How to Make Custom Paintballs
Before paintball was a sport, inventor James Hale patented the first paintball gun as a tool to mark livestock and trees. One year later, in 1981, twelve players in the state of New Hampshire decided to take a normal game of Capture the Flag and add an interesting twist---paintball guns. Now the game is a popular pastime, and players are looking for inexpensive ways to customize their equipment.
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Things You'll Need
- Paintball (for a model)
- Bowl of flour
- Hot-glue gun with glue
- Modeling clay
- Digital gram scale
- Twisting balloons
- Ketchup
Instructions
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Reusable Hot Glue Paintballs
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1
Dip the model paintball halfway into the bowl of flour to make a mold of half of your paintball.
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2
Continue making the molds until you have twice as many molds as the number of paintballs you desire.
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3
Fill each mold with hot glue. Let dry for 10 minutes or until set.
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4
Glue two half-molds together to form a sphere. Let dry 10 minutes.
Reusable Modeling Clay Paintballs
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5
Break off a small piece of modeling clay about the size of your paintball. Roll the clay into a sphere.
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6
Drop the clay ball through your insert (the loader tube of you paintball gun). If the ball sticks, remove a bit of clay. If the ball slips through too easily, add a bit more clay. Continue until you have a good size ball approximately the same size as your paintball.
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7
Weigh the ball. Use this weight to measure out the rest of your paintballs.
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8
Roll each piece of modeling clay into a ball. The balls do not have to be perfect spheres, but they should be circular in shape.
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9
Let the clay balls dry for two hours.
Paintballs that Splatter
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10
Position the open end of a twisting balloon over the opening of a squeeze bottle of ketchup.
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11
Squirt a small amount of ketchup into the balloon.
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12
Push the ketchup to the closed end of the balloon.
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13
Tie off the balloon. Trim excess balloon.
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1
Tips & Warnings
Homemade paintballs are not ideal for use in Halo paintball guns. Use colored hot glue or modeling clay to help identify which balls came from which gun. Mix several colors of clay or glue to make paintballs with multiple colors.
