Jorran

Thanks! Here's the paint I used, in the order that I applied it: Rust-Oleum Plastic Primer Valspar Brilliant Metal - Silver Valspar Metallic - Copper Rust-Oleum Satin Black (3 coats) I also just purchased several small bottles of Testors paint for touch-up work. I should have that finished tomorrow and final pictures by the end of the weekend.

If I may point you to a very excellent AM build thread: Pandatrooper's AM build thread Good luck!

Excellent - thanks!

Anyone know if there's a store in the US that carries this? I did a few online searches (Lowe's, Home Depot, Joann's, Michaels) but came up empty. Or, where is the best place to order it online?

This has been a lot of fun this weekend, along with a few trials. As I've said before in other posts, we're in a condo complex with no workshop, so here's a peek at the ghetto paint "studio" my lovely wife/supervisor and I put together: Here's the primer coat, using the Rustoleum plastic primer that one of my garrison mates suggested I use. There's a little bubbling on the side of a couple of the resin pieces where I didn't adjust my distance with the spray can enough. After this picture I waited for everything to dry, sanded those areas down, and did it again - less stupidly. Here's a couple of pictures of the silver layer: Finally, I taped off the scope and added a copper layer: I was hoping to at least get one of the three black top coats done today, but real life has finally caught up with me and I have to put the project away until later this week or next weekend.

Stephen, you're going to have a great time! The weather is fantastic right now (well, the last two days have been near-record highs, but it's going to cool off a bit starting this weekend) and the Disney resorts are amazing in how well they take care of their guests for the most part. Alex, I don't think that's probably how it went. There were actually seven cities openly competing for C:V, and Orlando bent over backwards doing everything they could to get The Master to choose us. I would LOVE to see C:VI here in my back yard again - and it's not unheard of, as C:II and C:III were both in Indianapolis.

They haven't even announced that there will be a C:VI (although that's pretty well a given). If you assume they have it in 2013 (the 30th anniversary of Return of the Jedi), and they follow the same time frame that they did for C:V, they won't announce the city and dates until about 10 months prior to the convention. The official announcement for C:V was in December of '09.

I'm going to chime in here and echo what others have said. When I first started thinking about this journey, I was in a very similar place: I have very few tools, little space, and no experience doing something like this. I talked myself out of starting several times. But finally, after spending four days at C:V in awe of these guys and gals, I decided to jump in. My advice so far: start small. I bought my Hasbro and started modding it, carefully following the many great threads here. I borrowed tools and materials from friends at work and bought a few things - and now it's almost finished and I couldn't be happier with it. It's so far from perfect that it's not even funny...but the fact that I made it this far in the build has given me a real sense of satisfaction.

In addition to tracking cost and location, I'm also going to post pictures as the armor pieces come in. First up, my belt from TKittell (FISD Sales Link). The service on this was top notch, with the belt showing up 5 days after placing the order!

Thanks Mike! That's a tough question based only on my current housing situation. We're in a small condo with limited work areas and almost no tools, so the Hasbro mod was the easiest thing for me to pull off. If I didn't need to worry about those constraints I would absolutely build from scratch. I'm generally a perfectionist and would love to have a more screen accurate blaster. However, for what it is, I think this has come together pretty well and will satisfy me for a while.

Front top angle: Slightly more head-on: Rear angle:

Alright, it's certainly been a long time since the last update. I'm entering the home stretch: I've got a little bondo work to do and then a global light sanding job, then I'll be painting next weekend. In the meantime, here's a series of pictures from the assembly of all the Doopy kit pieces. There's probably a hundred better ways to do this than I ended up using, but here's my journey. First, all of the Doopy kit pieces laid out, including the new "demo" pieces I was lucky enough to get: Using rubber bands to secure the scope and t-tracks while letting the E-6000 cure: More rubber band goodness: Clamping on the counter (the rubber bands in the image were not used - just a failed experiment from earlier in the evening): Final shots of securing everything: My solution for the rear scope: I cut out a round piece of flat, clear plastic from a tooth brush package and a circular piece of a cereal box. I attached the decal to the box (after trimming around the edge), then glued that to the plastic and the whole unit to the inside of the rear scope piece that comes with the Hasbro. I cut out a hole in that piece first, so there's a little depth to the whole rear sight. I'll put the "final" pictures of this round in the next post.

How did you cut out the "fake" hex bolts that are part of the resin tip to make room for the real bolts? I was thinking of doing the same thing but my Xacto knife isn't making much of a dent in the resin.

One follow-up: for those that added these screws to the Hasbro with a Doopy Doo kit, did you screw them into the resin muzzle tip, or did you cut off the threads and just glue the screw heads onto the tip? I'm leaning towards the latter because (since I've never worked with resin before) I'm afraid that I'll split the resin piece if I try to screw them in.

Brilliant! Thanks everybody!

I'm getting close to gluing all of the Doopy attachments to my Hasbro mod, and I noticed that there are two holes/gaps on the muzzle attachment. I've been looking at as many reference pictures as I can find, and it looks like there are bolts on the movie prop in those holes. Can someone tell me what type and size of bolts/screws/widgets/etc. go in those two gaps?

Actually, let me follow up here and get the expert opinion from you guys. Casey wrote back regarding the one t-track being shorter than the other and said they did that to make it screen accurate - that the last vent hole (closest to the end of the muzzle) on the right side of the blaster should be open. Does that sound right? **Edit** Upon further inspection I see what they did. On the actual movie prop the little vent howl cowling on the right side faces the opposite direction of what is on the Hasbro toy, and that vent hole should remain open for accuracy.

Were your t-tracks the same length? One of mine was 1/4" shorter than the other. Doesn't sound like much, but it doesn't make it to the last vent hole.

I actually just finished cutting mine from scratch, too. I might still use them, unless they send me another t-track (since one was 1/4" shorter than the other).

I was pleasantly surprised when I got home tonight and my Doopydoo Hasbro conversion kit was waiting for me. I've read enough Doopy threads here that I had a pretty good idea what to expect (i.e., front muzzle, stock, etc.). I didn't expect to find a piece of paper that started with "You have been selected at random to receive one of the new trial kits..." Here is a shot of the new pieces (I know you can get the decals elsewhere, and I didn't put any picture of the standard pieces since those are unchanged) - scope front end, reticle decal, 2 t-tracks, and rear sling detail: And here are a few pictures of the pieces in position (I apologize in advance for the fuzzy pictures - our camera is approaching AARP status). First, the new scope from the front: The new scope from the side: One of the t-tracks in position: Rear sling detail: My little boy instinct keeps screaming, "HURRY, GLUE EVERYTHING ON, MAKE IT COOL!!!!" But I wanted to get the opinion of you experts first. How do these pieces stack up to the real thing? I like the look of the front scope detail and do plan on going with that. I had purchased some metal wire to make my own d-ring, but the new piece that came in this kit is all together, so I'm probably going to have to stick with that. My main concern is the t-track. Can you heat up resin to bend it down into the holes (I've never worked with resin before), or will this pass if I just glue it on as-is? The only major problem with these new pieces is that one of the t-tracks is about 1/4" shorter than the other. Let me know your thoughts - I'm excited to get started.

First of all, hello from a fellow Kansas Citian! I actually cut a circular piece of cardboard and glued it to the inside of the front of the scope. I waited 24 hours for the glue to seal up and then applied the bondo to that base and filled up the scope hole. It worked well the second time I tried it - I used too much hardener the first time and it was getting solid on me after about 45 seconds. Like Panda said earlier in this thread, for a tablespoon of bondo use about a half a pea of hardener and you'll be set. I had several wide, flat popsicle sticks to apply the mixture to the blaster and smooth it with.

Not a thrilling update today (darned real life getting in the way and slowing my progress!), but I like to document the entire build. First is a shot of all the screw holes being filled. I still need to do a little cleanup with the Xacto knife on the holes on the handle, but everything turned out fairly well. I'm thinking about losing the back part of the scope and looking for something at Lowe's that is hollowed out and allows me to put a sight decal into the scope a bit. Any suggestions? Second is a shot from the other side. The main thing here is that I filled in the front of the scope in preparation for adding the tube that I bought to make it look closer to the real thing. I'll probably add that in the next day or two. Now I just need to buy the stuff I need for the t-tracks and wait for the doopydoo kit to arrive. For those that have purchased from them before, do they usually send you a shipping notice or tracking number? It's been a week since my PayPal payment went through and I haven't heard anything yet.

Really nice work! I had one question about this line: Where did you get that outer ring? I had just filled in the hole of the existing back that comes with the toy, but I think adding the sight decal to that wouldn't look very good and would like to use that same type of ring you used.

Alright, I had my first round with bondo last night and I have to say that we ended up with a split decision. On the first attempt I ended up using the container-recommended amount of hardener which ended up being WAY too much and resulted in the stuff hardening before I could get it spread evenly. The second attempt went much better using the amounts that Terry mentioned above. Lesson learned: ALWAYS listen to The Panda! Now I just need to go back and sand down the bad spots, redo a few areas, and I'll be ready for the next phase. One question: does bondo form a good bond to itself? There are a couple of areas where I need to add a little more, but I wasn't sure if I should sand it all the way down and start from scratch or just add to the bondo that's already there.

This is fantastic! This is the kit I have been planning on purchasing, and this overview was really helpful in confirming that I'm on the right track.