Silicone tip darts

I'm thinking about making a mould to make silicone tips for darts. My main questions are:
Has anyone tried this? If so, how did it turn out?
I think if I can make a good mould that makes the tips close to perfect symmetry and consistent weights, Then that would be a success, however they would then need to be attached to the foam. Loctite 454 adhesive gel is the choice solution to get part A to stick to point B.

I might get one of the guys at work to make up an aluminium block with casting (mould) holes in it. Once I get a batch of 5 out, I'll run them through the BBLS into a hard surface (metal or timber) and see how long it takes to make them break.

Any ideas are more than welcome. If it turns out well, I'll get a system going to mass-produce them for sales.

Cheers guys

I just remembered informers. I want to experiment with different shapes of tips etc. Does anyone know what the best material would be to make a mould out of?

When Myself and my dad were making silcon gaskets for his VW we just used wood with vasolene in the mould area. Probably the cheapest option for home prototyping

That's so bush mechanic. I love it.

Thats because I am a bush mechanic lol

It's genius.

I already have 6 molds for these types of darts with about a dozen more in the works and to sell them quite frequently all I can say it's only worth it if you can shift TONNES OF VOLUME, as a quality mold to produce the parts is awfully expensive to cover the costs it's all difficult to bring the costing down to where anyone will actually use them. To give you an idea my volumes are up near 500,000 UNITS an order to sell at the price I am and the margins are thin even with quick machinery on hand on top of that you have to move that volume which is not easy because the community is so tiny it's taken me well over a year now and I am well behind that.

But from all the testing and data I have on the shapes and heads I can basically tell you that the current design and weight distribution is nearly perfect I have a few changes to the current molds for future releases but after that I won't be producing anymore as the increase in performance is so minimal it's not worth it not to mention the lack of buyers will be pushing up the price.

I looked in to having my own sili tips made once before I found these forums, but since I didn't have anywhere near enough capital to be able to produce enough to turn a profit.

Have you thought of trying to tap in to the bigger market (i.e major retailers) or is it just not viable/ too hard to get a foot in the door?

How much are you charging for silli tips inf0rm3r?

I wouldn't mind trying to make hollow points. Those would cause some damage

cfb_rolley wrote:I looked in to having my own sili tips made once before I found these forums, but since I didn't have anywhere near enough capital to be able to produce enough to turn a profit.

Have you thought of trying to tap in to the bigger market (i.e major retailers) or is it just not viable/ too hard to get a foot in the door?

You need more backing financially to do it, there's a difference between having the financial ability to stock an item to a small community even in the volumes I'm doing and doing retailers. I did the figures I'd need roughly $750,000 to even start with independent toy stores.

7.5 per head standard rate

You also have to be very careful what you produce, if it's not certified ie EN71 or labelled correctly you can be snapped instantly on it this is why I haven't re-produced alot of the ideas floating around it's either illegal far to in the grey area and the moment you sell something your instantly liable hence the changes to the heavy tips to a much softer material just to cover my arse. It's sad but if you sell something regardless of what disclaimer you put on it your responsible for if that enters someone's eyes. These limitations also restrict the ability to increase performance in QLD if a blaster is firing it over 180FPS it's illegal plain and simple you don't want to be tied directly to something like that which is why I moved away from modding kits, harder HT darts and many other projects.

StreamLines are hollow tipped. Hollow tipped darts are for impact absorbsion ie: less damage. I am guessing you are thinking hollow point bullets which are designed to break up upon impact there by (on a soft target) causing more damage.
The idea of this sport/hobby is to not damage people/objects...

Precisely. Mind you hollow tip darts are usually 2 or even 3 mold pieces so at 2.5K for a mold which will last the run cycle it's a lot of outlay just the molds can take easily 100,000 units to cover their cost let alone all the money you need to cover unit price, tax etc. But that's the problem with this country high costs, high taxes means we all get punished.

I just want to make some different types. I like to target shoot with the BBLS as well.

I guess if you wanted to screw around with different designs, you could try making your own mold.

@informer, it's the same with a lot of industries even outside of toys. I had my own BMX parts business going for while but there's a ton of legal and safety red tape to do with it nowadays, so after a while it was either run at a loss or take the small profits I gained and stop making parts apart from gear for myself.

I have got some ideas for different moulds. They are pretty simple ideas.

Up here in toowoomba there's not many ppl into nerf that I could find so target shooting is a good hobby. I want to use moulded tips because they will be close to perfectly round thus making accuracy close to spot on.

Update:

I have a good mate machining up a dummy tip that I will use to make the mold. I'm gonna use playdough to make the 2 parts. Top and bottom. When the dummy is finished, I'll get some pictures up.

Playdough isn't great as a mold as you can only use it max a few times.

I'm only using it a few times to make enough to prototype then I'm making a proper one out of clay

if i was to go about making my own dart tips i would first get the mother piece made up like you are doing and make a few cheap disposable moulds of it, say 10-20.

after that make a large 2 piece hard mould out of rondo (body filler and fiberglass resin mixed together) leaving injection holes to shoot some silicone down there.

after that its a simple thing to separate the 2 halves and trim off any excess silicone to glue them into your foam.

while not the cheapest way to make something like this it is going to outlast pretty much any other way. also making 20 at a time seems fairly reasonable.

I've got a mate doing up the metal mold at the moment. He's gonna polish the bore holes and get each hole to be precisely the same as each other. It's a 2 part mold that compresses together. the top half is going to be the insertion part (holes that are the same size as the inside of blue foam) and the bottom half is the one getting all the work done to it. To start off, the hole will be D10mm and a depth of 6mm. It will allow for future changes with-out having to make a new one every time.

Each hole will be coated with a non-adhesive gel to prevent the silicone sticking to it.

Hopefully it will be ready this arvo and the first trial run will be done this weekend.

A nerfer in the US (shmmee) is doing something similar with a concoction called oogoo. It's clear silicone caulk mixed with cornstarch. Not sure if this is near what you are looking for but the molding process he's using is good for small batches.

I will eventually mess around with mixtures eventually. I want to get the right shape to start off with.

it is going to be alot easier to buy from informer though since he has already done all the hard yards. you may even get them cheaper when his new product come out.

I'm doing all this for experimental reasons really. I'm not worried about costs to mass produce them. I want to get darts that are accurate

You havn't used informers darts have you? (not troll, genuine question)

Nah I haven't used them yet. I just want to toy around with different weights and materials.

I want to trial different shapes for target shooting with the BBLS

I strongly suggest you give them a go. If nothing else it'll give you a starting point.

I think I tried to order some a while ago and got no where with it.