She Lives! (EM1 Rebuild)

 9/18/2019

As I have been making my return to paintball in July (stopped playing, 2007) I'm slowly rebuilding all my main Spyders (and building my Spump...) My Hammer was first and now Emmie is back up and running!

When I machined my grip frame off around 2002 to add a double trigger, the meat on the bottom of the tray was really thin. I knew there was going to be a day where the back end screw would tear out the aluminum. It happened on July 4th. Didn't even have a chance to play with it.

I did a quick part modeling and printed a solid bracket to give a bunch of meat for the grip frame to snuggle up to the tray again. Slapped her all back together, aired up and got her to cycle.

Life is good.

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9/19/2019

Cycling video:

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9/20/2019

Made a friction fit battery door. Haven't had one in there for over 10 years! LOL! Final version is in black.

 

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9/30/2019

Rebuild Kit

I picked up a rebuild kit to make sure Emmie was ready for the big day on 9/29. Used the majority of the kit and slapped it all back together. The only issue is that I was so excited that I rushed putting back together. The lower tube houses the ram. If the sleeve for the ram is reassembled upside-down, no air can deliver and the marker won't fire. This is no good.

Let's play:
Where's The Dot?

So we drive for almost 2 hours on the 28th and prep at the hotel the night before. Meet the rest of the group at the field on Sunday morning and unpacked in the staging area. After getting signed in, we hit the crono and the ram isn't even moving. I thought it was the pack of meh genero 9v batteries I got from Batteries Plus. After reaching it for about a half HR and missing 2 games, I gave up and used the AMG LCD for the rest of the day.

So learn from this cautionary tale: Don't rush your marker reassembly. You're Going to have a bad time.

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11/8/2019

Emmie with a cute
28ci/3000psi tank

So this section is obviously dedicated to "Emmie" as I have taken her from storage in July 2019 to now. (This includes my first try at a good field day in Madison, WI with her. 😠💢) User error aside, Emmie FINALLY had a great first game day since 2007!

• Full rebuild?
• CHECK!
• Ram Sleeve In The Right Way?
• Ahem... CHECK!
• Smooth cycling?
• CHECK!
• Gratuitous donk forward?
• MEGA CHECK!

Gen1 Red Board

Even after all of this time with the Air America Vigilante Regulator sitting dormant, it is feeding air like a champ! It was still adjustable without blowing any orings or broken reg seats! It threw over the Chronograph at 275fps with a +/- 3 variance! I set the board to shoot at 10bps so I could hang with the NXL kids. 😜 

For the record: The EM1 red board is capable of having a rate of fire at 21 bps. The second generation blue board only hits 13bps as they tried to wrangle in the uncapped life. LOL!

Played about 3 matches (2 games per match) with her and she held strong. When I got into the next match, that's when things went a little wonky. Match 4, Game 2 started and off the break I went to my position and popped out right of my bunker. 

Nope. 

The bolt was trying to move but it was a no go. Pulled the trigger a couple of times but it was just tapping forward.

More Nope.

I slammed the bolt forward and shot into the floor behind my bunker. It was shooting again! (Sort of...) Now there's a jam in the barrel! It was just plopping more balls into the barrel onto a jammed ball further up in the barrel. 

Imma nope right out...

As I wasted more time on the field and more paint, it finally got to the point where the paint was flowing like a fountain out of the barrel porting. While it was probably pretty hilarious to see from the sidelines, it was a pretty frustrating moment.

A few more shots into the floor and I was finally getting paint to fly!

Finished the game and gave her a rest.

As I was doing a field strip and cleaning the next day, it seems that the bolt had a slight oring issue. The bolt's front oring got chopped and flew into my barrel! (I hate bolts that have orings in front of the air outlet. It doesn't make any sense!) So now it's running oring-less on the front from here on out.

Other than that last game, she was a huge contender! Minimal chopping (which I'm guessing is from that one oring causing the final chop fest) and no shootdown. Every time I bring out the old classics to the field, they are happy to see them each and every time! Emmie was no exception. Nobody has ever seen one that has been upped so much so it was definitely a show and tell night.

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12/2/2019

This concludes the rebuild log of the ChoSanJuan Kingman EM-1. Hope it's been a fun read. Now she will mainly be a wall hanger and come out on big games (maybe a tournament...) where slinging a hilarious amount of paint is a means to an end.

Final Build:

• Kingman EM-1
• Bolt
• SCP N-Bolt (R&D Model #1) 
• SCP A-Bolt (R&D Model #1)
• Drop Forward
• CMI Drop Zone
• ASA
• Bushmaster ASA Adapter
• Regulator
• Air America Vigilante
• Feedneck
• Tabbed twist-lock
• Grips
• Dye Sticky Grips
• Grip Frame
• Stock Bushmaster Double Trigger Frame