The fate of a pair of 4100's

[HBWW]

I don't know if this story is interesting enough to merit its own topic here, nor to write it so long, but I'll throw it down anyway. Some might even learn from it.

Last year, I talked to one of my friends who said he had some old broken CPS's. Of course, I was hunting around trying to find those for cheap instead of going over to eBay. After half a year of forgetting about it, I finally bring it back up a few days ago. Then, just yesterday, he finally gets them out before driving me and another friend back home. (we were just hanging around playing Halo and eating out) Its dark outside and he finally goes over to a large box and opens it up. Basketballs, are strewn around with FF's (about 4-5 of them), an AB and an AS, and 1 or 2 others I don't remember. The 4100's stand out immediately, but so did the fact that he kept all the soakers out in the freezing winter the whole time. I grabbed the 4100's, since everything else was supposedly working fine, then went back to the car. The triggers were missing, which he told me ahead of time (and hence why I asked him if he got them in 2004), but the nozzle selectors were strewn with cobwebs, as well as other random places in the guns. Also, the silvery-ish plastic became somewhat gold, though not a very shiny kind of gold, more of a dead brown. On the car ride back home, he told me about a war they had in elementary school and how him and his brother owned everyone with the CPS guns. Apparently they had a 3200 which they unfortunately threw away after it broke.

When I get home, I drop them off somewhere, go upstairs to setup a room for the next day, and later manage to get time to clean up the 4100's in the laundry sink. Grass clippings, leaves, tons of dirt, and the cobwebs all had to be washed off and mopped up. Upon shifting the pump handles, the plastic they covered up was the freshly silver color without any goldish tinting on them. Later, as I wash, a black spider (which rather surprised me, I'm not too fond of them) was crawling up just above the reservoir near the handle. I wash it off, then washed off another one, this time a brown spider. A 3rd one which was all dead and crumbled up, was under the pump handle when I slid it around again. Later, some of the dirt and cobwebs were difficult to clean, some in hard to reach places, so I go upstairs and pull out my Tiger Shark, set it to the smallest nozzle, and used that to clean the rest. (which soaked up the rest of the laundry room quite a bit)

After attending to more business, I bring the 4100's out of the laundry sink after letting them dry off a bit. I put them in the family room to inspect first, checked up on the PC's, then got ready to open up. Then, I see yet another spider (black one this time) crawling up inside the translucent blue plastic just above the PC. By now, I've had enough. It was getting late and I had other things to take care of, then set the guns back in the laundry sink.

Today I write this up and wonder how many more spiders are in the darn thing. Please take care of your water guns!!!

I'll be posting back on the rest of this repair, which is unusual since I haven't posted about my repairs for a while. The trigger pieces that broke off have presumably been lost (since I couldn't hear it rattle inside the case of the guns), meaning I'll have to make a piece that'll attach to what remains of the trigger. Its a real pity that they screwed up the 2004's 4100 so badly, even though it was so that people would buy their crappy guns once again.

[marauder]

Good luck with the repair. I LOVED the performance of the 4100, it's a shame all the ones I've handled have broken. My 1000 - 6 years older - is still around, man those things last forever.

[HBWW]

Update. Not much has happened, but I did open up one of them a few days ago. As I pulled it out of the laundry sink, a dead cricket (or grasshopper, it was nearly 1" long) fell out from the pump track onto the floor. Later I cleaned it up and opened the synthetic wildlife insect habitat otherwise known as the CPS 4100. Actually, there wasn't anything alive, as far as I could tell, after opening it up, so I just vacuumed and cleaned it as I could, though the plastic is still quite sticky.

The 1000 I got from eBay was subjected to poor use on the beach, though I cleaned out the sand after opening it up for a K-mod. It still works quite flawlessly.

[marauder]

I am kind of skeptical of modding old guns anymore, just because the increased pressure will mean increased wear and tear.

[HBWW]

I kept the k-mod pretty light, usually limited to 35 balloons (depending on the gun and the responsiveness of it's PRV), and its easily reversible and didn't hurt anything. (unlike the old 85 balloon k-mods with PRV removal)