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Bulldog44

Imperial Attaché[TK]
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Everything posted by Bulldog44

  1. Great to see you have come back and hear you finally finished your kit.
  2. Sweet! The paint color on the lower half really pulls the whole thing together. And the black wash gives it that real world weathered look. As always, fantastic work Tino. Its fun trying to imagine what the rest of the armor would look like.
  3. Very nice Jakob. We’re those receiver tubes expensive to make? Can the local maker also replicate the rolled front end on the receiver tubes? Interested to know if that can be done.
  4. Congratulations Andrew! Looking forward to another great year under your leadership.
  5. Great job! Lovin it. Well done fixing the paint that bled on the tube stripes. On my ATA helmet build I considered using the tube stripe stencils but i had a bad experience using stencils on another project. Instead I decided to try the original method and brush the stripes on. With the right brush it made the job easier than I expected. I am stumped on the ear screw colors. Perhaps matte black but I agree with Iza, the brass looks interesting in the scheme of things.
  6. Not much of an update on the blasters but just thought to share my progress working out how to make my own power cylinders. Lots of material testing and sorting out dimensions I am happy with. Got my 10BA bolts and nuts. Sourced some local resistors here in Japan and still on the hunt for better braided wire. The red stuff I got cheap from ebay is just nylon sheathing. Good for making things cheaply but the detail is lacking. Made my crude templates for the base plate in MS Publisher. Trying to learn some CAD draw so I can make files to send to a laser cutting company.
  7. Sorry I thought you were doing the whole costume. Helmet is the best part anyway so this will be a beautiful display piece.
  8. Way to go Scott! Congratulations Centurion!
  9. I love the green color for the helmet. Amazing rust effect on the blast shield. I am a huge fan of camouflage but think the solid NATO green for this project will certainly be better. Perhaps you could add camouflage to a weapon or some accessory pouch ,etc.
  10. Very cool project Tino! Off to a great start. Will this costume be more battle damage style or fresh from the armory? I love the blast shield part.
  11. Welcome aboard Victor! Looking forward to seeing your completed TX especially with the integrated electronics. Good luck!
  12. Congratulations Alexander! Countdown from 10! Here we go!
  13. Yes, the jewelry caps are not the best and require more tedious cutting and sanding to get the right look. Plus the walls are super thin so they don't nice used on the thicker 9.2mm tube. Visually not well-balanced. Thanks for your feedback. I feel better now going with the decorative screw caps. I just ordered more to work on over the holiday break. Good point about the tubes. Agreed, the ABS clear tubes are looking to be the material of choice if I make lots of these power cylinders. And those needle files will probably do the job better than me fussing around with my dremel. If I can fabricate some cheap jig set up to keep the tubes perfectly straight, then I think this will greatly increase my success rate and speed up production. Perhaps I can make the brass or aluminum ones as an upgrade if I solve the notch issue. Thanks also about the capacitors. Not sure they are perfect but hopefully they pass for replica looking capacitors. I have some really fine drill bits to make holes but would like to try your idea first.
  14. Here are the 4 different tube materials I have tested so far. From left to right: A- Plastic hobby tube (9.2mm OD) / Caps made from jewelry strap ends.) B- Clear ABS tube (9mm OD / decorative metal screw end caps) C- Aluminum tube (9mm OD / decorative metal screw end caps) D- Brass tube (9mm OD / decorative metal screw end caps) Not sure what is the best to use overall but for price, availability and ease to work with, the clear ABS hits all of those checks. They will be painted so the clear tubes shouldn't be an issue to use. The brass ones have nice weight to them though. The main issue I have at the moment is not about the materials so much but my tools for creating the end notches. Using my dremel set up with a resin cutting wheel but I can't cut nice straight, even notches. Homework for the next few weeks will be looking into better ways to make nicer cuts or consider buying a better piece of equipment. Its probably better I tackle the base plate first before wasting too much time on just the notch issue. Lastly- Capacitors 5mm plastic hobby craft rods- Filed into shape using my drill and some metal files. Main tube section measures 25mm in length. Still very crude and unevenly made but I think they are looking okay for now. Aluminum looks nicer than the plastic ones but for they take more time to file into shape. Thanks again for stopping by.
  15. Latest on my power cylinders- Found some newer style end caps that are cheaper and easier to modify than the ones I previously posted. End caps: 10mm OD/ 8mm ID Brass Tubing: 9mm OD To get the end cap inner diameter to fit over the 9mm brass tubing I had to drill once with an 8.5 flat profile drill bit and then again with a 9mm drill bit. I found drilling in one go with the 9mm drill bit resulted in more inaccuracy. The great thing about the flat profile bit is that it leaves a nearly perfect centered indent. This sets up my marks to drill the center holes for 10BA screws. I am really liking the look of the brass tubes. Unfortunately it's very expensive and not easily available in large quantities here in Japan. Aluminum tubing and ABS tubing are the other materials I will be testing out to see what is easiest to use & more economical. Sorry this is becoming more of a power cylinder build thread than blasters at the moment. Hopefully I can get back on track to finish the blasters at some point.
  16. Wow, this is cruising along. Way to go troopers! Congrats to all those that have recently made it. Finish line is so close now!
  17. Yes Tino, correct. I am trying to make a master set to make copies from. That’s the plan for the resin ones at least. I tried using right angles ABS strips for the base plate. ABS is easier to drill for sure and would certainly be a better idea for the resin power cylinders as you suggested. The right angle parts are okay but I am not liking the sharp angle of the bend so maybe it’s better to have them laser cut on a flat piece and then just need some heat to bend them into shape. Thanks for your suggestions. I was originally thinking of all resin casted but the base plate is not so straight forward to mold and cast. Fragile as well I imagine.
  18. Had a chance to test drilling out the inner threaded section on these caps. Luckily I had the right size drill bit but found some drilling oil is needed. You can see from left to right- pre-drilled, partially drilled and fully drilled out. Last thing to do is to cut down the cap to its final size with the mini pipe cutter. These caps look really nice and have some weight to them. Unfortunately more expensive than the jewelry caps and require drilling so these are just for experimentation at the moment. Has anyone ever used this service for CNC laser cutting service? If it's cheap enough I might try to get some base plates made from my templates. Might be easier and cheaper to use aluminum so its easy to bend the plate to the finished right angle. https://www.emachineshop.com/
  19. Thank you! They are certainly not easy to make consistently. I find something wrong each time I work on the parts.
  20. Offering metal versions?????? No way!!!!! Ha! I can't even drill the center hole correctly. Maybe if I get better at making them it's an idea to think about. But if people want really accurate and machine crafted power cylinders they should go to Chris or Dennis, Andy as well if he decides to make them again. Chris's cylinder kits are super nice too for the people who want to build them. Perhaps I could prepare kits for the budget builder. The materials I use are relatively cheap. Just labor intensive and hard to get the drill holes perfect and the cuts clean and aligned. Hopefully I can make a nice enough master set to cast from. Many possibilities how to go about this, cast part for part or 1-3 part assembly. Not sure yet.
  21. Progress on making my own power cylinders: Here is what I have made so far. Aluminum base plate is still not cut to finish yet. My tools for drilling and cutting are very basic so its hard to make these with more precision. More work on these in the next coming weeks. Paper mockup of the base plate. Still need to work on my template but so far it seems sufficient to use. End Caps- 10mm metal fittings. These are used in jewelry making. The walls are too thin when placed onto the 9mm tubing so I need to use some kind of filler or glue. It,s literally a hairline seam to fill. I can use 9.5mm piping so the end caps fit perfectly snug but it somehow doesn't make the end cap stand out enough, looks almost seamless. I used a mini pipe cutter to trim down the caps, sawed off the top end eyelet, drilled a center hole for the 10BA bolts and filed down the sharp edge a touch to make them look more like the original end caps. Ordered some fuses from the UK to try those for the end caps like Playfulwolfcub used. I also bought some locally found stainless steel screw caps that look perfect for the end caps. They need to be trimmed down too and I need to remove the inner threading. Not sure my hobby drill press can do this type of work but I will give it try. Here you can see a side profile of the metal I need to remove.
  22. Thank you Daniel for all your time and effort.
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