the plugs. Prior to assembling, I always RTV my components to get a water free finished product.

[popgun pete]

Well obviously you have to use the right type of foam, one with closed cells and that does not crush. Polystyrene foam is formed by a whole bunch of balls squeezed together and heated to form strong packaging materials, but I would not suggest it in a speargun taken to any great depth. Deep diving submersibles use special foams that contain myriad glass spheres encased in a substrate. You can buy that stuff, syntactic foam, but it is not cheap.

[svivian]

Originally Posted by Red Tide

Anybody have any issues with the barrels flooding. I am three for three. What are the best plugs and what is the best glue for the job?

I haven’t had any issues, what plug are you using?

Shoot me a txt GR and I can’t text you pics

-Spencer

[popgun pete]

Out of curiosity I weighed my old Aquacraft handle which has an “O" ring seal on the front boss and found that it weighed 257 grams. Compare that with the Avatar handle and it weighs 358 grams which is quite a bit more. Putting a metal cassette in a tube gun handle has a weight penalty and makes such a gun tend to be tail heavy. Sea Hornet were one of the first to have a metal cassette in their tube gun handle, the Pacific, but they soon switched it over to a plastic version. The original all metal mechanism had been designed as a mortice mech for a timber gun where there was plenty of timber to offset the extra weight in water. A tube gun does not have such reserve of buoyancy unless you fit it with a buoyancy bulb or a float type sleeve jacket.

[popgun pete]

For those that don't remember Aquacraft the guns were eventually taken over by Bandito who are actually still around using that same handle and mech. It is a good handle and has a good cam lock mech, which is why it does not need a metal cassette. Sportsways used the same innards in a more angular handle shape styling-wise, but it worked in exactly the way.

[Mikel_24]

Originally Posted by kavachi

...but has anyone tried wood clamshell approach to putting recoil handle on pipegun handle? still cant get lightweight putty, and normal putty just adds too much weight aft with the big Ermes level-wind reel aboard. thinking of epoxying teak halves over the grip frame on the ermes handle, and then shape it with dremel as i would wood gun recoil handle. would also add some buoyancy aft

I cast my own anatomic handles (which I believe is what you call recoil handles) in a silicon mold with PU resin (loaded with glass microspheres to reduce it's density).

First of all, I made a handle out of clay and tweaked it as much as I need it to make it perfect for my hand. Then I smoothed it out and filled some voids with putty. Sanded, etc and finally clear coated it to make it slick.

I made the mold out of special silicone for molds. From then on, I can make them in 5 minutues each (counting the measurements of the two components, mising and casting). It is THAT quick.

What you could do is replicate my method and then split the casted recoil handles in half (bandsaw), trim the excess, trace the shape of the handle stem from the gun on the freshly sawed face of the handle (both sides 50%), carve it out and then slap the two halves together with epoxy adhesive.

Casting directly on the handle stem seems too tricky for me.

Mikel

[popgun pete]

Here is a surprise, the Ermes Sub Avatar handle is 41 grams heavier than the cast alloy grip Beuchat Canon handle. I was rebuilding a Canon from new spare parts as I didn’t want the last version with a very skinny spear. All I need is the cocking stock tube, I have everything else, having plenty of spare spears. In later years Beuchat upgraded all the innards of this iconic handle. The only thing the Canon needed was a plastic guide track, which will be going on my new cannon.

[svivian]

Mario improved the band hook on the bottom so no more bands popping out on rollers.

[popgun pete]

Looks like the sliding block has disappeared which was a potential weak point and may have been made more so by cutting that hook higher up in the slim body. No great loss to get rid of it.

[svivian]

Originally Posted by popgun pete

Looks like the sliding block has disappeared which was a potential weak point and may have been made more so by cutting that hook higher up in the slim body. No great loss to get rid of it.

You are correct. I forgot about that