Introduction: Paintball Pod Quick Loader Mobile Station
I play for the scenario paintball team Pub Crawling. We have more than 20 members on the team and over the years we have come up with ideas that keep the staging area better organized. One of the items we get asked about a lot is the custom Paintball Pod loader station we built.
A pod is the plastic tube paintball players use to carry extra paint onto the field. Pods range in size from being able to hold 50 to 150 paintballs. When you have 20 players each carrying 6 pods of paint on the field you need a way to keep them loaded up with paint and on the field.
Requirements for the station would have to be: stable base for loading paint, light as possible for travel and convenient for loading paint. Since this was the first attempt at the stand and it's made of 3/4 inch plywood it isn't as light we would have hoped but it's possible with some cut outs in the panels we could lighten this up without losing the structural integrity.
The stand works with an AJP Paintball Pod Loader. This custom stand was designed by my team mate Chris "Tea Pot" Shanks and was built by one of the contractors he works with. I just reverse engineered it so we could post it up here.
You can find out more about the paintball team Pub Crawling at www.PubCrawling.Org .
Step 1: Materials List
The Wooden sections are built out of 3/4 inch plywood. I believe they used two sheets of it.
There are (3) side panels and a top piece.
(4) pod loader clamps 6 1/2 x 2 1/4 x 1
(4) slide bolt latches
(8) 3 inch hinges
(1) door handle
(1) Hasp
Step 2: Sides
There are three wooden sides made of 3/4 inch plywood.
The dimensions for each side panel: the top is 15 inches, the two sides are 37 3/4 and the base is 34 1/2.
The side cuts are on a 45 degree angle.
Step 3: The Top
The Top is made of 3/4 inch plywood.
The dimensions are:
The front is 11 1/4
The sides are 15 inches
The back is 13 1/4.
There are (4) holders for the base of the pod loader
6 1/2 x 2 1/2 x 1
You can see from the pictures that in the front of the top we routed a U shaped channel to fit the pod loader.
Step 4: Hardware
One the back panel of the stand we have(3) of the three inch hinges on the outside Left
We have (3) of the three inch hinges on the inside right.
The top piece that holds the pod loader is attached to the left inside by (2) three inch hinges.
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Step 5: Table Adapter
This piece is additional and not needed for the stand. But when I was just at a local even and I saw a lot of people with pod loaders trying to attach them to flimsy plastic tables I thought I would add this adapter to the mix.
Basically it's just a piece of 3/4 inch pine board. It started out at a piece 12 inches x 9 inches and I rounded off the corners and cut a rough rounded V shape into it for the lip on the Pod Loader. If I remember correctly I took a piece of paper and traced the edge of the Pod loader. Then I cut out the shape and traced it onto the wood and cut it with a Sawz All. I think I went a little fast with the cut which is why it doesn't exactly fit perfectly.
I have 5 pieces of metal holding the pod loader to the base. These were different things I had laying around the shop, but you can get them at the hardware store like a home depot. The thick ones are 3/4 inches wide by 1 1/2 inches long. I just attached them and bent them where I thought they would hold best. The two skinny ones are only 1/2 inch wide by 1 1/2 inches long.
What this base will do is give you a wider and deeper base to hold the weight of the pod loader when it has a case of paint in it. Nothing worse than seeing a full one on a cheap plastic table fall over and spill the paint. The other thing it does is since the wood is only 3/4 inch and not the 1 inch that the base of the pod loader is, you now can use the smaller clamps to hold a thicker table.
