IKEA SKADIS Peg Boards - Nerf Blaster Mounting Part 3

The panels haven't fallen off the wall in all the weeks they've been up there so I'm taking that as a good sign. I finalised the design of the magazine based mounts and standardised the joining bolts to M3 while the Command Strips properly bonded to the wall. The folks at Fancy Impact Blasters very kindly printed the parts for me and I'm very, very pleased with the results.

 

Above you can see all of the various solutions in use. The half dart and full length dart mag holders are carrying the Gryphon and the Stryfoids respectively while the Spring Thunder is held up using the printed hooks I created.

Below are assembly instructions. Yes, they're a copy paste job but I hoped the illustrative photos might help give a better idea of how things go togther. Files can be found over on my new Printables page. They are Public Domain (i.e. CC0) so you can do whatever you like with them (including commerical explotation without royalities or other silliness). You will, however, need the amazing SKADIS T-nut files to use this project which can be found over on Printables, too and has its own seperate license.

Full Length Magazine Assembly:

Materials:

• 1 x Printed Back Plate
• 1 x Printed Mag Holder
• 5 x Printed T-nuts
• 5 x M2.5x12 Machine screws
  
• 5 x 2.5 Nuts
• 3 x M3x40 Socket cap bolts or machine screws
  
• 3 x M3 Nuts

First You'll need to inset your M2.5 nuts into the printed T-nuts as per the T-nut instructions here. Then place the M2.5 bolts through the holes on the back plate and secure them finger tight with the T-nuts you just created.

Next, set the M3 nuts into the backplate before slotting the bolts into the M3 holes on the mag holder itself. Secure the two together with a long Allen key or screw-driver depending on your bolt type.

That will form your completed mag holder that can then be slotted anywhere on a compatible IKEA SKADIS peg board.

Half Length Magazine Assembly:

Materials:

• 1 x Printed Back Plate
• 1 x Printed Mag Holder
• 5 x Printed T-nuts
• 5 x M2.5x12 Machine screws
  
• 5 x 2.5 Nuts
• 3 x M3x40 Socket cap bolts or machine screws
  
• 3 x M3 Nuts

First You'll need to inset your M2.5 nuts into the printed T-nuts as per the T-nut instructions here. Then place the M2.5 bolts through the holes on the back plate and secure them finger tight with the T-nuts you just created.

Next, set the M3 nuts into the backplate before slotting the bolts into the M3 holes on the mag holder itself. Secure the two together with a long Allen key or screw-driver depending on your bolt type.

That will form your completed mag holder that can then be slotted anywhere on a compatible IKEA SKADIS peg board.

Item Hook Assembly:

Materials:

• 1 x Printed Item Hook
• 2 x M2.5 Nuts
• 2 x M2.5 Machine Screws
• 1 x M2.5 Machine Screw (optional)

 

 

The picutre above shows the optional third screw that acts a bit of rebar to reinforce the joint in the event of heavier loads. I can't say I've really felt the need for it but it's there and it's helpful to have the option,

IKEA SKADIS Peg Boards - Nerf Blaster Mounting Part 2

I wrote recently about getting my blasters on display in my hallway. I live in rented accomdation as do a lot of folks so I wanted to find a way of displaying things that didn't involve putting holes in walls.

 

I followed this blog post and it looks like it worked just fine. The critical thing I've found with Command Strips is to let them settle onto the wall for 24 hours before beginning to load them. For the 76x56cm boards, you'll need two packets of strips to properly mount the bracket to the wall. Be sure to clean the wall with an alcohol wipe before you begin to properly give the adhesive on the strips chance to firm up.

It looks like the Command Strips succeeded. Nothing fell off in the night which is awesome.

This is a little wonky partly because the Gryphon stock has been repaired in a bodge job and partly because the magazine mount that's holding the blaster up is a prototype and I've not screwed it in place properly. Either way, it's demonstrating quite nicely the proof of concept. I've still got to get the rest of the stuff modelled to do a full length version. Once I've got that, I'll order some T-nut compatible blaster stands for things like the Spring Thunder and get a proper display going.

Cave War - Post Kit Review

Games of Foam were back in Chislehurst Caves Saturday night playing underground in ancient limestone tunnels and flinging foam. I've been super busy with life and gear orders now the shop is back open so I didn't get much time to put together a full rig. Normally, indoors I'd have a black or non-camo rig but I noticed going through my gear that it looks like I've neglected my low power stuff the last few years. That means I severely lack webbing and carriage in anything that's not camo.

 

I opted for something simple because I didn't have much other option. Regular readers will notice the skirmish belt which I've loaded with a dump pouch full of half lengths, my water bottle and a single talon hex flap top pouch. You can very much tell this is a post game photo from the chalk marks on everything!

My boots still managed to get covered in chalk and no amount of walking home in the rain got all of it off. Decent footwear will always save your life and these keep on trucking even after all these years. They're my main work boots now and due a resole. Don't skimp on boots, folks. My cargo trousers and shirt are covered in chalk marks, too so they're in the wash.

 

I need to properly sit down and publish my spec for the next generation of kit and source a public friendly, lower muzzle energy load out. I've had a post in draft for a little while and being back on the field Saturday let me see what was what in terms of 2023/4 hobby technology and what can be achieved these days. I'm on maternity placement as the last part of my training this week so keep an eye on a scheduled post on the next steps of the peg board situation and I might type something out during my down time a hotel this week if I get bored enough for the spec stuff.

IKEA SKADIS Peg Boards - Nerf Blaster Mounting Part 1

My blasters have spent most of their lives in kit bags or in the case of my Stryfe, a FDL printed mount on the top of a unit. It's not ideal and creates a great of clutter. My LARP weapons have been mounted on some very rudimentary weapon mounts in my hallway but over time they have decayed and need something fresh. I figured that given my hallway is home to the LARP weaponary, a peg board solution to mount both blasters and swords would be in order.

1st Gen LARP Sword Holder - Not ideal

 

IKEA SKADIS pegboards have a reputation for having a wide range of uses but mounts for blasters are fewer. Speaking with my fellow BritNerfers, printed hooks don't seem to have the strength to do the job. There are printed magazine mounts around but I don't fancy paying for a series of STLs. Given there are no open source, free to use systems available, I elected to rectify that. It also gives the option to bake in a hardened design from the outset.

T-nuts!

The SKADIS T-nut project was a golden find over on Printables. I figured that creating a plate you can anchor the T-nuts to and then bolt a mag well to for display would be the way to go. I modified the Captain Slug Talon magazine holder to add a set of screw ports at the base. That then gets bolted into three trapped nuts in the back of the T-nut plate base which can be hung on the SKADIS board. A blaster is then slotted onto the blaster before hooking on to the board.

Gryphon with a test mag well holder mounted on the smaller board

I picked up 2 of the 76x56cm boards from my local IKEA plus some other bits. Getting public transport back from the store meant I had to be creative. I'm reasonably confident the security guy thought I was mental adding parcel tape handles to the packages outside the shop. Still, it meant my hand wasn't cramped to all hell travelling home. 

Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. Parcel tape and trauma shears can do a lot of things!

IKEA don't supply wall fixing hardware and I didn't want to charge in straight away with bolting things into the dry wall of my flat. Instead, I opted to try Command Strips. Apparently, the large ones can hold 7.2kg for a set of four. I found a blog post that uses 8 pairs for a single 76x56mm so I'm guess that means I've got 14.4kg minus the 2.5kg IKEA states the board weighs leaves me around 12kg to play with. I've trusted these command strips with my tablet mounted to a kitchen cupboard door for the last 4 years so I figure I'd trial it with my blasters for a little while. The trick with getting them to stick properly is to make sure the surface is clean and has time to bond before you put a bond on it. If it goes crash in the middle of the night then I'll know I need to go to the local hardware shop and grab the necessaries.

For pistols and the Spring Thunder, I've taken inspiration from the My3DBase design here and re-created it with SKADIS compatibility. I didn't like their hollow approach, I prefer to have more material supporting the blaster so didn't create a cut away like their design. I don't know how wide their design is but I set mine at 20mm to accomadate my Gecko trigger. For mine, I added an optional blind pilot hole for an M3 bolt to be inserted into the back of the plate to add a little more structural strength if the user wants it. I think for some denser blasters, a little bit of extra steel won't hurt. Heavier blasters would benefit from more walls around the bolt holes to add more material around stress points.

For full length blasters, I'll publish everything in a second post plus updates on how the basic hook comes out once it's printed.

Now I've finished up my degree, it's nice to be getting back into the hobby and sprucing up the flat. I've got smaller peg boards to mount the LARP weapons to and will likely make a small display of character kit, too. I'll keep the blog posted on those updates, too.

Once the bugs are ironed out, these will all be public domain on Printables. Command strips are in the post. Tomorrow is a tactical gear day to start filling orders.