My mantra is “Don’t buy it Make it.” I’m not cheap, I could spend time making fun with my kid, or, I could spend time at work making money and then time at the store for a toy that will be loved no more than anything we make together. It can be a real challenge to find the supplies on hand to accomplish your task unless you are “handy” or a “collector” etc. Imagination will always bridge the gap where supplies are lacking. Supplies and tools will never bridge the gap where imagination is lacking. The project in this article worked out for me at the time. I had everything on hand and was willing to use it. It could be an expensive project otherwise, but substitutions can always be made. This is only one possible iteration. Frankly, the true subject of this article is doing whatever you want with whatever you’ve got.
So my son and I were are at Target, and my son sees the Spiderman web blaster wrist attachment that shoots aerosol foam party string. He definitely wants it. Frankly, when I was about his age Spiderman was on TV too, and there was some variation of the same toy. I wanted it. But, it was a little too big for his 4.5 yrs old hand, and it requires refills. So I nixed it. He was not happy, but I promised we would build a better one.
So my son and I were are at Target, and my son sees the Spiderman web blaster wrist attachment that shoots aerosol foam party string. He definitely wants it. Frankly, when I was about his age Spiderman was on TV too, and there was some variation of the same toy. I wanted it. But, it was a little too big for his 4.5 yrs old hand, and it requires refills. So I nixed it. He was not happy, but I promised we would build a better one.
As I said, this was a dream of mine 30 years prior. I knew how bad he wanted the toy, and I knew that my version had better be good if it was going to satisfy. So here’s what we did, and what we used. We built an electric squirt gun that sprayed off his wrist, out of a 1.5-liter water bladder in a pack on his back.
We used a couple feet of surgical tubing, a water pump (from a broken Swiffer floor mop), a wrist guard from his skateboard pads, electric switch, 9V battery, a couple feet of wire, and a camel back water pack, an old squirt gun. The tubing was from a parachute launcher we built. The pump was salvaged from the Swiffer (along with most of the rest of it) before it was thrown out, the switch and wire were from something long ago, the battery new, the wrist brace and camelback were sacrificed (but not totally ruined). In fact we’ll probably reuse all this stuff again, because he doesn’t use it much anymore because it doesn’t fit anymore. Below is a picture of the assembled project. Cost prohibits me from redoing it with step-by-step pictures.
First, we took off the camelback’s hose to the mouth. We used a silicone glue to bid the intake of the Swiffer pump. Out of the Pump we attached the surgical tubing. We didn’t need glue because it was a snug fit. Though, as a note here, Krazy glue and other similar glues can often harden soft rubbers and not work well on slippery plastics like the outlet the this pump was made of, so I always try for fit or use silicone. Roughing up slippery surfaces can help glues to adhere. Shoe Goo is a good product; it binds well to a lot and keeps some flexibility. We measured the tubing out of the backpack and down the arm, and cut it off with some to spare, we could always trim it back if it is too long. From the squirt gun, we salvaged the nozzle (were the water comes out), and the hose connecting to the nozzle. We connected the hose to the surgical tubing. In our case we stepped the gauge of the hose up by sliding a thicker one over the first and then into the surgical tubing for a perfect fit. Then we inserted the hose and nozzle to the wrist on the skate pad. 
Lastly we connected the wires at the pump to the battery and then to the switch, making sure the pump is pumping in the correct direction before we soldered the wires. We made sure that the switch easily reached his hand, and so the last piece to be done would be to attach the switch while it was on my son’s arm.Any piece of this could be reworked. The bladder could be a 7Up bottle in a backpack and the wrist brace a sweatband. You could mount a bladder on your hip or even simply add a pump and battery with an intermittent switch to a large water gun. Or, take a large pump water gun and make a pump only wrist blaster. Any set of project instructions can be used as a springboard for your imagination to satisfy your desire with the tools and supplies you have on hand.
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