Maintenance is essential now more than ever!
Posted: Sat Jun 03, 2017 11:42 pm
Maintenance is essential now more than ever!
It’s nothing new; we all will eventually face the truth that there is going to be no return of the great performing CPS blasters. There isn’t enough demand, so manufacturers can’t make profits on big guns. Or vice versa; manufactures haven’t created/marketed anything to create interest, so there is no demand. Either way you look at it, they aren’t coming back yet. Yes, there has been Gargantua and the Adventure Force Super Storm, but nothing that can compare to the old super soakers.
In light of this, maintaining the current supply of good soakers is quite essential. Funny thing is, almost all breaks are fixable unless something really catastrophic happens. I just had a water war on Memorial Day after fixing up a bunch of broken ones. It was great fun! Yes, afterwards I had some minor fixes to do, but it was worth it! We need to show the next generation what they are missing out on.
Something I’ve slowly come to realize is in light of the coming shortage of CPS soakers, performance modifications are not as recommended to do anymore. K-modding and pressure relief valve disabling will just increase the time it takes to maintain them. Unless absolutely necessary don’t be increasing the internal pressure on these soakers, as the years go by the long term affects will rear their ugly head. I’ve used so many tubes of marine epoxy fixing leaks and reinforcing trigger valves, especially on any soaker that has had a k-mod. The performance is already so good are these old soakers anyways; if you really want to increase power just make a homemade soaker. Note: If you have the time and money by all means do whatever modification you want.
Plus, modified soakers do not do well in the hands of inexperience users; they end up over pumping and bursting the seams. We want to be able to host water wars and hand out soakers to new players without them breaking halfway through the game. Remember to create demand, we need to create interest, we create interest by having some really great fun. Soakers blowing up halfway through aren’t very fun.
So if you have some broken soakers sitting in the closet why not drag them out and fix them this summer. Don’t be afraid to pick up broken ones at thrift stores and ebay; with forums like this one or old sscentral articles, there is no excuse for lack of information and help. It doesn’t take that long to do most fixes once you’ve done them at least once. Honestly, I actually find it kind of relaxing to fix one after a long day. So take this as a friendly motivator to getting your arsenal in tip-top shape. Or if you don’t have an arsenal, you can build one, one broken soaker at a time.
It’s nothing new; we all will eventually face the truth that there is going to be no return of the great performing CPS blasters. There isn’t enough demand, so manufacturers can’t make profits on big guns. Or vice versa; manufactures haven’t created/marketed anything to create interest, so there is no demand. Either way you look at it, they aren’t coming back yet. Yes, there has been Gargantua and the Adventure Force Super Storm, but nothing that can compare to the old super soakers.
In light of this, maintaining the current supply of good soakers is quite essential. Funny thing is, almost all breaks are fixable unless something really catastrophic happens. I just had a water war on Memorial Day after fixing up a bunch of broken ones. It was great fun! Yes, afterwards I had some minor fixes to do, but it was worth it! We need to show the next generation what they are missing out on.
Something I’ve slowly come to realize is in light of the coming shortage of CPS soakers, performance modifications are not as recommended to do anymore. K-modding and pressure relief valve disabling will just increase the time it takes to maintain them. Unless absolutely necessary don’t be increasing the internal pressure on these soakers, as the years go by the long term affects will rear their ugly head. I’ve used so many tubes of marine epoxy fixing leaks and reinforcing trigger valves, especially on any soaker that has had a k-mod. The performance is already so good are these old soakers anyways; if you really want to increase power just make a homemade soaker. Note: If you have the time and money by all means do whatever modification you want.
Plus, modified soakers do not do well in the hands of inexperience users; they end up over pumping and bursting the seams. We want to be able to host water wars and hand out soakers to new players without them breaking halfway through the game. Remember to create demand, we need to create interest, we create interest by having some really great fun. Soakers blowing up halfway through aren’t very fun.
So if you have some broken soakers sitting in the closet why not drag them out and fix them this summer. Don’t be afraid to pick up broken ones at thrift stores and ebay; with forums like this one or old sscentral articles, there is no excuse for lack of information and help. It doesn’t take that long to do most fixes once you’ve done them at least once. Honestly, I actually find it kind of relaxing to fix one after a long day. So take this as a friendly motivator to getting your arsenal in tip-top shape. Or if you don’t have an arsenal, you can build one, one broken soaker at a time.