FLATLINE

how do i clean my flatline barrel?

or get a battle swab. ur local shop shoul dhave em. its like a big peaice of like fur..connected by a rubber thing and then another fur thing. u jus stick that down ur barrel w/o even taken it off n it should get it nice.

mytippyrules wrote: or get a battle swab. ur local shop shoul dhave em. its like a big peaice of like fur..connected by a rubber thing and then another fur thing. u jus stick that down ur barrel w/o even taken it off n it should get it nice.

My friend had one of those...a nice one and he only used it like 10 times and then it just fell off"the fur part"

you could just use a squeegee...or a swab...or water...not that hard man

cbrad wrote: Make sure you don't polish the rough inside of it. That is, in part, what makes the Flatline work so well.

Cleaning it is not likely to "polish" away the bead blasted internal surface (shooting paint can wear it smooth...after 200,000+ shots). If you suspect that the paint isn't getting enough friction to back spin properly, then send it back to Tippmann and they will resurface the inside for free. But cleaning with hot water, a little dish detergent and a pull through swap will usually clean the internal surface bringing it back to optimum operation.

jackd89 wrote: sorry, but i meant like, i have heard of people placing it in a warm bath with soap. i was just wondering the procedure and what soap, i figured a soap that was too strong could mess with the insides.

Hand friendly dish detergent, like Dawn, is completely safe on the barrel. I will say that the detergents used for automatic dish washers are somewhat caustic and can/will etch the surface of unprotected aluminum. I damaged an aluminum after-market front bolt by running the marker parts through the dishwasher cycle using Cascade detergent.

Let me qualify that just a bit. I had used my marker in a game where I had to crawl around in sand. Sand got into everything. When I got home I disassembled the marker, places all the small parts in a mesh bag and along with the receiver  halves, placed it all in the dishwasher.

Aluminum normally has a protective naturally occurring oxide layer on its surface. But the field sand had cut small scratches in several aluminum parts. When I removed these parts after the full cycle of the dishwasher, all those scratch lines were heavily corroded. Some  had become razor sharp on edges and corners where the etching had undercut an intact surface layer.

The receiver halves were okay after some re-polishing, but internal aluminum parts had to be scraped. A Flatline barrel that develops many small fine texture internal scratches (normal) is susceptible to this detergent etching causing paint breaking problems when the barrel is put back in service.

Running a marker through a dishwasher (careful to contain all the small parts) is a good way to get if absolutely clean. But you have to select one of the dishwasher soaps that does not etch. (Don't try to use the hand dish soap in the dishwasher, you'll end up with a kitchen floor bubble bath). When the marker is contaminated with sand, like mine was, just running the cycle with hot water and no detergent does a good job.

I have first hand experience in all of this. The missed games and repair costs make a funny story....now.

Edited by Bruce A. Frank - 09 January 2006 at 1:08pm