Illuminated hood to fit RedBob Bell Target

[zooma]

I have had a lot of requests for information about the modification we have made to illuminate the popular RedBob bell target.

To start with we worked out the width and the height of the hood we would need to house some alternative lighting systems whilst trying to keep it looking as smart and neat as possible rather than it just looking a bit like a practical lash-up.

The hood also needed to be strong and durable as a one-off "fit and forget" unit, so it was formed from a suitable gauge of steel and welded in place of the original "carriage clock" hinged top. The new hood design does not hinge, but has an open back to give easy access to the light fitting when needed.

Lastly we decided that it had to overhang the front of the target face to ensure that the light covered the target evenly, and to that end we would need to include a 1/4" perspex sheet above the bell target to firstly protect the light fitting and just as importantly to defuse the light to give a nice even illumination.

The end result works very well indeed and the perspex defuser ensures that the target face is well and evenly lit. The hood is big enough to take a standard bulb holder with a low energy bulb ( John has made his this way) , but we found a neat little 6 volt light unit in B&Q for a tenner and have found that works superbly well.

Being 6 volt we can also run it on a simple little mains transformer once we have added a suitable socket to it, or continue to keep it completely transportable running on the AA cells we have used so far. I am not sure how long the batteries will last before they need changing - because they are still going strong - but it looks like the unit needs very little energy to power it and being 6 volt it is very safe and does not need any additional earthing etc.

I have put the pictures on the bobsairguns link below, and they can be made full screen size by clicking on them to see more detail.

http://bobsairguns.com/index.php?opt...ery&Itemid=130

[zooma]

As the photos show, we have given the RMTC illuminated hood a good session since we mounted it onto the RedBob target and there is nothing really to report back - it works well and has no issues.

We just sprayed it to match the colour of our RB target and used it.

At the end of the night the white "splat" marks on the underside of the Perspex sheet showed that it had earned it's keep - not just by doing a good job of diffusing the light, but also by protecting the light fitting, as without it all of this white coated debris would have hit the light fitting and may well have damaged it.

As I thought about a suitable design for the RB target illumination, I also thought about the design of a suitable enclosure in which to place the target for use in our church hall. The idea was to make a stable mounting that placed the BT bull at exactly 5ft from the floor and also gave some protection from stray shots for the church hall.

I quickly sketched out an idea on a piece of scrap paper, and John G and myself assembled it from 3/4" ply on the following Saturday morning.

The design worked well and no modifications were thought to be necessary, so John G made a second one last week to the same design so we now have two BT in operation.

As soon as we get some more hoods welded up we will probably expand to offer 4 lanes of BT shooting on a Thursday night, but right now we have just doubled our capacity with this second enclosure!

Pictures to follow once we have put some paint on them!

[blueflax]

Thanks Zooma.

Ron

[red bob]

hi bob you have pm ,simple and effective nice job.

[zooma]

hi bob......,simple and effective.

I have been called that lots of times!

[thimblehouse]

Excellent!!