Leaderboard

Plastic weld works really well in bonding coverstrips on armor, pretty much all my suits are built that way and years in are solid as a rock

You might want to sand down the D-ring if possible before you paint it. Otherwise if when the paint chips off it will be gold instead of silver. Gotta' get me one of those saws!

Congratulations Trooper!! Welcome to the ranks. Keep working on that CNT modifications.

Looking GREAT, Adam! Nice to see that you have the passion for accuracy, brother. As for replacing the folding stock I see one small issue (and maybe another down the way) but nothing that can't be remedied! The rear part of the actual stock looks like it was molded in to the base, as there is no pivot point. This can be fixed by using your Dremel to cut it down flat, though as seen in the third pic** **This is a detail from the ROTJ version I'm working on, but you get the picture. The other item is the catch that holds the stock to the shroud in the front... it will need to be able to latch onto the underside of the shroud to hold the stock in place. You will more than likely have to cut a notch in front of the forwardmost hole for the catch to grab onto. I know you mentioned that the tube is pretty thick, which may prohibit this from happening. Not to worry, though! You can thin down the thickness in that particular area with the Dremel (but just enough to where it will hold). I know this because I had the same exact issue with the ROTJ version I'm doing and it works fine. Since mine was a little on the thin side I reinforced the front of the tab with a thin piece of aluminum glued to the inside. Can you post up some pics showing the points where the existing stock is attached to the shroud?

Looks like Lou beat me to mentioning AJ’s AM build thread. I particularly love the imagery AJ documented. The resource compilation thread that Glen mentioned is also a good one. ;-) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for the reply. The issue with how it was sitting was due to extra material added to the ab section was actually pushing up and forward. Here is the before picture. Those "wings" at the top were the culprit. I marked where the chest plate sits on the ab. In this pic you can see how it actually flares out at the top Now sitting level at the waist and the back just touches the kidney. But as soon as I move it pops out. The kidney plate is 8.5 inches from top of belt (the plastic skirt) to the top where the TD would hook on (I am going to do the notch mod). Other builder kits are from 11-13 ish inches, so this is my problem. Walt has responded back that he will increase the size.

I managed to not take a pic of my new Sterling folding stock from Joseph. I'm trying to decide if I'm brave enough to integrate this into the Questdesign. I did manage to get a bit of work done. I started with the spring. I printed the excellent spring forming tool from this thread... It worked a treat after I read the part mentioning that the tool needed to be glued to the PVC pipe. It doesn't work too great without being glued on there. But man did it produce a nice spring. Just perfect. Unfortunately it didn't fit the Quest blaster. The tube walls are apparently super super thick. So I shrunk the spring down to the 1/2" pipe size annnd... still too big. WTF blaster? Then I finally got out the calipers and measured the tube. I wandered all over the garage and house looking for a decent pipe or handle that would go in the E11 and found a random bamboo butterfly net from last summer. It fit just right. I shrunk the spring down to fit the bamboo but had just terrible spacing on the coils, so I smashed it down to full compression and then manually opened each coil up to a mostly-even spacing. Once inside the barrel I rotated things to show 11 exposed coils. It scratched the heck out of the inside, so I carefully repainted with a small brush... and got paint on the spring. It has since been fixed. No visible paint is currently on that spring. Then I got brave and whipped out the dremel. Off came the blobs on the front barrel and in went Tino's correct socket head capscrews. I'll fill any imperfections with green stuff. But holy crap is this a lot better by itself. And the Quest Design resin cuts easily. I decided I was bold enough to hack out this incorrectly pointing screw... and then I discovered it was aluminum under the paint. Some careful work with a screwdriver has it pointing the right way.

I looked into dichloromethane as a solvent and plastic welder, it sounded like a nice way to bind the armor components together, but after some of the research, it seems that it's similar to the effects of acetone, but evaporates quicker and builds a bond much faster. But from what I know on acetone on ABS, even though it can weld two piece of plastic together, I'd be opposed to using it as it's simply liquifying the ABS into a bondable state, and re-solidifying; however, it has repurposed the material used for the structural integrity of the piece into a bonding element. Personally, I'd add more material to increase the strength and rigidity of the piece rather than juggling it. I guess since you're out of a good 2 part epoxy resin for joining, this may be a decent substitute. My big fear is how much of the plastic integrity was compromised, only time will tell. Have you tried sanding/roughing up the pieces when epoxying? Might help the joining process as it gives more surface area to cling to?

To bad you can't make the ab plate buttons functional to control the amp.