Who am I? Most people just know me as the guy who runs Super Soaker Central. But I'm more than that. A lot of people I think assume I started out magically good and knew so much about water guns nearly automatically. I started out just like most every forum member today. In honesty, the two things that got me where I am today are luck and initiative. Read and you'll see how.
A lot of my saga is going to be things people don't know about me or don't know about Super Soaker Central. I'm hoping to include as many images and links as possible. That kind of stuff is for the people who know me a little better, but don't know some of the behind-the-scenes details.
This is also a work in progress at all times. When new things happen, I'll add more. When I find some new pictures, I'll add more. When I remember something again, I'll add more. Pretty simple really.
My first experiences with water guns were good ones. I remember running around my Nana and Papa's house with a tiny squirt pistol squirting my brother as a little kid. Good times, I must admit. In fact, most any of those days back when I was little were simply gold. I would trade any day today for one of those innocent, happy days.
One thing was certain however -- I wasn't satisfied with the power of a little squirt pistol. Super Soakers were around, and I wanted one probably from the television commercials. After all, Super Soaker is the best water gun around, right? Most any kid of my age at the time wanted one really. This might come as a surprise to many, but when I was younger, I nearly never had any water guns aside from the most basic squirt pistol. No Super Soakers. None whatsoever. I remember when I was in elementary school being asked by a friend about having a Super Soaker fight and I could only decline because I simply didn't have a Super Soaker.
The reason I had no real water guns was simple: my mother didn't like them. She still doesn't like water guns to this day after all I've done with them. Eventually however, she bought my twin brother and I two XP 70s in 1998. The XP 70 was my first experience with a Super Soaker and a good starting point. One thing was clear to me though. The XP 70 didn't have the power I expected from a Super Soaker. I didn't have a choice in the matter at the time. My XP 70 broke later that year when I dropped it off the top of a swing set I was climbing on (I didn't think it would break!). My brother's XP 70 hasn't been seen since about the same time my XP 70 broke and probably was lost in the house.
In our Cub Scout den we were planning a water activity day. This was in 1999. It was late summer if I remember correctly, and I didn't have a functional water gun, so we scoured the stores looking for one. Eventually we found a Super Soaker CPS 1000 that probably was returned at a KMart. This late in the season, there was nothing else at any store. I honestly wanted a CPS 3000 though -- the commercials really caught my eye. Though, the CPS 1000 was such a big improvement over the XP 70 that I didn't care at all. My mother was worried that the CPS 1000 was significantly more powerful than everyone else's at the meeting, so everyone shared my CPS 1000. That probably was a good idea because most other people had the basic XPs made over the years. The CPS 1000 is a good water gun and right now I'm glad that I got one before they were collectible and as expensive as they are today. It is somewhat weird, but less than 10 years after the fact something can become classic and extremely valuable.
In 2000, my brother and I wanted to upgrade our water gun armory. We made a trip to Wal*Mart. I had my eyes set on the CPS 3200 with its superior power and capacity. Too bad none were in stock. I settled with a CPS 2700 and my brother was more conservative with a CPS 1200. We had several great water fights over the next few years. One thing I do wish however was that the fights were larger. Most were simply between my two brothers and I.
It was around this time that I really felt that water guns were something I enjoyed a lot. An idea I had floating around in my head was to make a big neighborhood water war with a scoring system. I wanted to have the most powerful water gun in the neighborhood. I was worried that other people would have better water guns that I did however. Of course, my intention was to win my own tournament, silly as it seems. The idea never went further than an idea, but I kept water guns in the back of my head.
In summer 2002, I was a little disappointed in the current water guns and wanted to learn a little more about the models. Remember, back in 1999 and 2000, I wanted a backpack water gun. The extra water was very valuable to me. There wasn't much else to my strategy at the time.
One day I started some serious Google searching. I remember this well. I wasn't finding good sites from the search "super soaker" in Google, so I tried something about my CPS 1000 and my other water guns in Google. For both searches I had to go many pages deep to find good websites. One of the first pages I found was CBAC's Hydro Arsenal. That was an older page that had a fairly good amount of information. Another page I found was Zero's Super Soaker modification page. I considered the entire topic to be a little extreme and actually scary, mainly from the names Zero gave his water guns. At the time, I didn't see the value in those types of modifications. I kept the ideas in the back of my head however.
The one website that really got me was the Aqua Nexus. Eventually I stumbled upon that, and I was hooked. Every day for the next few weeks I was on that website reading a bit at a time. I read every review and started looking at the other pages. I got a really great feeling that I can't describe while reading these pages. The Aqua Nexus made me somewhat of a water gun expert as far as I was concerned. I didn't really look at links initially and I somewhat wish I had now that I am looking back at the time. In mid-2002 there were many great water gun websites out, some of which have been lost to time such as the Age of the Super Soaker and Water Battles, both great sites.
One page on the Aqua Nexus that caught my eye was the one with a disassembled Super Soaker CPS 1500. I assumed that the Super Soaker system was an impossibly complicated system of valves and chambers that I would never understand. After all, why would inventing such a system be so amazing as many people have been told over the years? The picture looked so simple to me however, so I checked out HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks didn't really do much for me though. I don't really remember learning how a water gun worked at this point, but I do know that by the end of the year I would have the basic water gun design down in my head. Right now I pretty much assume that I learned how water guns work through a combination of reading things online and opening up my water guns.
Looking for a CPS 3200 or CPS 3000, I posted the following message at Aquatica on June 23, 2002:
"Does anyone know where I can get a CPS 3200 or CPS 3000? Any good information will help. I will be going to Target, Wal-Mart, and KB-Toys soon."
Humble beginnings I suppose. This was my first post, a far cry from my current length and knowledge. I won't say that I was a "n00b" -- I wasn't -- but I was nowhere near where I would go.
This was the Aquatica EZBoard only several months after it was started. I never was one of the people to post at the first, legendary Aquatica Yahoo Club that was popular just a few months earlier. I continually checked Aquatica every day for maybe two weeks looking for an offer my mother would accept, but she didn't want to do any deals with people over the internet. Consequently, I never got the CPS 3000 I wanted.
Thinking back, I don't really have any idea how I found Aquatica. I suppose that I went through a link on the Aqua Nexus and found my way through there. This doesn't matter much, but it's something I think I should mention.
The EZBoard registration process also sticks out in my mind. I remember I had to think of an alias and I didn't really know what to choose. What I did choose was "loneshooter," an alias I still use in my throwaway email account. The name I feel was appropriate for the time given that I was one of the few in my local area interested in water guns. Now however it simply isn't appropriate any longer. Sounds cheesy to me actually.
I was a man on a mission at this point when it comes to getting a backpack water gun in any way I can. Not being satisfied by my current water guns, I set out to modify my current ones to have a backpack. Other modifications didn't even come to my mind. I had no concept of power modifications. There was no really good website for modifications at the time either. I honestly felt that I was doing something for the first or one of the firsts times, though now I suppose that I really wasn't. Backpack modifications are nothing new. They're as old as water guns are.
I tried a bunch of different things for backpacks. My first revelation came when I asked my father if he had any tubing because I had assumed that such a product would be hard to find or expensive. Miraculously, he replied yes and gave me a length of tubing that was left over from a model airplane refueling setup.
The pictures above are just a few of the ones I have. Recently I remember running into the photos somewhere, but I'll need time to find them again. These are the only photos of my backpacks back then that I have scanned in. At the time, I didn't use a digital camera. Once I find the photos however, I'll be sure to add them here.
This tubing allowed me to try a bunch of different things. My backpacks initially were just one gallon bottles and 2.5 gallon water bottles with holes poked in them for the tubing to go into. Since I did not use as tight of a compression fit as I did later, these backpacks leaked terribly. I had no real idea how to make good seals at the time, so my basic solution for seals was to put a lot of duct tape over an area that leaks. I also had a procedure to install a film canister onto my backpacks to fill them. One problem I had with the backpacks however was figuring out a way to get the tube to attach permanently. I only used duct tape at the time.
My big 2.5 gallon water bottles would have made great backpacks if I had done one thing: make a vent. I was getting frustrated that not much water flowed into the water gun even when it was put lower than the backpack.
While cutting through some duct tape to remove excessive layers I cut my finger badly with scissors. This was a deep cut that bled very much. I did not feel it however because I cut the nerve immediately. This put a stop to much of my water gun projects at the time, and I even stopped posting at Aquatica for a while. I still have a scar on my finger to this day. This injury I consider to be typical of those who modify or build water guns. You're more likely to hurt yourself or others during the construction than during the use.
Later, I returned to Aquatica with the intention of posting my 2.5 gallon backpack design. Upon returning to the EZBoard, I read the notice that the message board had moved and I proceeded to the new board. Registration was required at this time. The new water-like skin I also liked very much. The forum was just plain active too. Doing the math now, in the few months that the Aquatica Ikonboard existed, each month had to get over 2000 posts per month. This was probably August or September 2002.
When posting, I remember I took a considerable amount of time to write my guide. I don't suppose that my guide was very long, but I took a while to write it. This is one of the few writings of mine that I don't have a copy of any longer.
I then left for a short period before returning again. I remember being disappointed that there weren't too many replies to my modification post. In honesty, I wanted people to appreciate what I had done. By the time I returned however, the board was much less like I remembered initially. Something was different and I could tell it. Little did I know the board would collapse in a few months.
Wanting a little more attention, I decided to start my own website. For a few months, I had been tinkering with a free copy of Adobe PageMill that my family received free with a 6X CD-burner. I still use the CD burner to this date despite its slow speed. PageMill was straightforward and I could put my thoughts out with it.
I posted a thread at Aquatica asking for website name suggestions. One I wanted was "The Raven's Soaker Lair" which sounds just plain silly right now. Another one I proposed there was "The Super Soaker Missile Silo" because I really was starting to get interested in making new things and I felt a missile silo would be appropriate. A kind member named General RAK suggested that I shorten the name to "The Super Soaker Silo" and the website name was kept. You might find this fact a little unusual given what General RAK does later (and read further if you want to know), but it is the truth. The logo was wavy watery text that was made on one of the online logo websites. I remember I was fairly proud of it at the time.
The Super Soaker Silo featured a few basic reviews with stolen images (throwaway pages as far as I was concerned), a page listing my ideas (titled projects), tips and tactics, Super Soaker modifications, and a small links page. I didn't really work too hard on the website at this point, but I was interested in the website being popular and doing well. In the website's entire life I believe it only got maybe 500 visitors at most. The Super Soaker Silo is still online, but it doesn't contain anything useful or notable. Don't have any expectations for the website. When I said that it has nothing notable aside from what is historically notable, I really mean it. It's a very boring website.
Some of my projects were just plain silly. I had a nearly working invisible trip line that would drench anyone walking through the LED light's path. That project was one that I nearly had completed actually. It was made from Legos and everything worked except for the part that pulled the trigger. For another project, I scanned in a picture of the aperture adjustment of a camera and proposed the use of such a device as a nozzle selector. I had plans for a Super Soaker Robot that would soak people automatically. Not everything was realistic, but I didn't care! At the time I was just putting my ideas out.
Also notable at this time was how I described piston water guns on my website: I thought the operated with springs. What did I know? Now these things seem trivial, but as I'm writing this it just verifies how much I've learned.
What may be the most notable project I listed as "Phantom - The Coffee Can Gun," which was my plan for a homemade CPS water gun. At this point I had no outside influences. I never saw another homemade water gun aside from the Ultimate Water Gun, which was made from a fire extinguisher. This was really far out there now that I think about it. There simply wasn't too much interest at the time because Aquatica didn't promote homemade water guns and not too many people were thinking about them. Thinking like the Super Soakers, I thought that homemade water guns would only work with a case and a bunch of tubing hooking everything together. The water gun would have used a gallon-of-milk jug as a reservoir and many balloons and a spring as the pressure chamber. I did not know what to make the firing valve, the check valves, the pump, or the nozzle selector from however. Right now it seems like a novelty, but I really was working with what I knew about at the time. I knew little about PVC pipe. I knew nothing about any real methods of manufacture. Had I known anything about where to get the parts, I might have actually made the Coffee Can Gun. In the anti-modification environment of Aquatica however, that knowledge was not available.
Something I think a lot of people don't know is that during Aquatica's time, water gun modifications and homemade water guns were frowned upon heavily. They weren't outright banned, but people were so poorly informed about them that most modifications and any homemade water guns were unknown. I do remember several homemade water gun threads being locked however for being "dangerous." Later when I was looking for some information on homemade water gun, I found a thread where iSoaker said himself that he'd never put homemade water guns on his website due to liability! That's changed since then -- he has a section for homemade water guns in his hidden water gun modification section, but no homemade water gun guides. Still, that's a step in the right direction that I am thankful for.
All of this goes back to an Aquatica policy established in mid-2000 that was made to promote better relations with Larami. Larami didn't want to get sued if someone modified their water gun and got hurt. So, Larami pretty much said that if you want their support, remove modifications. For some reason, homemade water guns were stuck in that rule later as well. That's just inconsistent as far as I'm concerned and shows that they really had no justification for not allowing homemade water guns. The simple fact of the matter is that any official manufacturer support was just news at the time. Given the atmosphere, I'm surprised I even thought about building my own water gun back in 2002. There simply was no real information on water gun modifications or homemade water guns, and no discussion either. If you went onto Aquatica during my time and talked about building homemade water guns, they seriously would have told you that what you are doing is extremely dangerous and probably locked your thread. I won't say that every thread was locked, but any thread with useful information or links was at least edited.
So basically, the main reason I never constructed a water gun in 2002 was because there was no information on water gun construction. I really wanted to make something, but I had no starting point and not even any help. The fact that there was no information on the idea also caused people not to even consider them.
Today, I do somewhat wish I had the initiative to complete much of the planned sections I listed. That seems to be something that sets me today apart from the me from years ago. The main thing to complete however would have been the projects, many of which never were completed even today. Years ago, I didn't have any reason for or even concept of quality website content. In honesty, I was lazy. I also had no idea what people wanted to read. Today, I feel I do much better in those respects.
More on the topic of Aquatica: Aquatica was falling apart at this point. I won't say that I wasn't part of the problem because I most definitely was. I will say that I didn't do anything to stop the problem. In honesty, much of the problems went right passed me without any notice. I was there for water guns; how would I know that most members and the administration weren't getting along very well? That was the real problem at Aquatica. A lot of people started taking the fun out of running the forum. The discussion took a big turn from water guns to fights between the administration and the members. Old wounds opened up again. Most everyone was just plain immature too. Eventually, iSoaker called it quits and there was a big commotion about the future of the board. A lot of people probably wonder why Aquatica isn't around any more or what Aquatica was, but there's the story on how Aquatica began its demise, plain and simple.
Opportunists jumped on the commotion as a reason to create spin-off message boards. I was one of them. I sure wasn't very creative at the time. My board I called "HydroEvolution," and I posted a thread about it just 10 days after iSoaker exited from Aquatica. That was my only method of promotion as well. I consider this just shameful right now and I'm actually quite embarrassed that I stooped so low. This is one of the more embarrassing moments of my online presence. A lesson to anyone wanting to make a forum: you will never become popular if you advertise solely on other forums. The best you can do is annoy the administrator of that other forum.
Other spin-off boards included "Water Warfare Warehouse" and "WaterTalk." The name WaterTalk would later be used for another water gun message board, and this one would best be described as started by the same person, but they both were mostly unrelated. Water Warfare Warehouse on the other hand received wider community support than HydroEvolution, but never took off likely for the reason that it never was advertised outside of Aquatica. Having a plan to obtain website visitors was something essential that no one had at the time. I wasn't alone in my silly method of advertising.
Some of these forums had some fairly interesting discussion despite how limited each forum was. So don't get the wrong impression that everyone was doing everything wrong. Most everyone had the right goals, but not the right way to attain those goals.
The name HydroEvolution is stupid. I'll be honest with you -- why I choose that name was because I wanted to be the next "evolution" in water gun message boards. A member named Freakymist decided to help me out because he was going to make his own board himself. Consolidation seemed only logical. He would be my online co-administrator for quite some time and would help co-found Super Soaker Central with me. Before that we didn't really do much together and I didn't know too much about his reputation (which wasn't very good in regard to website building). Freakymist did however improve dramatically to the point where I considered him essential.
With the end of the Aquatica Ikonboard in sight, I felt anxious to keep copies of much of the threads as some sort of historical archive. This began what has become a hobby of mine: saving websites just in case they go down. Of course, now my tools (wget mainly) are much more sophisticated than the manual saving I did before, but it all is for the same reason and same effect. The saved threads I had have proved invaluable to me in writing this saga. Looking back now, I wish I had predicted better for the Aquatica EZBoard, both WaterWar.nets, and the other Aquaticas.
Aquatica was under new leadership by Marauder4. iSoaker for some reason did not want the board to continue on the same hosting it was currently on, so they were forced to close the board and move to a new location. It was unanimous: the people wanted to stay on an Ikonboard forum. Being only familiar with free hosted message boards, they chose the only free hosted Ikonboard: MyIkonboard. The MyIkonboard Aquatica lived for a few short months. During this time I was fairly active at the message board, but I wasn't anything special. My initial excitement was over and I was uninspired.
Aquatica would later move again and be called "ClubAquatica." Each move reduced the number of active people. The final straw for Aquatica was the one hosted at iyouth.org. Aquatica at this point featured more content and was near the same goal as SSCentral later would be, but the lack of a website promotion plan turned to be the killer. Aquatica wouldn't last past 2003.
This time is sketchy in my head. I remember seeing the ClubAquatica board while it was being developed, before it was released. They wanted me to be a moderator if I remember correctly (thought it could be something similar possibly). I never became a moderator however and did not post very often there.
Much later in late 2004, I would be upgraded to an administrator of the ClubAquatica board in an attempt to revive the Aquatica name. What I saw behind the scenes was appalling. There were several moderatorial threads by General RAK aimed directly at me. I don't even know why they kept RAK as a moderator after reading these. As I read them, he came across as insane to me. Much of this I suppose was the reason I never became a moderator of Aquatica. This was after what I call the "RAK fiasco" and it gave me a glimpse of where RAK's problems with me may have began. More on RAK's problems with me will be discused later.
Eventually, I did realize that HydroEvolution was not going to be a success. The name is cheesy, the board is unprofessional, and there's simply no reason to join an inactive forum. I had no real plan for getting visitors aside from posting my forum at another forum. I was getting serious about making a quality forum and potentially a website. Part of the reason was because I didn't like the current situation we were in and I wanted to change it. Not too many people can relate to this, but moving around from forum to forum is just plain depressing. Another part of the reason was that I felt the current websites were lacking a bit in certain areas that I felt I could cover better.
The first displayed logo is the SUPERSOAKER.TK logo that was shown publicly online. The middle one was a planned logo for a website that was to be far closer to SSCentral in content and organization. Note that the water gun displayed is the Coffee Can Gun's drawing. The final logo is another unreleased and partially incomplete logo that was meant to update the original SUPERSOAKER.TK logo with Super Soaker's new logo for 2003.
The change in purpose and philosophy really was significant. As I said earlier, I'm embarrassed that HydroEvolution has anything to do with my current website. Around this time I did realize that if I wanted a website that is successful in terms of visitors and total content, much would have to change. The quality of the website and the impression were some major things I wanted to change. Still, much of my website work for the next few years would be best described as sloppy, but at least here I had the intention to improve.
During this time I was on a relentless search for good free hosting, because as you may remember from earlier, my mother did not trust anything on the internet and I was not allowed to buy anything from the internet. The .tk domain name eventually caught my eye. Those are free domains, regardless of the fact that they have to redirect elsewhere. Consequently, the new forum was to be called "SUPERSOAKER.TK." I eventually got some hosting from a Chinese person who was generous enough to give us some hosting in exchange for a single banner on one page. This website was never seen by anyone other than Freakymist and I. Soon afterward, the host dropped our hosting for an unexplained reason, but I bet it was due to the fact that no visitors also means no banner clicks. I would provide a picture of this version, but I can't seem to find it at the moment. I know I have it on a backup DVD, and it will be found eventually. It's not too important though.
We later moved to a host called Lord-Dragon that was offering a lot and offering it for free. The old website we had worked on was removed in favor of a simple text page linking to the forum (if my sketchy memory of the time is correct). The forum software now was now IPB, which we regarded as a superior version of Ikonboard. It was during this time that SUPERSOAKER.TK got somewhat of a following. That is, if you considered maybe 5 fairly active posting members to be a following. We offered nothing too special, yet we managed to attract some people who never were seen anywhere else (most notably later Super Soaker Central administrator Neo). I bet these people were more than anything just annoyed at the other forums. I can't think of anything special we were doing.
Lord-Dragon went down eventually. During this time I was losing faith in free hosting and wanted to go pay. We moved SUPERSOAKER.TK one more time for a short bit while Freakymist and I discussed the possibilities of starting a new website merging all of our current projects. My initial plan was to buy supersoaker.tk so we could use the DNS on a paid host, but Freakymist dismissed the idea as cheesy. Some were already getting tired of the cheapness of the .tk domain. During early March we had some discussions about what to call the website and I offered the now famous name "SSCentral" which was an available domain name in .net.
SSCentral started out with just a forum. There was a forum modification to allow for a links section and an articles section. I considered the path we took cheesy and I actually didn't quite understand how to even use the article system. This was more of a Freakymist-led project at this point and was fairly short-lived. This was the only time really when Freakymist was dominant in the area of website construction.
My disappointment prompted my biggest undertaking as of yet. I downloaded all of the articles on the current website, on Freakymists' website, and on my own website. After removing the worst ones and writing a few new ones, I decided that we had ample content for a new website. Next was design and putting it all together.
This was the last design I would make in PageMill. In fact, all of my future design work and website maintenance was done in straight HTML. I made a design that incorporated a few of the graphics we had in our forum's skin. This was a nice blue design that I thought was really well done at the time. One thing I did regret later however was that I didn't know how to add padding to tables and elements. Consequently I never did, and the text usually would run into the side, which is somewhat displeasing.
Much of my design work at this time was based off a PHP website called EvilWalrus. The website isn't around any longer, but at the time it had a nice blue design that I really appreciated and still do.
We started using the server scripting language PHP from the start to make website maintenance easier. We were and still are one of the few water gun websites that make use of PHP. The use of PHP has allowed us to make design changes on the entire website without much effort. My current plans are to make a much more advanced PHP backend system that stores the articles in a database, but time will tell if that ever occurs.
The operating system I started using during this website creation process also was new. Since early 2003, the computer in my room had been running Linux. It didn't get much use, but with a new website update coming there was no reason not to use it.
The new website design came out in April 2003. This is my favorite version of Super Soaker Central. At the time I was so optimistic and everything seemed to be going right for me. The design gives me a good feeling. In a future website update, I might make the website have the ability to change its design. This would be one design I would definitely include. An image I posted as a preview of the new design is above.
The new website's logo was made by Codemaster. The image on the right is an edited video game screenshot with a Super Soaker CPS 2500 edited in, which was made by Razorsharp.
At this point, the SSCentral website and forum were capable of attracting their own visitors. The early SSCentral forum felt good to me, and it had an increasing number of members. There weren't too many problems aside from a problem member named "sniper." The forum's posts as a whole weren't anything special yet. It would be a while before the angle SSCentral took was noticeably different from other forums.
The new design added a lot of professionalism in my mind. The design of everything was uniform, even the forum. This was one of the proudest moments of my life. I really felt that I had done a great job with what I had and made a big, moderately popular website quickly. It took me a few years to realize how lucky I was and how many things I did correctly without knowing it. SSCentral was posted once on ClubAquatica, in contrast to my many postings about HydroEvolution. Yet it was much more successful than HydroEvolution ever would have been.
Over the years, I have looked at many older posts of mine. During this time, in honesty I knew barely any more than I did at Aquatica just a few months before. A lot of my posts show how misinformed I was at the time. One that sticks out in my mind was a thread where I asked if using two check valves was better than one, assuming that a check valve freeze actually modified a check valve to be stronger or something like that. "Check valve freeze" is just plain incorrect and I thought the modification actually did something to the check valves. It came as a surprise to me when pepper explained to me that there's another so called "check valve" that is the one in question and using two check valves wouldn't do anything good. Just shows how much you learn in a short time. Within a year I considered myself an expect on water gun construction.
In early 2003, there were a few water gun message boards, but it wasn't for a while that I found out about WaterWar.net. I'm not quite sure how I learned about WaterWar.net, but it likely was from the Aqua Nexus' message board page again as I had learned about Aquatica one year earlier. One thing I do remember very clearly was the first time I visited WaterWar.net. The general feeling the forum gave me was good and I was pleasantly surprised by its existence. One thing that stuck out to me however was the size of the message board. This was a big message board, and a professionally done one too.
In honesty, the real reason I didn't learn about WaterWar.net earlier likely was because at the time, I didn't use iSoaker.com too much. I realized that iSoaker.com had more water gun information than any other website. The thing was, I was so partial to the Aqua Nexus that I never really used any other site for reviews. Now, I do wish I was more attentive and tagged along at WaterWar.net when it was younger. WaterWar.net was really a great message board, perhaps the greatest the water gun community has ever seen. It is a shame that it's no longer online.
I remember a thread at WaterWar.net while SSCentral was still in its initial version. The thread was about water gun modifications, and someone made a post saying that SSCentral had what probably was the best water gun modifications section around. This really struck a chord with me and I couldn't have been happier that someone really liked my website. At the time, I was only trying to have a bit of everything to cater to everyone despite what many people actually thought at the time. Having a modifications section was actually a bold move for the time, so I suppose someone could consider SSCentral more technical simply due to the fact that it has a modifications section. However, I actually felt that our current modifications section was lacking in many respects. My new plan was to have a standout section from this point on, and the standout section would be the water gun technology pages.
Soon I realized that SSCentral was due for a big update. There was a lot I could add that was little seen over the years. Something called the K-mod that I knew a little about was one thing I intended to add, and another quest of mine was the homemade water gun. Under Aquatica's policies on modifications and homemade water guns, there essentially was no discussion of them. I felt that the first site to have a good modification section and a good homemade water gun section would be ahead of the competition and be a real quality resource. That was a pretty good assumption now that I think about it.
SSCentral version two was complete in November 2003 if my memory serves. The sloppiness continued and it was obvious in the design. The design was put out quickly. Again, I knew nothing about table padding and the text ran into the sides of everything. This design I would have to rank as one of my worst. The lack of table padding makes viewing unbearable to me today. However, many people admire this version of my website immensely, so it couldn't have been too bad. I don't want to revisit it in honesty.
The logo was something that I worked on for quite some time. The background of the logo was what I worked on. Initially I assigned Freakymist the duty of making the logo, and he made something, but it wasn't quite at all like how I wanted. In fact, it seemed really wrong to me. So, I remade the background myself. I still use the background as my avatar to this day. Freakymist put the text in the logo. I didn't learn until about a year later that he used the exact same font, colors, and style as a Photoshop tutorial did. So much for creativity!
During this period of SSCentral, many new and important articles were added to the website. The first K-mod article with pictures was added. This article increased awareness of the modification and consequently it became a big thing to do in 2004. Another article added later in this version of the website was the "APH" homemade water gun. That design also popularized what we previously an unknown topic. These were big accomplishments for the website and are a few things I'm proud of, regardless of how sloppy the writing and website was at the time.
Simply getting the information for the K-mod and check valve freezing pages was hard actually. XN, the originator of the modification, was gone. An Aquatica member named Dirtjump9 helped me out immensely with locating the part of the valve assembly to remove. I had to email him several times for information. He also helped me out a bit with my first attempt at a homemade water gun (Threshold), but at that point I now feel that I was a little beyond his experience. As I mentioned earlier, there was little to no modification information not only on the internet, but anywhere. This is something that is taken for granted today. I've seen several forum posts about how my guides don't explain in enough detail, but they're plenty detailed. I had to do the same thing everyone else did with no guide and no pictures. I only had what I knew about the K-mod and check valve freezing, and what I was told about the K-mod and check valve freezing. Don't tell me that you were nervous modifying your water guns... I was.
I deemed the modification to my CPS 2700 as necessary at this time. In honesty, I really didn't feel that modified water guns would be as good as a homemade water gun. But I was told that homemade water guns are harder to make and more expensive, and I believed what I was told. I felt that a guide on modifying water guns to be more powerful would be a good idea because modifications apparently are easier. They also are a little more accessible to most people. All you need is a certain type of water gun, and you can upgrade it!
The story of the APH actually is complicated. In 2003, my intention was to make something very close to what an SSCentral forum member named pepper made that year. Early in SSCentral's life, pepper made what is very close to the current APH type water gun aside from a few changes. I wanted to go further than his design however, and I wanted to do CPS. Back in 2002, I found a website called the Omega Aquilae that had a small section on where to buy CPS tubing. I thought I had found the holy grail of homemade water guns, and I still feel that way today.
In February 2004, I intended to make a rubber CPS water gun that could get at least 55 feet of range. I bought all of the parts necessary. My design was very different from others, overcomplicated, and failed to recognize how the rubber expanded. The water gun was to be titled "Threshold." Silly names were still my thing at the time. The rubber tubing was attached in the pressure chamber from both sides. This did not allow for the tubing to expand in length. I also did not drill large enough holes on the endcaps for the PVC coupler to slide through, so the rubber tubing was attached on a very short stub of a tubing barb. The firing valve was an aluminum rod used as a pull valve that would not seal well and was hard to pull. I was really trying to innovate obviously, but my attempts were unsuccessful.
The design for Threshold had so many problems that I scrapped the idea altogether. Many of the same parts I would use again later in the year (July 2004) for a much simplified CPS water gun that did meet all of my goals. I consider that water gun to be the most usable homemade water gun I've made. In honesty, that water guns fills my CPS 3000 void that I have had since 2002.
A little earlier than the larger, more powerful CPS water gun was a water gun I made with a few feet of extra latex rubber tubing and leftover parts. This water gun had simply the best shot time on a 2X nozzle, and good range to boast as well (about 40 feet). Of course, it was hose-chargeable only, but this type of water gun is still someone I will reconstruct later improved. Here I was just using leftover parts to success.
Making an air pressure water gun would be simpler I thought, so I literally walked into Lowes, designed the water gun in my head based upon what was in stock, and built it at my home. This was in May 2004. The resulting water gun was considerably more powerful than a CPS 2000, not hard to make, and relatively cheap.
One thing really got me at this point. I was told again and again over the years that homemade water guns are impossibly hard to build, expensive, and dangerous. None of those facts I found were true. When I completed my first APH, I literally thought in my head "Is this as hard as it gets?" Homemade water guns were easy and enjoyable to make. They were not expensive. They were not dangerous, in fact, I would feel much safer around a system pressure rated to a much higher standard such as a homemade water gun. I knew I was on to something big at this point. I just couldn't believe that people had been missing out on such great water guns for so many years.
During late 2003 and most of 2004, I suppose there was somewhat of an unspoken rivalry between iSoaker.com/WaterWar.net and SSCentral. It wasn't something I really wanted to happen, but I didn't do much to stop it. The rivalry probably started from the simple differences in the focus of the websites and the structure. iSoaker.com was better for reviews and it supported a forum host elsewhere. SSCentral was better for water gun technology and it had its own forum. I wasn't going to be silly though and boycott a perfectly good website. So, I was an active member of the WaterWar.net forums. One thing I do believe would have reduced the tensions between the two sites would have been if iSoaker.com registered under a real membership account at SSCentral and posted there actively. He had a fake account there and made a few posts, some of which I later found a little humorous. One post I remember in particular asked if SSCentral really was the "Super Soaker Source" as the slogan attests or a place for people who modify water guns. At the time I didn't know about his fake account. I was truly under the impression that he was boycotting my website. He's said that he didn't think he'd feel welcome there, but when he joined he was only greeted by welcome. To this day, I am unsure what his original intentions were. He would have been as respected if not more respected than at his own forum. After I learned about his fake account, I began to feel as if he didn't take me seriously, but I do know that iSoaker does take me seriously now.
Another thing that made me somewhat mad was that I was never made an administrator of WaterWar.net. When WaterWar.net decided to create what I believe they called "Ambassadors," which essentially were administrators, others who had less accomplishments made it in, yet I never did. Yes, this did make me mad despite how silly it might sound today. WaterWar.net was supposed to be some sort of total community habitat, encompassing every water gun website. Yet it was completely one sided towards a certain set of websites, namely iSoaker.com and the Aqua Nexus. This in honesty made me feel as if they really were competing with me. I knew the reason they didn't make me -- they didn't want me to read their behind-the-scenes stuff. That makes sense on an individual website, but not what was supposed to be a community effort. I nearly felt that they didn't want me at their forum. Those were websites I really liked and I only wanted to do something like they did. You can understand completely how I felt a little disconnected from WaterWar.net and how there was a rivalry between the two websites.
2004 was a big year in terms of website activity. I wouldn't say that it was the best year overall, but it was a big year. I won't go further than this in my saga either because it simply isn't about me, the subject of the saga. Just know that 2004 was a big year in terms of website activity.
Right now I feel I should make a section on this because it did have a big impact on me. I won't say it was a good impact. In fact, I would say that it was one of the worst things I was subjected to online, if not the worst. So much could have been done to stop it as well. At the time I wondered why it was allowed to happen.
To understand what happened, first you will need a little background information to get the context of the problem. General RAK was a forum member who was very active over the years. He had started posting at Aquatica a few months before me. I think he always considered himself superior to me during our time at Aquatica. He prided himself very much in his website, "Water Wars." I must admit, he had a good website which featured a few interesting things. It was one of the bigger websites of the 2002 - 2003 website building era. That is why I trusted him when he suggested I remove the word "missile" from my website name. He abilities at that time were simply much better than mine. He was a very nice guy at that time, but now I really think he was conceited and only looked out for his own good.
During 2003, SSCentral started getting bigger both in terms of content and popularity. SSCentral had its own domain, forum, and was developing its own identity. General RAK meanwhile still worked on his Angelfire website. At this time, he must have realized that if he wanted more visitors, he would have to change a lot of things. He would have to move his website to a paid host and get a domain name.
General RAK registered watergunwars.com in late 2003. He redid much of his website with PHP at the same time. He worked fairly hard on this update and he really expected a lot back in terms of visitors. He expected far too much. In fact, he only measured the success of his website in terms of hits. His website met with disappointing hits for the entire year.
Why his website was unpopular is obvious to me now. He had no real plan for getting visitors. He just assumed they would come somehow. Google also implemented what became known as the "Google sandbox" around the same time RAK started his website. The Google sandbox basically is a waiting period for new websites before they can rank well. Websites in the sandbox will rank poorly regardless of how relevant they are.
RAK also was not very dedicated to his website and the community. One thing that kept his website fairly popular during Aquatica's time was that he posted so often and people followed the link from there. At a certain point of 2004, RAK just stopped posting at WaterWar.net. He never joined SSCentral. He stopped his website updates too. No wonder people stopped visiting his website. He wasn't getting anyone from Google or from WaterWar.net because he stopped posting there. He never got visitors from the SSCentral forums because he never joined there either!
RAK was fairly well respected at the time. He was looking to blame someone for his website's "failure." So, in September 2004, he posts a long flaming rant at iSoaker.com about how he feels that SSCentral literally stole "his" visitors from him. He posts about how he hates me and he hates all of the other SSCentral staff. He complains that I never supported other websites and only am looking out for what is best for me. He never recognizes his own faults either. He was a regular online troll.
Luckily, most of the community sided with me on this matter. I actually tried to keep out of it as long as I could, but I really felt that it was damaging my reputation and I had to do something. RAK started sending me horrible emails that I only felt I had the obligation to reply to. Eventually I stopped replying because I didn't want to support his stupidity, but that didn't stop him from still taunting me at the iSoaker.com forums and by email.
RAK repeatedly requested server logs from me because he intended to prove that when my visitors went up, his went down. I told him it wouldn't prove anything. The entire thought that because my statistics go up and his go down, my website is stealing his visitors is a logical fallacy. It's called post hoc, and it basically states that just because B happened after A, A did not necessarily cause B. In fact, I later downloaded his logs when he made his FTP public for someone to archive his website. His statistics were low the entire duration of his website's existence. Mine were climbing the entire time in contrast. I think he just wanted to make it seem like I was being unreasonable.
RAK's claim that I never supported other websites also was completely unfounded. During 2004, I helped several webmasters, most notably Spinner of Soaker Sagas (I wrote more content for that website than anyone else, this saga included). In fact, I was the only person to offer RAK feedback on his website. Yes, that is true and awfully hypocritical of RAK. RAK then started changing his justification, saying that I never told him anything he wanted to implement. Just goes to show that he has no justification at all. RAK never mentioned the fact that after Aquatica, he never helped anyone with website work as well.
RAK then eventually put a redirect on all of his pages that automatically redirected people at his website to SSCentral. He sarcastically said that they only go to my website anyway, so he's only saving them a little time. During this time I set up a script to intercept the referrer that showed a message to everyone who visited his website about why he did this, what he believes, and how mean he has been to me. This angered him a bit, but other than that it didn't do much to stop the problem.
I could go on for hours about how wrong RAK was, but I don't think it's worth it at this point. Despite RAK's best attempts to destroy my reputation, he didn't accomplish much in the long run other than angering me a lot. I would say that at this point he is relatively unknown. Most people who are reading this probably never heard of him.
One thing I never understood was why iSoaker allowed this sort of activity to occur at his forum. He eventually did lock the thread after many many replies, but by then the damage was done. He might as well have kept it open. He didn't lock RAK's future threads on the subject either. I will say this: if anyone even directly insulted the webmasters of another website at even a fraction of this level at my forum, they would be banned and their topic would be removed. I don't care who they are; it's only common courtesy. The abuse I took from this is beyond what most would take. Not nice.
Don't get me wrong though. It would be unfair to blame anyone other than RAK for this incident. No one had an obligation to lock the thread, but it would have done me good.
In late 2004, I finished SSCentral version three. This version moved a lot of things around and I believe was a good thing for the website. A lot of new content was added too, some of it having consolidated other people's work onto SSCentral.
I worked very long and very hard on this update. I wanted to make a good website and this is one update I am proud of. The look of the website is notably more professional than any past one I had made. The content is a vast improvement over the past, but I'm afraid that I still kept a few things which were lacking in some respects. Part of my concept behind the website at the time was to have as much content as possible. If they didn't like it or if it was just a little too low in quality, they wouldn't read it. That's not a view I have any longer.
My goal of having as much content as possible resulted in me spending an extra long time editing others' articles rather than writing new ones. Today I would feel that the time would have been better spent writing new articles than editing poor ones. In fact, I would go as far as to say that I wrote at least a sentence or two in each article of SSCentral during this update. A lot of the articles I wanted to include, but I felt were lacking. Again, in the end it would probably have saved time for me to rewrite new good articles as opposed to editing poor ones. A lot of what I remember from this update was editing.
Even with a lot of work being done on the website, a lot of things I wanted to do never were done. Polls on the homepage, something I wanted since the first version of Super Soaker Central, still were not there. The search didn't work too well. I wanted a website design/theme changing system which never appeared either. A lot of planned articles never made it to the website either. So, despite all of the successes of this website update, it never met my full expectations. I look back now at the design concepts that I had made and see how much I had scaled back. It's astonishing really. In my later design concepts, I was much more conservative in what was planned. Now I only plan to include what will definitely be on the website in my design concepts.
My main inspiration for this update was NerfOnline. In honesty, I was truly trying to make the NerfOnline for water guns. The design is notably similar to one past NerfOnline design. The overall design however was closer to another website I believe was well done, ticalc.org. My intention was to take the best from those two designs and add my own little things as well. I would have to say that I was successful. Today I wouldn't use such small fonts (I'm not really a Verdana -2 guy any more). Other than that the design was successful.
One thing no one else knows about the design however was that it was not originally intended for SSCentral. Originally an earlier version of the same design without the water gun graphics was going to be used for a website called calc.org. I was the website designer on that team. Nothing ever came of the project (in fact, now I would consider most of that work a waste of time), but the design stayed. I figured it would be a shame not to use a perfectly good design, so I reorganized a lot of the elements and added more relevant graphics.
I copied NerfOnline so well that I received numerous emails about how the website reminded a few people of NerfOnline.
This version of SSCentral was the last one to have work by Freakymist. By now, he wasn't even interested in water guns any longer. He did make the logo, per my request, but that's the full extent of his new work on the website. He hasn't been with us for quite a long time now.
Around this time, I started thinking about how I came so far. I really was proud of my work at the time. I started thinking about when Freakymist and I started SSCentral and how it went from there. At this time I realized something that really seems to make sense. SSCentral reached a critical mass of total content and dedication when it started. Once you reach this point I feel, regardless of your website development ability, you want to do better, learn to do better, and in return make websites better. I suppose this rule applies to a lot of things. I didn't really think about it until now though. Anyone else could have been me. I was the only one however to climb the mountain, reach the critical point, and see that it was all easy downhill from there. Really, once you reach a certain point, everything gets so much easier that I'm surprised I'm one of the few to reach this point.
2005 wasn't really that active of a year. But that was only in comparison. 2005 was an average year in terms of popularity. We had a bigger website than ever, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you will get more visitors than ever.
2005 was the year however that I learned many new things. I read so much about website usability that I think for a while I followed those guidelines too closely as to remove the comfort from browsing a website (which is bad usability!). The topic of website promotion, especially search engine optimization, also was something I picked up. I'm probably the only one in the entire water gun community familiar with both.
The search engine optimization knowledge backed up my name change from SSCentral to Super Soaker Central. Super Soaker Central has the word Super Soaker in it, a big keyword. That adds anchor text keywords and on-page keywords. Some people want to know the reasoning behind the slight name change, and that's it.
It was during this time that I felt I successfully mastered the art of making a website. And that's when I felt that my version three update could have been redone. This is partially why there haven't been any updates to my website since 2004.
I will admit that I had many plans during 2005 for a big Super Soaker Central update. Many big plans. There was so many things that I wanted to add that it was astonishing. I don't even want to go into it here because I still intend to add most of the things I planned in 2005. Secret stuff really.
The problem with the 2005 update was that I was uninspired, unfocused, and I followed usability guidelines too closely. I had made several attempts at a new design at this time. I also made a few new logos. None of the designs or logos I liked. One of the several designs I started is shown above. Note that the logo doesn't line up with the blue and the search box and button don't line up either. A problem I had was following table-less design so closely that making a design was difficult. Writing and organizing the website following strict SEO guidelines seemed robotic too. Just read some of the text in the image above and you'll see how awkward some of those links sound. All of these factors made 2005 the year without any updates.
A lot of content was planned. I planned a new step-by-step APH construction guide. A lot of that was written, but none of the guide itself. I planned to consolidate most of our older articles and write a lot of new. These plans are still on the table currently. So, maybe the 2005 update really is still underway? If the spirit of improvement counts, the update's still being worked on. The 2005 planned update however followed many guidelines too strictly and wouldn't have been a good website. What I've got planned now is markedly different. But we won't go into that here.
Ever since I made homemade water guns, I was interesting in having even more powerful water guns. Most people really do want the biggest, most obnoxiously powerful water gun around. That was my goal for a long time. These water guns won't necessarily be the most practical for a water fight, but they sure are fun to make and to use.
In late 2005, I finally had the money to fund some of these projects. In October, I finally assembled what I called Supercannon -- meant to be the most powerful water gun period. I made a few shortcuts in the design however that assumed I could not make a good piston. I used a big PVC pipe leading to the bottom of a pressure chamber to suck water from the bottom. In theory this met the linear design principle I had invented back in 2004. But in reality it simply didn't work too well. How I designed the water gun to be filled with water leaked. How you pressurized the water gun was difficult to do and leaked. That combined with the fact that the water gun seemed to fire a stream only part of the time was enough to make me put the Supercannon project on hold. The only thing that seemed to work right on this water gun was the big fire hose nozzle I bought.
I wasn't sure of my ability to make a good piston seal. People have had trouble with making pump seals for the longest time. A piston water gun, the design I needed to make to truly use the linear design principle, seemed to be out of the question. Nonetheless, in early 2006 I bought what I thought might be the answer on McMaster-Carr -- Buna-N piston cups. These were real, professional piston seals. The stuff the real people use.
After the piston seals arrived, I tested them out by trying to put them into PVC pipe. I couldn't get them to fit in the corresponding piece of PVC pipe. This was a big problem, and again I put the Supercannon project on hold while I thought of potential other ways to make a piston seal. One idea that I nearly tried was buying rubber sheets and a 4 inch hole saw to drill out a big rubber plug to use as a piston seal. I bought the rubber sheets and the hole saw.
During this period of uncertainty, I constructed a type of water gun I always wanted to make: a constant air pressure water gun. For those who are unfamiliar with this type of water gun, this water gun design uses air pressure, but regulates it to have a constant pressure effect. The first water gun to use this design was made by a Super Soaker Central forum member named dekard early on in Super Soaker Central's life.
I built the water gun with a frame backpack, a big metal air tank, a lot of PVC, and a nice gun part. This was a scary water gun. It towered over everything. I think it literally was 8 feet tall when I wore it.
My brother and I went out to test it and we were impressed by its power. So, we wanted to do a big riot-blast type shot to see exactly how much water output it was capable of. We pressurized the air tank to 60 PSI, disabled the regulator, and shot. The recoil was unlike anything I had ever seen. The water gun blasted out an enormous 125X for over two seconds. That's not recoil, it's thrust. So much thrust that I rotated and had trouble keeping the gun steady.
We then wanted to do another test, but the impossible happened -- the tubing burst off the barb and the water gun flew around in a circle literally like a rocket powered by the thrust of a water jet. The water gun smacked into my jaw and then went into the wall, breaking some of the PVC components. Initially my family thought it broke my jaw, but after consulting with a doctor we found that my jaw bone was just bruised.
The problem was that I used the cheap tubing clamps available at most anywhere. For this, you need higher torque clamps. After rebuilding the water gun with a few new safety features such as an emergency release and higher torque tubing clamps, we never had an accident again.
One thing I find humorous is that what most people worry about -- exploding pressure chambers sending shrapnel everywhere and water guns so powerful as to cut or badly bruise someone -- never is what actually happens. I feel safer around my homemade water guns than I do around modified water guns. Homemade water guns use stronger materials. Yes, they do use higher pressures, but they are more within their limits than are manufactured water guns. This is a lesson however: you can still easily get hurt or killed if you do something stupid such as using cheap tubing clamps. Consider yourself eligible for the Darwin Awards if you do.
Around the same time as the test, I tried the piston seals in the 4 inch PVC pipe to find that they do indeed fit, however they fit tightly. They're supposed to fit tightly. I nearly couldn't believe I was so discouraged for something as silly as that. I set off to complete Supercannon II at this point.
Supercannon II was a miracle for me. Everything worked as expected. I took what I learned from Supercannon and applied it here. I achieved a distance of 73 feet to the end of the water puddle at 100 PSI. Then I achieved 77 feet with glycerin, a water additive to increase range. Outputs without the nozzle on were an incredible 800X. I could easily increase the pressure to 120 PSI or higher and potentially head into the 80s in range even without glycerin, but I'll wait for competition from others right now. My main goal really was to get a range record.
Of course, the incredible performance wasn't without a cost. I spent a lot of money on all of these projects, probably totaling to over $700 including all of the mess ups I had. Supercannon II also has an incredible appetite for water if you want the 70 feet of range -- 125X output. Supercannon II literally performs like a fire hose which has only slightly more output.
In the end, despite how many mistakes I made and how much I spent, I think that was some of the best time and money I ever have spent. Making those water guns, I learned a lot about construction of water guns. I learned a lot about potential safety hazards. And best of all, I got some great final products out of it.
One thing that most people don't appreciate however is how much fun making water guns is. I had a great time making every water gun I made. The fun really is one reason I wanted to build these water guns! After I found that building water guns was not hard, not expensive, and not dangerous, what surprised me the most was how fun water guns are to build. I couldn't say it more bluntly: water guns are fun to build.
My plans for the moment include a new Super Soaker Central update, Supercannon III, among other things.
I won't go into detail about the website update because it's all top secret stuff, but I will say that a big goal will be to fix what I feel is inadequacy in the website. All of my best stuff hasn't been added yet. We can change that. A new design has been made as well, and it's one that I'm not only proud of, but hope to use for many years to come. It's a great design that is aesthetically pleasing, easy to read, and easy to navigate under. I don't make too many designs, but this one I'm really feeling good about, but I won't say that it is completely done at the moment. Another thing we will be doing in the new website is adding many new sections as to target a much broader audience. Not just people interested in water guns themselves use them. That's such a big hint that I'm afraid someone is going to steal some of my ideas. I figure that hint is vague enough as to not get any direct copies however.
Supercannon III will be a 6 inch piston version of Supercannon II. It should be 2.25 times as powerful and have at least 10 feet more of range. That essentially means that I'm going to make a bigger, better water gun. This is one thing I really can't wait for. I consider Supercannon II to be nearly like practice. Supercannon III really will be hitting the actualy limits of PVC pipe. Supercannon III also will hit the limits of what most are willing to spend on water guns. To get something more powerful, you'll have to find obscure parts, use metal pipe, and/or use expensive parts. Naturally, I'm interested in hitting the limit of what most will have access to.
The current situation online is optimistic. WaterWarfare, a new joint forum, has started and is pretty popular right now. I'm looking forward to where we'll be going. Where we are going however, is impossible to tell. A few years ago I couldn't have told you where I was going. Today isn't any different. No one can predict what's down the road, but we still go with the best of intentions. Today is just the same, but you can't have only intentions to get what you want - you need initiative and a little luck.