Waldo Customs Livestream Recap: Lets talk upgrades and Airsoft!
About Waldo Customs
Waldo Customs was founded in 2019 with the intention of providing Airsofters with educational content and high quality bespoke parts. As a business, Waldo Customs has gone from strength to strength, and as their reputation grows they are rapidly becoming a household name for Speed Soft players and have plans to expand their lines to serve Airsofters of all stripes in the near future!
Waldo is the face of the business, focussing on product development, testing, marketing and serving his customers with both credible information on builds and innovative parts, and Jeppe handles sourcing and logistics but does his fair share of product development and testing as well. Jeppe is the technical boffin, and being heavily involved in Airsoft tech work in the past has given him unique insight into how Airsoft guns work in the fine detail sense, and there are few techs more qualified in the world today.
These two Gents have come together to combine skillsets and form one of the most forward-thinking Airsoft manufacturers out there, and have their ears to the ground to provide Airsofters with both the parts they want and the parts they need!
Interview time! This writeup will only cover the first hour or so of the stream, and the guys have some extremely interesting upgrade parts to show off near the end, so if you want to see what Waldo Customs have coming down the line you will have to watch the stream! Here's the link for you!
Q: Where did you discover Airsoft and how did you get into the Hobby?
Waldo: I have been Airsofting since I was 19 years old, I did that for a few years and got really into Speed soft and made some great connections there. Eventually, I came into contact with a company called Tapp Airsoft, they sponsored me for a bit, they're extremely lovely. They showed me the production side of Airsoft, manufacturing things and I found it really really interesting so I helped them out with some projects, after a while I wanted to do it on my own, so I did it as a part time thing, outside of work, after I finished my boring job, and pretty soon after, Jeppe joined me.
Jeppe: I started for the Airsoft part, way back when I was 12 years old, in a different country, I walked in as a kid and I walked out very much poorer, with a lot of Airsoft equipment! That's pretty much been going on since then as a hobby, and then work. I was working at a company in Austria and left that to do freelance consulting, and pretty much around the same time we met up and made one product, then two products, then a website and it sort of went from there!
Q: That want to start making stuff yourself, was that you seeing items that don't quite fit for Speed soft? Obviously, the Speed Softing thing is an extreme build level, were there things you were looking at that you wanted to make that didn't exist or did you think "can we make this better?" Is that where your initial idea came from or was it just wanting to be in the Airsoft sphere in general?
Waldo: I think it was a combination of both. Jeppe joined me very shortly after I released the first Capa spring. I released that, he thought it was very cool and wanted to join up and team up with me, so we went 50/50 immediately after. The reason I started that is that I noticed no one makes a spring in a percentage I really liked, there was no middle ground. Then later down the line, it was Jeppe's awesome idea to get all the springs in our signature finish, which is incredibly polished...
Jeppe: That was a discussion!
Waldo: That's what a lot of people don't know, I was really against it, I was really not for it because...
Jeppe: Do you know how much it costs?
Waldo: It cost so much money! But we did it, and I'm glad we did as it puts us in the hall of fame really, in terms of a really cool innovation on such a simple part.
Q: If you are checking out someone's platform and you pull it back and see a gold spring, you know it's yours! Obviously, you started with springs, growing from that you have branched out a bit. What are the main bread and butter products you've brought to the market that you can literally go to a site and see or get hold of yourself?
Waldo: Our springs, we do short stroke kits for different GBB pistols, stuff like that. They were our beginnings, they funded all the stuff we have done, they are our entry level baseline, then we moved on to lubricants, stuff like that.
Jeppe: It's a spread across all the products. There is not one product that is "the cool product", it is the product brands, the nozzle springs are a brand, the recoil springs are a brand, and the silicone lubricants are a brand as well. Within each brand group, we have tons of products, there is not one specific product, it is actually spread out. The brands are strong, not just the specific product.
Q: Working as a team then, where does the idea for that next product come from? Does one of you handle the technical side and one the design?
Jeppe: This is an interesting question that we have actually thought about before. The thing is, I have 20 years of experience with Airsoft, and I know exactly what I want and so on, but I don't particularly represent the consumer anymore, because I am so particular. Waldo does, so Waldo actually has the ideas for the product and I'm the one who does the sourcing and the technical side of it. Of course, we work together on it, together we have the ideas but Waldo has the idea for what the market wants.
Q: In the world of springs, what are the upgrades and benefits that your springs give to different platforms across different uses?
Waldo: There are lots of different things our springs offer, but the main thing we go for is something durable, reliable, consistent and butter smooth. As the name would suggest, "Snappy Boi", we want things to be moving quicker than they were stock, typically. That's what they do, and it goes down extremely well with everybody.
It's interesting because though there are springs for vastly different platforms the compliments are the same, in terms of how much smoother everything feels and that it almost feels bespoke. That is such an awesome thing we can offer, as a 2 man UK-founded company. Everything we sell we actually care about, we really do. We actually do spend the time and the money to make a really good part.
From ShadowSniper on Youtube: Do you have any plans for the G&G SMC-9?
Waldo: That's actually one of the platforms we get asked the most about, that we don't already make for. That's interesting because I know some people have managed to get the recoil spring and short stroke spring for the Capa to fit into it.
Jeppe: It's interesting because that's exactly the type of platform that is so new that maybe no one has really done parts for it yet. Because we are a small company we can sorta take something, analyse it if people want it and move quickly on it. We already know how to make springs, so we can make them for a new platform. Keep an eye on Waldo Customs and it may happen!
From 0dissent0 on Youtube: Do you think you will ever go down the route of CNC slides and handguards? The Waldo Staccato is a thing of beauty!
Jeppe: We can actually make things CNC'd. This is a 3D printed prototype of an in-house designed Hi-capa slide. People who follow us on social media will see that we actually ran this as a design project with public interaction. So we had sketch designs made for the slide, and we let people vote on the design of the slide. This is what came out of it, it might be a bit difficult to see...
Q: So this was a collaboration of yourself and many public comments and opinions?
Waldo: Yep
Jeppe: This is not a fitment prototype, it's just for looks. This is a revision 1 prototype, it's actually a bit old now. Now we are working on finishing off the details on the inside of the slide. We didn't just go to an existing slide manufacturer and say "hey can you make us your slide but with different cutouts?" We actually designed it from scratch, designed all the dimensions inside of it so it will fit the TM series and so on, and it's a huge project, it's not done yet, but it is an on-track project.
Q: It is Hi-capa based, correct?
Jeppe: 5.1 Hi-capa slide, CNC aluminium, anodised in a variety of colours.
Q: Or just yellow only?
Waldo: As much as we love yellow, we don't think everybody loves yellow!
Q: Have you got a preference for the Staccato slide or something cut down as lightweight as possible, since you have come from Speed soft?
Waldo: There are two different minds. The reason I like the Staccato is that I like the real one, and I also wanted a slide that was red dot ready out of the box. I suck with iron sights, there is no nice way to put it! The slide really taps into the Speed Soft side of me, I do have drum mags that I run when I'm lazy, it is just so much nicer and quicker to ditch all your gear and run something simple. It still means I have a love for these slides.
I noticed that slides are starting to become more skeletonised and I thought "wouldn't it be awesome if we could do something, do it ourselves". It almost felt like the existing slides were A.I generated like the machine was told to put holes into the slide and see what it looks like.
Q: They were just putting holes in it, not trying to save space and keep the structure, thinking "there's space there so let's cut a hole"
Jeppe: That's a bit problem when trying to save weight. The problem when you start cutting the slide is how close all the holes are to each other when you cut it during the manufacturing process. You have the structural integrity to think about. You start removing material around the centre of it and that is basically where you have opposite forces so that revision has actually been changed multiple times. The current revision actually has additional material compared to this example.
From Ethan O'Malley on Youtube: Waldo, thoughts on the Bolster Armouries' builds and price points?
Waldo: I met with the Bolster dudes today...
Q: We had the fortunate situation that the Bolster guys were down at the warehouse, so we took Waldo and Jeppe, and got one of the platforms on the range. They sat down and had a chat with the Bolster guys, they showed you theirs, and you showed them yours, in a private room, and you got the Bolster rifle on the range, so what did you think?
Waldo: First up, the Bolster guys, Mark and Jake, are some of the sweetest guys I have ever met. They are so kind, and clearly extremely intelligent in what they do. I see a bit of us in them, not in the sense that they are smaller than us and we are overseeing them, but in the sense that they have that passion, they do want to make something better and they do want to make people happy. That was really nice to see!
The gun, well I knew it was going to be really good, and I knew that it's still "only" an AEG but it will be cool. I shot it, and I got really upset that I had such a good time with it. What really blew me away the most, because I come from GBB world the maximum number of rounds I can have in a mag is 30, it's not often I have 170 rounds at my disposal. The thing that always held me back with AEGs is that I love laying it down in full auto, but then the pistol grip gets hot and I get paranoid that something will die while I'm playing and I have to reserve myself., it's too much going on in my head to have fun.
I was absolutely smashing it though EPM-1 mags, and the grip wasn't even getting warm. That was what made me go "oh right, okay, these guys have changed how we're playing the game now!" It's the brushless motor and Bolster Armouries magic, and safe to say I got a bit jealous! I can see why they are their price, and I think it's fair, especially with the warranty.
Jeppe: I got a look at the same sample, and I didn't shoot it, and it's nice, it runs really nice. With the brushless motor, we are no longer needing to use high-speed gears, we are back to 18:1, and it still runs amazing. It doesn't overheat, it is snappy, it's super efficient on the battery, which is a nice change. I didn't really realise it until today, this is the first off-the-shelf high-end gun with a brushless motor in it!
It's nice because it's got the TITAN ETU, you can spam it really fast as well. I used to make super-fast trigger response builds, and I actually went away from it because it's not always about that, more about how you play. It's nice to have the instant trigger response but there are so many drawbacks to doing that, having a gun that runs cooler and more stable gives you a better feeling when playing.
Q: A Waldo seal of approval?
Jeppe: Also the externals, it's a nice gun, it's lightweight, well balanced, everything is rock solid. I tried to push the outer barrel and the handguard, but everything is just rock solid, with no wobble, no bending. The parts are very solid in themselves.
Waldo: We took the mag out, and started shaking it, it doesn't make any noise. There is no rattling, nothing wobbling. It doesn't make a soundtrack, it is mute, which is great!
From sj_asc on Youtube: AEGs have moved on considerably! Have you got any plans to make AEG parts?
*Laughter*
Jeppe: Maybe...
Q: Again this is a convenient segway into things that are on the table in front of them...
Jeppe: Here's one we made earlier! This is a HOP-up bucking, this is what it looks like.
Q: If you have never seen a HOP-up bucking before, this is revolutionary, and it's in yellow, of course!
Jeppe: We actually went through a surprising amount of effort to get the right colour of yellow just for the bucking.
Waldo: *Laughs* It's true!
Jeppe: That's the pain we have at Waldo Customs with making products. It's got to be a nice yellow! This is just a bucking, it doesn't have a ton of amazing features, but what it does do is that it fits perfectly in everything, it never jams and has perfect accuracy. That's a really ambitious thing to say, but we actually went through a lot of revisions and tested the bucking in a ton of different barrels and HOP-ups, and rifles. We made sure to adjust it so it's a perfect balance between them.
Q: Out of every part that's on an AEG, what drew you to the bucking as being the thing that you wanted to make?
Jeppe: That's a good question, it fits into how we work with parts right now. Because we are a small company we can't go out and start big projects. We focus on projects we can order in a reasonable amount, and then we can sell them without having to do a lot of support. If we sell a gun, and it breaks, which they sometimes do, we have to organise shipping and take it back and all that. So we focus on small products.
Waldo also agrees with this product but the bucking comes more from me because for many many years I have been doing tech work on guns, for 10 or 15 years. The bucking is the most critical part, it's only something companies and players have started to realise in the last 5-7-ish years. There are a few brands in the industry that have just been a staple. You use that bucking, but why do you use it? It doesn't do anything special it just has a really great fit in most guns.
You go out and spend a grand on a gun, and you lose 30 FPS or 50 FPS on the air seal because it doesn't fit as well. All the efficiency will go out the window. You go the other direction and you get a really nice air seal but now you get jams, so you can only use the best BBs. If you get one jam in a high-speed AEG you may have to go home and repair the gun. This bucking is designed to have very wide lips, and the BBs just won't jam, that is what we tested for. You can run it for years, and it won't jam up. On the same subject, the lips are designed to have very good contact with the nozzle, so you get a great air seal and you get the best of both worlds!
Waldo: When we make anything we want to make parts that are high quality, but for the most part is simple enough for anybody. There are no complications, like needing Teflon tape to seal it, or being restricted to certain brands of BBs. With our stuff, you just buy this and you are done. Whether you have been playing for a week or for 10 years, you can buy this and it just solves the problem and removes headaches.
From Sonny Hutchins on Youtube: Will you mod shotguns? Always love the builds and hope to get an AAP-01 upgraded soon!
Waldo: I have done custom shotguns before, and it is the phattest headache I have ever been through. They are very cool though, I do make some custom builds in my free time but I have to knock them out one at a time, it's not a quick process.
Q: I presume he is talking about the gas shotguns, the TM etc. There are so many parts for them
Jeppe: Every time you rack one, it makes the noise of a cash machine, like "ca-ching" *laughs*
Q: But again, nothing is ever out, but the slides and the parts are!
Jeppe: It's a good point, I used to work on some team shotguns and it's impossible to get the TM parts, and even then you are getting a stock TM part again. There is a point to it, we will have to look into it.
Waldo: Should I show some insider knowledge? When I worked with Tapp, they loved the TM 870, but the pump arms kept breaking. It was my suggestion that they make CNC pump arms, and now they have CNC pump arms that exist! That was originally my idea, and they did a good job of it!
Q: Where do you see Waldo in a few years? Obviously, you've got the slide, the bucking, stuff like that. Are you on the path of being an upgrade part company for the foreseeable future or would you want a Waldo pistol, or something like that?
Jeppe: Well, we are making a minigun!
Waldo: Very early on we toyed with an idea about doing something like that, we were talking with other people about doing something together. I'm being so vague! I think we would both love to make a gun someday, that would be cool. I say "we" would love to, that would be your problem to deal with *points at Jeppe* as the sourcing guy! I just get to sell it!
Jeppe: You get to deal with the customers too!
Waldo: That's true! When it breaks it will be my problem!
Jeppe: Even the best stuff breaks!
Q: Viewer question from Kenneth, one of our long-time viewers, he came over for the EVO event a few years ago, he lives in Denmark. We have spoken many times, absolute gent of a human, he really looks after people!
From Kenneth Andersen on Youtube: Are you going to make a Waldo-EVO?
Waldo: No! *Laughs*
Jeppe: There are no official plans about that.
Q: Unfortunately not, Kenneth, you will have to stick with the 5 you've got! He has definitely got a fair few!
From sj_asc on Youtube: My experience with the Novritch G series is that it is extremely sluggish cycling, no matter the adjustment to pressure it just doesn't feel crisp. Do you guys do a compatible drop-in recoil kit fix?
Waldo: I believe our stuff works in it, I have had people tell me it does. So yes, we do. We sell a recoil spring and a short stroke kit that will fit in it and should help with that, definitely.
Q: As always, do you have a general point of contact for questions like that?
Waldo: Yes, I spend every morning, 7 days a week answering questions. You can find us on our Facebook, Waldo Customs, on our Instagram @Waldocustoms, the website has an email which is contact@waldocustoms.com and you can ask your questions there, I answer every day.
Q: There's no such thing as a silly question, just silly answers?
Waldo: Oh there are silly questions, believe me!
From Ed Tyler on Youtube: If you don't start making VFC/Umarex Glock parts I'm gonna have to start squatting in your new office.
Waldo: We do get asked a bit about this...
Q: Are there drastic compatibility issues with the VFC?
Jeppe: It's probably cheaper to have him squatting than to start production of VFC parts
Waldo: It's true, we could do with some friends!
Jeppe: If he will stay there for free he can sort some of the empty shelves out! Thanks for the question, we would love to have you squatting! *laughs*
Q: So they are not going to make VFC parts, you can live in their office instead! So we were talking in the break about personal platforms, and where they come from. You chose the Staccato because it looks good, what have you done with this one?
Waldo: So, Nova, an aftermarket parts company based in Asia makes sets of real-life 2011 pistols, and they did the Staccato which is one of my favourite handguns. I immediately bought it, and it came with a complete upper and a frame with most of the bits in it, and I bought the grip and everything else separately. For the most part, it is Nova parts, I did a whole video on my youtube channel, and I go into great detail. It's actually quite interesting to see how these expensive kits work.
The only things I swapped which aren't original Nova are a PDI inner barrel and a PDI bucking. I am a massive fan of PDI buckings, when you buy one it comes in a wrapper that feels like it will deteriorate in your hands, like ancient Japanese artwork. PDI barrels I just love, they are just incredibly good steel. They make some killer stuff. There is definitely fitment stuff, so if you are going to get into these high-end kits you need to know your stuff.
Q: Looking out there, there are lots of other internal parts companies. Is there anything out there that you think there's no point us doing it because there is already a solid choice there?
Waldo: There are loads of companies out there that make stuff that I think is amazing. Specifically in the AAP, TTI makes a very cool trigger and an insanely cool fire selector, I love that it is ambidextrous and can be swapped. JB Tactical, they make the HPA adapter, it's made of a lovely SLS material and that's another thing that every time I hold it I don't think it can get any better.
Q: So, going to the AAP that was on the wall behind me, so this is your one, you can tell because the branding is even on the light! Again, body kits, parts, things like that, apart from externally, any of your parts in this?
Waldo: Inside it has our recoil spring, our nozzle spring, our short stroke kits, and all that good AAP goodness meshed with our lube for butter smoothness. We run a CTM lightweight bolt which we will soon be selling. It's been a long time coming! It got a swiss cheese style look, with the hexagons.
I also have CowCow steel internals, as the hammer in the AAP is made of cheese, they just do kill themselves, so it's nice to have something strong and durable. Again, PDI bucking/barrel, bread and butter, and that's about it! The AAP is pretty strong, I even keep the stock HOP-up chamber as you can put your finger through the breech and adjust it instead of having to take the gun apart.
Q: Is the AAP your go-to, your style of play? Or do you prefer the Gas blowback rifle, the heavy hitter?
Waldo: It depends on my mood, and it almost literally depends on the weather. The last time I played I ran my handgun AAP with the same adapter, some of the most fun I have ever had. It's nice to just forget about everything and not worry about mag changes and all this stuff. I can just go out and have fun.
I have yet to use that AAP yet but I will be taking it to the National Airsoft Fest in August, along with the Vipertech. I used the Vipertech the last time a year ago at NAF, but I had so much fun with that, it was my first time using it. There is definitely fun to be had in the realism of it. Although 30 rounds isn't a lot to have, it gives that fun back in the recoil.
Q: Jeppe, platforms you yourself run? Are you still going with the insanely cut down skeletonised M4s?
Jeppe: I've actually been dabbling in HPA recently, I built a Secutor Aquila, which is like an Ares KAC LMG, and I rebuilt the magazine to work properly with HPA, then I installed an HPA engine and it's been amazing, a lot of fun. I also have a G&G ARP-9, I had it mostly for R&D purposes but I also play with it, and I do like it, it's an AEG, it's set up for semi-only, 400-420 FPS decently fast semi-spam, and a big drum mag. I don't have any kit or anything, just throw a ghillie suit top on and then I take my ARP-9 with a drum mag and just play Airsoft.
Q: It's like we say on every stream, play how you like not how people tell you to play!
Exciting things coming down the line from Waldo Customs! We hope you enjoyed this little chat and all the teasers of future Waldo Customs parts we all can't wait to get our hands on. Waldo and Jeppe are some of the most passionate Airsofters out there, and their expertise and high standards have set the mark high for GBB parts, and soon enough, AEG parts.
Are the legacy manufacturers worried? You bet, but the constant raising of standards in the industry is what has pushed Airsoft platforms up to the lofty levels of performance we all enjoy today. What sets Waldo customs apart is that they seek to reduce the amount of fitting and tuning you have to do to make the most of their parts and make upgraded Airsoft more accessible for all levels of technical experience.