Strongbow

Did you use brush-on or spray-on plasti-dip?

Thanks guys! I replaced the aluminum rail with a 1/16th inch steel rail. Looks much more screen accurate. The springs were in correctly, but the bolt is partially converted to semi-automatic and that compressed the spring more than usual. I just pulled out the secondary spring and it looks better. I'll get a couple updated pics tomorrow, if possible.

Thanks much. I just got some high strength steel in 1/16 inch that looks like it will work. Gonna give it a try. I'm using the original springs in it, so I'm not really inclined to cut them. I had thought about taking out the secondary spring. Since it's a non-firing prop, I don't really need all that spring tension. Edit: I removed the secondary spring. It looks good, and the it's much easier to work the bolt. Thanks for the suggestion! I think I'll leave it this way.

Hey Guys, I've been taking a short break from my astromech build and decided to assemble an E-11 from a Sterling parts kit I bought a few years ago. The parts kit came from Apex, and I used an 80% receiver tube I got from some place I can't remember. I can weld, but I'm not an expert by any means, so I had a pro weld the muzzle and rear portions to the tube. He did a pretty good job, though it does show a bit at the muzzle. I added the rest of the bits myself by brazing. I did make one mistake. I added a false barrel trunnion that is plugged so this would remain Not A Gun (NAG). But I made the false trunnion too long and it blocked a couple of the rear most holes on the receiver. My mistake. I had to drill out the holes. This mostly doesn't show. Argh! Not too bad, though. Everything else went smoothly. I used a simple wooden dowel as a false barrel, and the blaster can be verfied as not a functional firearm by just glancing down the muzzle to see the dowel. Trigger and selector work, and the bolt can be moved with the charging handle. The scope is a genuine M32 scope. I also have an M38, but I slightly prefer the look of the M19/32. I may swap them later. The scope rail is 1/8" thick aluminum. I know that's too thick for screen accuracy, but it is nice and rigid. No counter or cylinders for now. It's a clean Luke Hero/ESB style right now. I like that look, though I may add the counter and cylinder later if I get the itch. The entire blaster was prepped and painted flat black, except the grip, the trigger pack, internal parts, and T-track. I gave the whole blaster some light-moderate distressing. The scope is exactly the way I purchased it. Here's the pics. I have another parts kit and pipe I may wind up putting in the classifieds.... we'll see.

Thread necro, but I just a relevant experience. The front of the scope CAN be reshaped. It's pretty east to do. Basically, you just remove the objective lens assemble by removing the 3 screws on the front. Carefully remove the assembly, and don;t lose the collimation screws (they are sometimes stuck to the assembly by paint that covers the access ports. They can fall off and get lost if you are not paying attention). The very front part of the scope is not a relatively thin wall of sheet brass, as opposed the heavy cast brass of the scope body. I used tape covered, very small pliers to bend the scoipe back into shape. Reassemble and you're good to go. FWIW, a little dig adds some character IMO.... but Mie was kinda big, so I mostly fixed it.

Very nice. Do want! It does look like you have that AR-15 front site base slightly misaligned. It's canted up a tad. From the pics, it looks like the front post should be perpendicular to the blaster itself. If you do a run, color me interested.

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Are you planning on making the shroud and sight available? I have an airsoft G-18 I could use for the base, and was thinking of scratch-building the shroud, but we can get a good 3D model to print, that would be awesome!

What's it made out of? The front part needs to come off. And it needs to be reshaped a bit, but it the material is easy to work with, that might not be an issue.

2 things happen to items as they are used: wear and dirt. Decide if you want your item to be worn and dirty, or just worn. I've never seen a military weapon that has seen any kind of use that is not at least a little worn. Sometimes they are a LOT worn, even in a really squared away unit. Dirty is most appropriate for items in the field.... Sandtroopers, rebels, etc. 4 area things to keep in mind when weathering: Corners, edges, creases, and high areas. Corners get the most wear, so you'll want to simulate wear on corners in proportion to just HOW worn you want the item to look. Edges are pretty much the same, though they tend to wear more based on exposure. The center of a long exposed area will wear first, for example. An edge near an area that gets handled a lot will wear more than one which is not. Handle the blaster and see where you tend to touch. See what part is likely to wear in the holster, or by getting banged into stuff. High areas are the last to get worn, so you'll want to be careful there. I'll discuss a couple techniques below. Creases don't wear but they gather grime and dirt. I'll talk about dirt weathering below too. Techniques: For wear, you basically have a couple wear techniques 1: Drybush. This is the easiest in theory, but kinda hard to do really well. The idea is to use a paint brush dipped in a color meant to represent the base material, and create the impression of wear by adding the color over the top coat.. There are two keys to this. First, learn how to actually drybrush, and not just streak on paint. there are a bunch of decent videos on Youtube, so pick your favorite. Done correctly, it take some time to actually build up the effect. most people are impatient and just slap on paint. The important thing is to NOT just radomly apply the effect. Look at what I wrote above, and apply the paint to the areas that would actually get wear. LOTS of folks don't do that. 2. Undercoat and distress. With this technique, you apply an undercoat paint layer that represents the base material (assuming the item is not actually made of the proper material... if it is, then yay!!!). Let the undercoat cure COMPLETELY before applying the top coat. Before applying the top coat, you can apply masks to represent paint chips, but that technique is not really useful for weapons. So after the top coat is applied and dired (or even MOSTLY dry), you can distress it with sanding. Use a FINE texture sand paper (or I use a sanding sponge) and lightly sand the wear areas. You goal is to JUST burn through the outer paint layer and leave the undercoat visible. If you accidentally burn through the base coat, you can either touch it up with paint by hand, or even use a sharpie pen (I use a silver sharpie pen for this all the time). You can also lightly sand large exposed areas and high areas WITHOUT burning all the way through to make the paint look worn and a bit tired. That's very effective for aging an item. For dirt, you want a layered effect. Apply dirt AFTER wear effects. Use darker colors first. I tend to avoid pure black, but a dark gray or brown works well as an initial color. Apply in a wash (paint mixed with water or thinner), allow to sit a few seconds, then wipe it off. it'll leave remnant of paint in the corners, creases, and scratches. Apply light colors over top.... how much you wipe off depends on how dirty you want it. The wash, wipe, repeat cycle helps build a believable layered look. Again, I tend to NOT dirty up weapons too much, as they tend to get handled. But a little grim in the corners can be effective in some cases. If you want to get fancy, you can experiment with talcum powder mixed with paint to represent dust or sand in the corners too. Again... dirt, should be appropriate for the weapon. A death star trooper will not have sand in their blaster. There are a gazzilion other techniques too, though these are the basic ones I have used for years in modelling, miniatures, and prop making. Hope that helps!

The magazine well on the left makes perfect sense, if you want to change magazines with you left hand, but not so much if you want to holster it Star Wars Style (which wasn't done with the actual Sterling, of course). The Phasma-style tactical stock is very fiunctional, of course, though one wonders why they kept the look of the folding stock... probably just for visual continuity with the E-11. Overall, I really like the look of the F-11D. I also want the Glock-derived side-arm!

Appears there are apenough differnces that you won't be able to use a sterling base without significant modification... Enoug that it wouldn't make sense any more. It's clear they wanted the F-11D to have a clear lineage to the E-11, but be an obviously "improved" model. I really like it, though I wish they had left it all black and with no chrome bits. Still, i want one of JJ's replcas very badly!

Hmmm that sight looks a WHOLE lot like an M16/M4 front sight base in some kind of fixture.... -----------------

How is the scale of this. Obviously downsized, or pretty close?

Thanks! It's not really a huge deal.... I have an ANH Hyperfirm blaster otw that will do for approval. But I am converting a Wise Lite carbine sterling to an E-11 and I intend to build the cleaner version. At least I think I do.