New Condor Valve
Started on this today. Had this idea and went with it. Making new condor type valve with larger stem. Will be .312″ with a .250″ or maybe .260″ hole. I’m finding the Blod type valves need a lot of hammer spring and condor valve doesn’t. Changed the spring retainer threads and the front to make room for larger stem and o ring. Have to remake the brass piece. I actually made it before the body just to check on single pointing the threads.
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Well I decided to finish this valve and make the stem and stem seal. Made the stem and used a AF stem seal that I had not tapered yet. Did this the first time to see if it would work and see what I would need to do to make it a snug fit againt the breech. First time testing I got a best of 868 fps with 9 rings. Most of my 9 rings weigh 88.9 gr, so that got me up to 148.9 fpe. I took it back apart to make a seal that would make my breech fit tighter and I figured I would open up the 3 holes in the stem. With new stem seal and tight breech tophat is at about .130″. I will make a delrin spacer and put it in behind the tophat to get it down to around a .100″ and see if it changes anything. Will also keep it from being metal on metal contact. So second test I didn’t quite have enough air so I had to fire up the compressor and filled the bottle. So I only did one test and will fill my tanks tomorrow and maybe put the valve on a 62 ci tank. Well first shot with 9 rings was 886 fps which got me a 155 fpe. Im still 5 fpe away from what I set out to do. I might go a little bigger on hole in the stem. It is .250″ now and might take it out to .260″. I have another brass insert and will make it bigbore. .375″ stem with a .3125″ hole.
I had a one of those too 😎
Rebuild the spring retaining nut to have a pole sticking forward which a ball with a 2 partially drilled hole slides on, held forward by a very small spring, like from a pen.
The pole base will have to be milled away, leaving 2 half moon openings to allow the air coming from the tank.
The ball is actually the valve head (delrin), so it slides forward based on tank and spring pressure and slides back based on valve stem.
Nearly zero obstructions. (may need to hand file the base of the pole in the nut, for smooth airflow.
You can’t get much more air then that 😀
having a hard time mentally detailing it, but if i understand it sounds like an old graffix bong i had when i was a kid, a floating ball worked as a check valve to keep your “tobacco” dry. :11:
nailed it!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😀 😀
The tank pressure is in PSI (pounds per square inch). Calculate the Pounds ( Force ) per the seat diameter.
Say your seat is .250 in diameter. Area = Pi R squared. A = 3.1416 x .125 x.125 = .049 so there are 20.37 seat areas in a square inch (1 / .049) so at 3000 psi you would have 3000 / 20.37 = 147.26 pounds OR at 2000 psi, 2000 / 20.37 = 98.18 pounds of Force + Spring Force (Pounds per Inch – so you need to figure crush which most srpings are rated based on the 20 – 80 % travel range, so stock retainer spring is roughly 30 pounds).
Altogether it would take 177.26 pounds of Force to move the tophat backward at 3000 psi and 128.18 pounds at 2000 psi.
Try this – hold a tank above a bathroom scale and start adding weight until the valve leaks. Same thing, less math.
well, thats what seems to be the big difference. is anybody else around here familiar with what aspect of valve design dictates the force needed to open a valve at a given pressure, besides the return spring? 😕
Ok, I have money in one hand a 7ring slug in the other 😀
I think you onto something good there. Your doing some great work on that new lathe!
Doug your the man nice work on the valve looking good so far. Let me know when you get things figured out I will have to drop some more $ for ya.
kick some ass, doug! been a while since we had any involved valve building going on here…
Rebuild the spring retaining nut to have a pole sticking forward which a ball with a 2 partially drilled hole slides on, held forward by a very small spring, like from a pen.
The pole base will have to be milled away, leaving 2 half moon openings to allow the air coming from the tank.
The ball is actually the valve head (delrin), so it slides forward based on tank and spring pressure and slides back based on valve stem.
Nearly zero obstructions. (may need to hand file the base of the pole in the nut, for smooth airflow.
You can’t get much more air then that 😀
having a hard time mentally detailing it, but if i understand it sounds like an old graffix bong i had when i was a kid, a floating ball worked as a check valve to keep your “tobacco” dry. :11:
If you really want to have all the air possible available, then try this:
Rebuild the spring retaining nut to have a pole sticking forward which a ball with 2 partially drilled hole through the center to slide on, held forward by a very small spring, like from a pen.
The pole base will have to be milled away, leaving 2 half moon openings to allow the air coming from the tank.
The ball or football is actually the valve head (delrin), so it slides forward based on tank and spring pressure and slides back based on valve stem movement from the strike of the tophat.
Nearly zero obstructions. (may need to hand file the base of the pole support in the nut, for smooth airflow.
You can’t get much more air then that 😀
Thanks. The blod valve stem seal is not much bigger in diameter then a condor one. I can check and measure the difference. As far as spring in front goes, that is why I remade the valve. There is not enough room to really go any bigger like what I did. Remember there is a o ring in there. I could have probably found a metric o ring and went a little bigger on stem but I wanted to use urethane and wanted room to grow. I have enough room to put in a .375″ stem for bigbore if this works out. Also the length of the stem is really not long enough. I finally got my compressor back up and running, thanks Jim. Now I can go back to wasting air mode and finish that blod valve with the larger stem and see what happens with it.
Nice work man.
Thanks. Valve is from scratch. Finished the brass guide and made a spring retainer today. Spring retainer is just a rough size. Made it over size so I can put it back in the lathe after I figure out what spring I’m going to use. Then I will bore the hole and recess for spring. Going to remake the stem guide tomorrow. Just wanted something to be able to copy instead of trying to figure it out from scratch. Need to make a stem also.
you turning the valve body and all? if so, id only thread the id as much as is necessary to assemble and allow a small bit of adjusment on the retainer to promote laminar flow. ive been doing some heavy reading into fluid dynamics, and it seems the interior of the valve body and location of the spring being directly in the flow of air is counterproductive to the primary asset of the AF design, which is a direct path for the air to flow.
i believe what makes the blodnob design so hard to open is the relatively large surface area of the seal. more area for the air to resist opening means a LOT at these pressures…
ive been pondering something similar lately, but im ill equipped tool-wise to experiment much.i firmly believe that a close to ideal design would involve putting the spring outside the air flow, and a more substantial 1 piece valve stem. most of this could be achieved with a slightly longer valve face with a wider stem port and a recess for a return spring to be mounted around the valve stem, into the recess. this would allow conversion of the standard valve body with a new brass face/valvestem/spring kit.
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Please put me on the list for one of these awesome valves if and when you market them to us…thanks and NICE WORK!!! 😉