Bulldog44

Folding Stock- After lots of time wasted on trying to figure out the best way to connect the folding stock, I decided to remove the entire inner rod like usaeatt2 did on his build. (Thanks Aaron for taking that mod the extra step. Also thanks for the magnet idea as I will be using that to connect the stock to the receiver.) First I drilled and shaped the opening (looks like a key slot) on the inner rod where the latch on real sterling would be. It was wise to make the new inner rod first to take measurements from the Doopy stock otherwise I would have been working without a reference. For the odd shaped end piece of the inner rod, I bought some 14mm x14mm aluminium and tried making one. It was easy to file down but getting it factory perfect would require further metal working skills. Once I figured out that the magnet method to connect the stock was the route I decided on, the aluminium inner rod and end piece would be better used on my DVH kit build. So I am going to re-use the original PVC end piece/block and black PVC tubing instead. I will add photos of those parts tomorrow. Below is a quick peek at the magnets temporarily glued in place. Added epoxy to fill the open pockets and entomb the magnets in their position on one side so far. A slim rectangular magnet will slide in between the magnets to lock it in place. Post more on that tomorrow too. I trimmed and glued the headphone jacks into place on the folding stock wishbone ends. Afterwards, I filled in the open seams with some epoxy. The finishing metal hinge caps will be glued on once everything sets. Post photos later on that. End Cap- I might have totally screwed this up but when I referenced the end caps on real sterlings, the circular piece that holds the D-ring in place looks like it sits almost flush with the end cap wall. It looks slightly raised. So instead of sanding the circular part down at the base, I carved out a deep enough space to fit that part into the end cap wall. Not seen here yet, I already sunk the circular part in epoxy and filled in the crude gaps and seams. Here are just a few photos of the process so far. I also added the clear rubber tube to the d-ring where it sits behind the circular piece to reduce the d-ring from dangling around too much. It fits nice and snug! More to come soon!

Rear Sight: Here is the Doopy rear sight I received. I tried to clean up the pivot pin on each side but they still looked way too deformed and lacked detail. Here is the updated rear sight with new hardware. The larger aluminium rings are no deeper than 2-3mm deep. I drilled a hole straight through the rear sight to fit the 3mm solid aluminium shaft (this fits nice and snug so everything stay in place). I drilled shallow holes on the ends on each shaft to create the the same look as the sterling pin/shaft. Little bit of fine sanding and they look much better than what was there before.

Thanks Carl for the suggestion. I was thinking of using one of those but decided to go another route. The headphone jacks seem to work the best for what I want to do. I will keep these in mind for future use!

Very cool!

Love that joke! I should have saw that coming! Thanks for the magnet idea too, I will see if they magnets I have are strong enough to keep the stock from getting disconnected. Bone, thanks too for the idea. If I can find a way to install a jack port in the receiver tube without disrupting the inner barrel, then it might work perfectly. Maybe I can combine the magnet /jack idea together. Cheers!

My initial attempt to attach the folding stock ended in failure. Luckily I also failed to photo record the whole mess up. I didn't want to permanently lock the stock in place but instead make it pivot & removable. At first I had small modest drill holes to connect all the parts but as the situation unfolded I ended up widening the holes to try a few different ideas that didn't work as planned. So I left it for a few days and tried again but this time using earphone jacks to connect the fork end of the folding stock. They snap into place securely and also allow the stock to pivot. Removed the rubber casing for the port end of an earphone jack cable. I drilled a smaller inner hole to accommodate the port end. I will also fill in the empty spacing with some plastic ring to secure the port end more. Here is the port end in place. It sits nice and flush. I will cut and attach the male jack end to the fork ends. The jack port end is sticking out a bit juts to show how the two parts will connect. When both jack ends are secured in place and sit flush, they will connect nice and snug without much of a gap. Plus the stock can pivot without falling off. I can easily disconnect these parts too. One problem I have not addressed yet is how to attach the front end of the folding stock to the receiver tube. Back to the drawing board on that one.

Thanks Carl. Its not finished yet but if it turns out okay I can try making you one. I will post more progress on the sight when its done. Cheers!

Thanks Tino! Happy you like the lock. I tried my best to get it as close as possible to a real one in looks. . Please feel free to use any more photos for your sales thread if you would like. Your kit is even more detailed now with the channel addition! I did try heating both the tool and PVC part to press the pattern on a practice piece but I didn't want to warp the clip part so I tried to play it safe. Next time I will try your idea and use more heat. As for my front sight block, I was starting to get the hang of cutting & shaping the aluminum so I figured on giving it a try. I plan on using it with my next blaster build.i still have a V1 DVH kit boxed up with a cool new Dday aluminum receiver tube! It will be cool to have a metal sight block for that! Thanks Aaron! It's always reassuring to hear your assessment of sterling parts and how they should look. I think i have knurling on the brain! Without your help understanding and seeing the breakdown of this part, I would not have been able to complete it!

You probably had enough of my end cap lock mod but here is the final leg of this job. I didn't hammer it out as planned but instead spent sporadic moments here and there adding the finishing touches. Instead of just making one lock, I got caught up making spares in case I screwed things up. Then I wanted to test the difference in materials and see what would work best for this build. The T clip on the far right lock is the original part from the Doopy kit. The other parts are made from aluminium & PVC. PVC Aluminium I had to do a lot of filing and sanding to get the channel walls thinned down to match the real sterling part. The second photo shows the difference in wall thickness between the right and left channels where they butt against each other in the middle. Here is an original DVH V1 end cap lock next to my handmade PVC channel w/ doopy clip. Since I wanted this part to actually move and function like the real thing the PVC channel was not the best choice for this so I decided to use the aluminium one instead for durability. Ultimately I wanted to have a 100% aluminium end cap lock but i ran into trouble on how to add the knurling pattern to the end of the clip. So a mixture of the PVC clip and aluminium channel was the final choice to incorporate all the details. The rivet head that hold the spring in place suffered a little cosmetic damage when I hammered it down but it gives it a little character. Dissected view. Stainless steel pivot pin. Spring board made from a bulldog clip. Two aluminium rivets.Aluminium tubing for the pivot pin to slide through the clip. the spring tension is strong enough to hold the clip into place and keep the pivot pin in position without it sliding out, just like a real sterling! Here are the rivets I used and you can see the slight difference in head size. I re-shaped them/filed them down to the desired size using my dremel to spin them while I applied a file to them and finished them off with some fine sand paper. Without Tino's idea to do this I would have ended up with metal globs. Thanks again Tino for your super detailed build! Here is the hole punching tool with a close enough knurling patterns for the clip end. I used it for the front sight guard too. I need to perfect a better way to imprint it. Tried heating the tool and pressing but it didn't print deep enough. Lastly, I started working on an aluminium front sight block. I couldn't source any small aluminium blocks to make it one solid piece like the real sterlings have so I went with a two part block and try to hide the seam line once I merge the two blocks together. I don't have any fancy cutting tools so its lots of painstaking cuts and filing to make it. Maybe someday I can have a real workspace with proper tools & machinery to make these things with greater ease and in less time. More to come on how I am going to attach the folding stock to the receiver.

Thanks Germain for the assurance. I forgot to add the paint layers into the equation. Many thanks! Thanks Ian. Finally got it done! Thank you very much! Hopefully this will be a more common mod thanks to your new and updated custom parts kit! Thanks Mark. Love to see those pipe builds if you got pics! Sorry guys for the late reply to your messages, been out of action but hope to have more soon.

Looking really sharp! Super attention to detail. Best of luck Tim! Love that blaster too.

I bought an RS PVC kit in 2012 and it was very thin and flexible. Then when I ordered some spare parts last year to fix some mistakes I made, the newer PVC parts seemed a lot thicker and felt different. It did seem more brittle as well bit I didn't try to really break anything so I am not 100% sure on that. Just my feeling after flexing it a bit. The white for the PVC is whiter than the RS ABS . They sent me an ABS replacement part by mistake and I could clearly notice the difference. ABS looking more of a off white,slightly less gloss. You will be ordering one or the other so when it comes it will still look great and a nice white. If I had the cash again I would order an ABS kit to go the screen accurate used look. I went through the same hard decision too but just thought PVC would look a lot whiter which is what I wanted at first and thought the PvC was more flexible. I think the kit I received hit both of those marks but the recent PVC used by RS as Dday mentioned might be a thicker grade . Inquire with RS about that for sure. Hopefully this info gives you a little more to make your decision on. But remember, both are solid choices and look great once they are built. If you are sure you want screen accurate armor& strapping get the ABS, but if you are on the side of looking like a slightly brighter TK , the PvCis the choice. Good luck!

Sorry not a great shot of the S trim, but here it is from the ATA kit I have. Hope this helps.

I will try to take a picture of my S trim that's in my ATA helmet kit tonight for you if i don't forget. You can also see a photo of s trim on trooperbay's web store. It looks a bit different than the trim on my RS helmet and the one that came with my ATA kit but should be fine. For the mesh behind the teeth/frown, I think it is okay to have for basic 501st approval but maybe not for Expert infantry or Centurion clearance. Hopefully someone with more knowledge on this can provide you with a definite answer. Congrats Dave on your kit by the way and really hope you enjoy building it. Stick to your process of ask three times, measure twice and cut & glue once and you will be fine. I made a few irreversible mistakes by skipping that method a few times. But it was a fun learning experience. Certainly feel free to keep asking questions,lots a members here to provide you with the answers you need. Looking forward to seeing how your build progresses! Good luck!

Wow! Looks spot on! Awesome.

The wrist strap came out really nice. I might try that idea. Thanks for posting it! Awesome work on your build!

Very cool work on the electronics. My head spins every time I read through this. Off to a great start. Looking forward to see your blaster build progress ,

Sorry nothing fancy with my nickname. I love bulldogs and have a French bulldog at home named Luke Skywalker. Always like the number 4 so I just doubled it up or more luck.

Agreed. Never ran across this thread before. Amazing work done here. I discovered a few of the same around the house items to use on my build thinking it hadn't been used before but this guy already did that ,done that! Art, thanks for bringing this thread to light !and Lucas, wherever ou are, fantastic job!

Can you paint over the lines with a another base coat of gray? Then re-do the lines? Not sure if they will show through but it might be the safest option before trying to remove paint which can be a risky job if things go wrong.

Resumed work on the end cap clip this week. My original plan was to salvage the resin channel I dissected then separating the middle T clip piece. I wanted to make this part a moving part but the channel walls re-glued wouldn't provide much support this idea. So Sith Lord suggested using a metal channel. Bought the aluminium channel and started the basic cuts based on usaeatt2's measurements. Still need to drill the holes to mount the T clip part but its coming along. PVC Made End Cap Clip & Channel- tested making a PVC channel and also a PVC T clip piece. Unfinished but seen below. Metal spring board testing- cut a strip of metal from a bulldog clip. Flexible but springs back into position nicely. Aluminium End Cap Clip- Decided to try making a T-clip part as well to compliment the aluminium channel. The dremel kicked up a bad cloud of silver dust when cutting the aluminium channel and aluminium T-clip part so I hand sawed everything with a metal hacksaw, used metal files to refine the lines and buffed it with a finer grit sanding sponge. Not as accurate as I hoped but I spared myself and my family of harmful dust clouds. I will attempt another T-clip part since this current one doesn't fit as snug as I had hoped,. I sanded the sides down a bit too much so it slides into very loosely. I will also need to somehow punch the knurling pattern into one end. The PVC T-clip part will be easier to add the knurling; just need to warm the knurled metal and apply some pressure. Matching the pivot pin, the locking pin and the spring rivet sizes will be another hurdle. More to come!

Darn, sorry to see that happen. But I think this information will be useful for anyone thinking to try that with an RS PVC suit. I hope I never run into some prank artist who tosses a bucket of hot water on me at a troop. I will melt like the witch of west in the wizard of Oz! I had a smaller scale scare when using a blow dryer on the right thigh top ridge to re-shape the edges. Once the PVC got warm enough, it warped uncontrollably fast.

Thanks Ben for posting the video. Very helpful. Not bulky at all. Looks sturdy and does the trick. I'm going to look for a similar switch based on your setup. Many thanks!

Very cool. Thanks for posting the video. What kind of trigger set up are you using? It's hard to see in the video. Awesome progress and it really helps show the size of the adafruit sound module installed in a doopy blaster.

Outstanding!i always wanted to make this costume. You did a great job and the effects for the voice is the cherry on top. What I'd you use for tht? Sound board? Watch out rebels! Super Spy alert!