Bulldog44

Not sure if it is possible but maybe you can also file a complaint and get some form of money refunded based on the damage. They will probably state no responsibility but there is some chance you have a solid case of negligence on their part. I won a case with the US post office for a lost package, got refunded for the contents. Strangely 4 months later the package arrived post marked one day before the actual posted date on the receipt. Crazy stuff. Anyway file a claim aSaP.

Beautiful Mark! Details are indeed very sharp. Just a quick question about casting with rubber, is it possible to cast leaving a hollowed out inside? Or semi-hollowed out inside? Probably more difficult but perhaps if its slush casted it might be possible then the receiver holes and charging handle slot could be easily removed. Plus it would be even lighter!

Congrats Chris! Looking good. Just twist the forearms so the curved edge on the upper forearm part is on the inside. The 11 or 12 divot/hole track on the forearms should be on the outer/visible side. Same thing for the right bicep-smaller part on the inside. Once you get that set, attach the needed strapping to keep it in place. Hope you get the rest of your gear and start trooping soon!

If you need me to send you some screws, just PM me and I will ship them to you no charge. Good luck!

Here are the screws I am using. Sorry they do not have the unthreaded part as the originals. Plus I had to grind the heads down in size to get it to match my real scope screws. Let me know if these might work for you. Here are the measurements after I filed it to size Head diameter: 4.5~4.7mm Head thickness: 2mm Threaded part length: 8mm Can't give you the exact threading size but I can see about 2-3 threads per millimeter. Quite fine threads. Hope this helps. Let me know if you can use one of these or not. Brian.

I found some similar screws but the cheesehead on it is lightly too big. I put it in the dremel and filed it to the correct diameter and it looks really close to a real scope screw. I will check he threads when I get home today buti think they were fine threaded.

Details are awesome. Great wotk on the cylinders and the counter display glass is a perfect.

Certainly keep posting updates. Super start!

Got to that first photo and forgot what was the question being asked! Anyway, I need to get one of these GoPro setups!

Congrats! Best of luck on your build!

Excellent! LOL!

Looks fantastic! You did an amazing job sealing it all back up. Thanks for posting this!

Thanks Ruben and Christian!

Thanks Tino. Finally painted somewhat but nowhere as nice as your blaster looks. i need to take some lessons. i will relocate that counter and set it higher and back a bit as you suggested. Yes, I will paint the grip screw head too but I kinda like it the way it is. Oh well. I can get Tamiya back or gloss lack for he hip but I think it looks way too shiny so I will see how the semi gloss looks. Actually the clear primer I just bought gives off a nice gloss look on top of the matter black but not over the top. Weathering .......I am still afraid of messing up the paint job so once that gets finalized, I will add some minimal weathering. I figure this will be my trooping blaster for some foreseeable future so it will naturally get some wear and scrapes in the right places. I will attempt my next painting phase on the weekend. Until then I will try some test painting late at night when the neighbors are asleep!

Thanks Aaron for your input. They don't sell satin black here at all. The semi-gloss black from Tamiya is the closest thing to it I think. I read lots on the differences but it seems is all about the gloss ratio. I just bought two cans of the semi-gloss black to do some test painting and see how it goes. If it looks good, I will spray a clear primer down again on the blaster and then the semi-gloss black, maybe tone it down some with a some matte topcoat. I really miss all the paint options back home!

In order to have a blaster ready for my first troop on May 4th, I had to finish the paint job at lightning speed. Unfortunately there was no time to photo log the process and the results were below my expectations but it had to get done. My first problem was where to paint. With close proximity living space in japan, spray painting is not something you can do right outside your back door. So withe a big box in my hand and all the guns parts, I found an open parking lot to spray away. There were a few passing citizens with suspicious looks. I don't blame them, I was creating a toxic mess not to mention how scary I probably looked being a foreigner with a mask & goggles on. In my previous post I mentioned that the matte black paint was chipping off at a worrying fashion. I stuck the blaster in the shower room which is equipped with a heat drying fan , and let it bake in there for 4-5 hours. I don't think it worked for all parts of the gun but it certainly dried the paint without question. Perhaps it helped merge the black and silver layer together a bit. Since then I have had minimal chipping or flaking. I only put down 2 light layers of matte black paint. Still some areas need more paint coverage as I ran out of paint toward the end. Here are the results- sorry I am using iPad quality photos so its hard to really see the fine details. Metal parts still need to be primed and painted. The counter eagle was left gold just for testing my masking skills. I will paint over it in the next round of painting. I also had to use a cheap metal bracket to mount the counter so the placement is temporary. You can see some flaked off paint on the grip, the stock and the end cap lock. The Doopy trigger guard was never a perfect fit on my kit and it puzzled me on how to attach it without it just breaking off. After a 10 minute crack at trying I soon realised that I would not be able to attach it safely for trooping. So I broke out a file and a strip of 3mm thick aluminium and started to grind down the metal to match my DVH trigger guard. After it was beveled, I bent the strip. The DVH guard was not easy to copy and I did my best to make it look the part. It still looks too straight along the bottom and needs to be rounded out a bit. But It looks far batter than the Doopy one did. It took me roughly 2 hours to complete plus some blood and sweat! If I did use the Doopy guard, there was no from for the trigger to move freely. Let me know what you think. I really love the matte black look but debating on going with a satin/semi-gloss black look if I were to paint another layer. What were the screen used blasters like? Matte black? The grip and tracks I will bump up in gloss a bit from the rest of the parts. Hammer paint is not available in Japan as far I as I could see so no cool texturing for this blaster unfortunately.

Sounds like a cool idea. My concern would be how strong the plastic walls are where the Hovi tips are installed. Maybe with some extra support backing it would be fine. It would be interesting to see this actually made.

Thanks Tino and Joseph for your quick responses. Tino, I used TS-17 glossy aluminium and TS-6 matte black but I also used MR. hobby matte black too as an undercoat. I don't think the different company matte blacks caused the problem cause I used just the Tamiya one on certain parts and still had paint come off. I did use a resin primer first then a light surface primer coat , then the silver, then black. I will leave it until I get enough time to tackle this job. I was considering using a light amount of thinner and remaing the black coat and then do some light sanding as you mentioned Joseph. Then apply a clear primer coat , then try the black again. Stop me if you think I am heading for a further disaster. I probably should have left the silver coat to dry a lot more. The black just scrapes of with contact. Might be good for natural weathering but I am guessing there is no stopping it so I might as well do it over. Joseph, interesting to hear you were over here in Japan. I will let you know if I need that special sanding paper. Thank you for offering, I will pay for it ,no sweat!

Tried to get my blaster painted in time for my first troop but I made a big mistake. I used tamiya gloss aluminium spray paint on all the parts and now the matte black paint just scores off . Is there anything I can do to fix this? I guess I can strip ll the paint off again but will that damage the resin? If anyone has some solid advice on a fix or this please let me know. The matte black doesn't stick well to other parts I didn't paint with gloss aluminium. Can it be just the character of matte paints?

Looking great John. With all the added support pieces, this will be one sturdy blaster.

I will try the long way!thanks for providing me again with expert advice! I just didn't want to go by instinct and regret it later by not confirming what is really correct. Both ways I tried looked fine but photo comparisons just added confusion. Hard to truly see the angle downwards. Cheers!

Do you have a sales thread for these yet? If not, how much would one set cost? Amazing job on these!

Mag Housing- Before I permanently attach the magazine housing/well, I wanted to open up an access window to the magazine if I ever manage to cram some electronic in the blaster. Probably I will hollow out the magazine to be used to hold a battery pack and the little extra room left in the magazine housing & receiver (behind the bolt plate) to accommodate the sound board, etc. Speakers could be hidden in the counter if I ran the wires to there but that is something I will figure out later on. One question I have before I attach the mag housing is this- Does the mag housing (when attached to the receiver angle downwards slightly toward the front of the blaster? Or does the top of the mag housing sit perfectly parallel to the receiver tube? Blue line represents the receiver horizontal. Red line is if the mag housing itself is centred on the receiver, top and bottom both sloping inwards/downwards. The green line is if the mag housing top runs at an exact parallel to the receiver tube. Sorry, its actually really hard to explain what I am trying to say so if I failed to be clear , apologies for posting mumbled English!

Great work on the charging handle and bolt. Really starting to come together now.

Some test placement of parts. I established where I wanted each part and drilled some holes for the screws/ bolts to pass through and hold them to the receiver. Instead of using screws for the most of the attachment hardware, I chose to use 3M flathead bolts. On the receiver, I implanted the nuts where the bolts pass through. I will use a strong epoxy to hold the nuts into place and some screw lock to keep the bolts in their place at the final stage. I used the same method for my trigger. Hope it holds! Here are some shots of the parts all mocked up: If something looks off in placement or assembled completely wrong, please let me know. The rear sight is the only part that just doesn't sit well. If correctly aligned on top, the very bottom base of the sight hangs over the charging handle channel's round opening just at the top of the circle, by a millimetre or so. Maybe the hole was enlarged slightly when I was removing all the resin on the inner tube so maybe that is why this is happening. At the moment, I have left it right on the edge of the round opening. Once I started to add these parts on, it really started to feel like a real blaster. Really exciting to see it come together.