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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 4:25 am
by jackssmirkingrevenge
)DEMON( wrote:Does it matter how far apart the disks inside are apart from each other?

At first I was going to make the disks out of flattened PVC but now I think I might just get plastic bottles and cut disks out of that. But they might be a little too fragile.

Can anyone think of a cheap alternative?
Balsa wood :) easy to work with (you can cut it with a craft knife), not too expensive and if you laminate two sheets of 1/16" wood with the grain at 90 degrees, stronger enough for your purposes.

If you can mount it concentric enough to the barrel, you don't even need a ported barrel extension, you can just have the baffels fitted with spacers - that can be anything from springs to sections of tubing, I've even used drilled-out lego blocks for some projects :) - in the manner of the sound biter silencer made for rimfire and air rifles;

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It usually helps to have the spacing at an uneven distance from eachother, starting with small spaces getting bigger as you approach the end of the silencer. The smaller the spaces, the more baffles you can fit in and the more effective your silencer will be ;)

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 4:54 am
by chaos
mm yer silencers..... :roll:

i made one it worked ok but i made it wrong even 100ci did not suppress my s400 with baffels and sound adsorbent material but this was mostly because of the c:b ratio.

with a paintball marker i think you should be able to make a very good silencer from a length of pvc, a way of attaching it weather that be slip fit or screw on, and some end caps that fit inside the pvc snugly with holes drilled in the center of course.

the only problem i see with this tho is that the paintball may curve inside the silencer and break so, keep in mind you want the least amount of space between the painball and the baffles.

hope it works well.

peace
~chaos

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 6:08 am
by )DEMON(
Well I tried flattening some pvc earlyer this morning. It worked well, I have enough pvc to make enough baffles. Making them out of pvc will not be easy and will be time consuming so I will not be finished with it today. I will look into using the plastic from a soda bottle, easy to make and replace.
the only problem i see with this tho is that the paintball may curve inside the silencer and break so, keep in mind you want the least amount of space between the painball and the baffles.
Yeh, what will happen is a paintball will break in the barrel and all the bits will end up in the silencer. The paintball will not travel of course enough to hit the inside of the silencer, unless you jerk heavily to the side when you shoot but that is not likely going to happen.

What I have done is designed the silencer to be easily taken apart.
It usually helps to have the spacing at an uneven distance from eachother, starting with small spaces getting bigger as you approach the end of the silencer. The smaller the spaces, the more baffles you can fit in and the more effective your silencer will be Wink
Thanks Jack, I will keep this in mind when I make it. I should be able to fit in more than ten baffles inside the silencer. The functional length of the silencer is just over 5'' and >2'' wide.

I got what I need to make the silencer, I have attached an image.

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 10:06 am
by )DEMON(
Ok, I have made flipping good progress. All I need to do now is add the internals and a cap to the front and paint :D

The silencer fixes onto the barrel really easily. What I have done is glued two reducers together and cut them in half, these fit over the barrel and form the base for the silencer to fit over. See pics.

I don't feel like making a full write up on how I went about doing this right now. Will sometime during the week.

Now for lots of nice images.

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 10:45 am
by jackssmirkingrevenge
An easy way to make baffles is to use small soda bottles that fit the silencer tube (or are slightly smaller, you can make up the difference with duct tape wrap ;) ). By cutting them in two, you get a cup shaped baffle which in design terms is more effective than a flat disk, it's the same shape that many firearm silencers use, plus you won't have to use spacers:

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Image

You can either use the bottom half and cut a hole in the base (at least 1/4" bigger diameter than your projectile to give adequate clearance) or use the top half if the mouth of the bottle is close to your projectile diameter.

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 11:18 am
by )DEMON(
Wait, those look like they only use the inside volume of the funnels to let the gas dissipate :?

So why are funnel shaped baffles more effective than disk baffles?

Good idea with the soda bottles, I am going to try the back end first.

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 11:25 am
by jackssmirkingrevenge
)DEMON( wrote:So why are funnel shaped baffles more effective than disk baffles?
Don't limit yourself to soda bottles, any cylindrical container that's strong enough will do. On my first silencer for a 6mm pneumatic I used the plastic Kinder surprise eggs, with a 7mm hole through the middle and wrapped in masking tape to fit a 40mm PVC tube, it worked brilliantly :)

The idea of a silencer is to reduce the pressure of the air before it exits the muzzle - just giving it volume to expand works well, but by having the faces of the baffle at an angle, you create more turbulence inside the silencer as the air bounces back which slows the air down even more -> less noise ;)

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 11:31 am
by )DEMON(
Ah, so thats how they work.

I will go have a look around, see what kind of funnel shaped materials I can find.

Thanks for all the help Jack, you ROCK! :D

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 11:35 am
by jackssmirkingrevenge
)DEMON( wrote:Ah, so thats how they work.

I will go have a look around, see what kind of funnel shaped materials I can find.

Thanks for all the help Jack, you ROCK! :D
They can get a bit more complicated if you like, but I doubt you have the time or the facilities to accomplish something like this:

Image

no problem dude, that's what forums are for ;) besides, since all my tools are several thousand kilomteres away at the moment, this virtual spudding is the only indulgence I can make for now. ah well, one more week :)

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 3:55 pm
by )DEMON(
That looks like it was casted. Would hate to think how difficult that would be to machine.

Anyway... I made a front cap piece thing, whatever you want to call it, that is fixed to the end of the silencer. I wanted to save space, so I didn't put any threaded fittings on the end. You can take everything out by removing the barrel attachment, it is just a hollow pipe without the innards.

Just for testing purposes I am going to make flat baffles out of cardboard to see how effective the silencer is. (will be testing it at the field tomorrow)

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 11:21 am
by )DEMON(
Today I tested the silencer, it worked! It didn't completely silence the shot but it created a noticeably quieter shot.

Not bad for cardboard.

Jack, another question, how much bigger must the baffles be than the projectile? I want there to be enough clearance for the projectile but I don't want to risk performance.

I am guessing, as small as possible?

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 1:38 am
by chaos
)DEMON( wrote:Today I tested the silencer, it worked! It didn't completely silence the shot but it created a noticeably quieter shot.

Not bad for cardboard.

Jack, another question, how much bigger must the baffles be than the projectile? I want there to be enough clearance for the projectile but I don't want to risk performance.

I am guessing, as small as possible?
yep as small as you can make them so the projectile can still get through, maybe find some big washers or somting.

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 1:46 am
by jackssmirkingrevenge
)DEMON( wrote:Jack, another question, how much bigger must the baffles be than the projectile? I want there to be enough clearance for the projectile but I don't want to risk performance.

I am guessing, as small as possible?
Yep, as small as you can make them without making contact with the paintballs. A good way to test this is to cut some baffles out of stiff cardboard, start off with the hole about 2mm in diameter bigger than the projectile diamter. Fire off a few shots then remove the baffles checking for marks from the paintballs, keep increasing the hole diameter in 1mm increments until no contact is evident.

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 2:36 pm
by )DEMON(
Looks like I am going to have to do some fine work with my dremel clone.

I really love this thing. I got my dad to shoot it while I stood about 10meters away and you really have a hard time hearing it, and that is with the cardboard baffles :P

For ease of production I am going to use disk baffles for now, I found a plastic bin in my garage that I can make them out of. It should be quite enough, the marker was not too load to begin with. Not to mention there is a night game coming up this Saturday, which I want it ready for, I don't have a lot of time during the week to work on it.

I should have a video up by tomorrow if all goes well.

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:16 am
by jackssmirkingrevenge
One small idea that might be helpful to increase the efficiency of disk baffles while also providing a convenient spacer:

Cut a long strip of thin aluminum from a soda can or similar (any thin metal sheet will do really), the width of the strip must the be distance you want between the baffles, the length you can judge after understanding what you need it for.

Now, roll the strip into a spiral, the inside of the spiral must be wide enough for for the projectile to pass through, while the outside of the spiral should be roughly equal to the inner diameter of the outer tube of the silencer.

Put in you spiral, a baffle, another spiral, another baffle etc. et voila, silencer ;) Note that the shape of the spiral forces the air into a turbulent pattern that increases the efficiency of your device. By varying the width of the strips, you will alter the size of the individual chambers that should decrease the sound even more.

I'd make a diagram but my access to image programs is limited here, methinks I'll write a proper silencer tutorial when I get back home - that's in less than a week w00t!

edit: one small thing to remember, as efficient as your silencer is, you're never going to make it completely silent - there will always be the "click" of the hammer and the impact of the projectile, not to mention the "Where the f"·$%··"$"!)=/%$ did that come from?!?!?!" from the person you're shooting at :D