Bulldog44

Hi Art. Welcome and no worries about asking questions. I am not a finished TK yet but hope I can answer a few questions for you. 1. A great place to see the differences in Expert & Centurion is to look at the application posts of members for each category. I don't think aiming for Centurion is too difficult if you follow the requirements on the checklist. Once you get more familiar with the details that make an armor centurion level, actually building to those standards is not that far of a stretch. Just take your time and do the research . Troopermaster armor is a great choice. 2. E6000 is extremely forgiving if haven't already heard. I had a few mishaps and was able to remove it and re- glue parts with no problem. It rarely leaves any surface damage if you get it on places you dripped it on. It does take time to cure but certainly a great choice of glue if you are worried about mistakes. I used a PVC glue on one part of my armor and had to remove the part to reposition, it was a mess and regret even trying it. Stick with e6000, you can always use the stronger stuff later. 3. lots of Doh! moments for me but usually cause I failed to check reference photos and ask other members when in doubt. I wish I knew I didn't really need a ton of tools to get the armor trimmed. It helps to have lots of tools in hand but I mainly relied on a a pair of trimming scissors, a metal file and fine grit sandpaper. Bought the whole dremel set but really didn't use it much. ( use it like crazy though for my blaster build!) 4. See how the armor fits to your size first when you get it and start trimming. You might be able to get away with no shims. 5. I don't have much knowledge on shimming but maybe another member here will be able to tell you more if your idea to reduce the shims will work or not. 6. Displaying your armor sounds great, might be a bit tiring to remove and reassembled it if you troop a lot but no matter the backdrop,it will make any corner of the room awesome. Maybe just some interesting LED lights to highlight your armor would be a cheap but effective display option instead of preparing a backdrop. Hope that answers a bit of what you asked. Best luck and post when you finally get your build going!

Great work on the scope. Your build is moving along nicely and it shows. Love the photography too. Looking forward to more posts!

Thanks for the updated versions on the front sight diagrams! Excellent job on these!

I just bored through using DarkCMF/SIMpixels and Superkav's ideas. I bought a $1 magnifying glass that fits nicely on the larger opening and picked up some Gundam modl eye lenses for the smaller one. But I must say using real glass lenses like the other guys used is far better looking and won't scratch like my cheap plastic lenses. Follow their lead on this one. Good luck drilling through! Post progress if you can!

Thanks. Really happy with it so far. How it looks when its all finished is what I waiting for. That trigger area was tricky to do but the little saw did all the work. Yes, it's probably much more fragile now. That can be said about most of my blaster now, especially the magazine port. Big mistake trying to make the magazine slide in. A lot sorrier I did that now. Steve's magazine is larger than the Doopy mag opening so I thinned that down way too much. If one part of this blaster breaks first, its there? I am hoping to one down the inner bolt glare with some real workshop oil & grime , but of now its all bling. Thanks, lots of enthusiasm and luck so far. but I feel like am working blind since this is my first blaster build. Hope I can keep the momentum. Stay tuned!

Thanks, glad you like it so far. I may try to glue it down eventually and trim it to match the custom opening I made for the electronics.

Super thanks for posting the measurements and the photo . Start working on that tomorrow. Can't wait to see this sterling take form into a true TK blaster. Great work so far.

Congrats on the RS purchase. They will do a great job assembling your armor. Can't give you solid advice for the voice and fans, haven't tested mine yet. For the helmet lining, you could purchase a motorcycle helmet lining. I bought a helmet from RS assembled by them and the fit with the original padding and chin strap is actually quite comfortable. Have fun when you get your armor!

Final aluminium bolt plate to be used- used .8mm aluminium sheeting, measured and cut, sanded, and super glued the raised strip on. What it looks like in place- There will be a second thinner plate of .3mm aluminium under the bolt plate to act as a protective slide cover. Without it, the paint would eventually scratch off the blaster along the contact points.It helps slide the bolt smoother. Can't glue it down, it will need to be removable in case I want to access the electronics. Added some of that metal touch to the pistol grip/trigger assembly area.- I used .3 mm aluminium sheeting to do this. First had to use a very thin hobby saw and exact knife the carve a space to insert the sheeting into. I carved it all out to fit a rectangle first. Easier to insert this instead of trying to match the contour lines of the grip. The red box gives you an idea how deep the metal sits. Once it was easy to fit a desired length of metal. I just traced the outer edge on the reverse side while in place, removed it and trimmed it but leaving some extra to fold/bend over the edge. Please with the overall effect. I will paint the remaining silver areas.

Thanks for your comments. Recent work this weekend- lots of sanding and filing things down. Magazine Clip & Magazine Port- bought one of Steve's mag clips during his first run, awesome work. It doesn't fit as I had hoped so I started to remove all the guts in the Doopy mag port. This took forever to sand and file out. I drilled some initial holes......more drilling, dremel sanding..... more sanding, filing...... sanding...... filing....... The walls are quite thin and I stopped when I felt that any further removal would result in damage. Still the clip barely fit inside.....roughly 1mm deep. Forget about a fully intact sliding mag clip. So I started to file down the mag clip along the areas of contact to match the opening of the port. Made some progress but my hands were aching. Called it quits for the night. Here is how far I got- I want to put some electronics in this blaster so I bought some Hasbro lights and sounds off another member here and hope to get them to fit. Since the Hasbro firing button is attached to the board (and I lack any know how on adding a separate one) I need to position the board close to the trigger. I was able to make some room behind the ejector port . I will try to install a moving rod from the trigger to the board located in the receiver. The board /push button sits almost directly over the trigger area so hopefully it won't be too hard to get it all to work. Carved out a lot on the opposite side of the receiver tube and almost breached the outer wall. Luckily this area will be covered by the magazine port & made it easy to run the battery wires if I can get the batteries to fit in the magazine clip.

Awesome! Looking good. Nothing better than the real thing. Dday, if you get a chance, can you measure the little horizontal slot/ opening on the bolt ? I think its the place where the firing pin goes? I am replicating this opening on my aluminum bolt plate right now and stuck on exactly how big it needs to be.

Oh my gosh! ........Absolutlely awesome work! I was just asking Soren on his post what he meant when he posted he had an Ash DLT kit. Hope you are going to offer a kit. Put me down for a one if so. Great work Ash! Super trooper!

Nice find! Thanks for sharing.

Really interested to see your new DLT-19. I heard someone else mention the name ASH before with regards to DLTs but not sure who this is. This a kit available in Europe only? Or is this the Doopy DLT you are talking about? Hoping to get one soon but my options are short with shipping to Japan. Post more info when you can. Congrats on your new purchase!

That's cool!

Wow, this is impressive! You have tons of talent.

Power Cylinders with the nuts and bolts in place- Because I had to widen the hole on the nut to fit the M2 bolt, they no longer threaded through properly so I had to just use some super glue to keep them in place. I will try cleaning up the glue later before priming these parts. Just another photo of the aluminium plate/bolt I re-cut and mocked up last night. Still needs work . If it stays in place properly with the plastic tube that sits under it, it can slide back and forth when you pull back on the cocking handle. Once I get a spring sorted out, then it should keep all the parts in place. (Note: this is not the cocking handle i will use, just a temporary part for testing)

Glad you like the ejector port idea. It's been really difficult to get it all to fit properly. Spent 4 hours last night sanding and cutting more of the inner receiver to get a moving bolt part to fit. So,e progress but this would have been better to attempt on a second build. I will get so,e measurements up of the power cylinders tonight when I get home. The Doopy ones are much bigger but I am not going to mess with re-sizing those! Wish I can get my scope looking like yours. How you used the wax to removed paint for weathering was brilliant. Your build has been my inspiration. Yes, I think its starting to feel crazy stupid actually if it ends up looking like junk. Thanks for the advice on the bolt. Getting the same real sterling look for that is going to be hard but I will try your idea. Maybe I can rub on some real black grease from an auto shop . The seams for the raised part might be obvious so I might try and solder that part on and file it to a clean seamless connection. Call the fire department of you se lots of smoke! Lol. Keep the advice coming !

I haven't thought too much about which blaster to base my build on yet, maybe at a later time. Instead, I have been caught up in trying to make certain parts look more realistic. Here is where I am at- Folding Stock : Inserted some nails to lock the 2 parts in place when gluing them together. This is before I glued the parts together. Fits a bit better than this but I will have to fill the seams and try to cosmetically look like one part. Ejector Port- This is just a test piece. Carved out the needed shape, took 2 days of slow filing but I managed to get the metal plate to slide into place. Plastic Sheet Template for moving bolt plate- Not pretty work but I had to take a lot of the inner walls out to fit the plate inside. Pistol grip- I am trying to see if I can cut and overlay some aluminium plating to areas that have metal showing. Testing it out but it looks interesting enough to give it a try. Just need to carve out some more spacing to tuck the metal into. Power Cylinders- Got some of these ideas from TJAY/Tino's build. Making a mess of it but hopefully it will end up better than it looks. I had to drill a larger hole for the nuts to accommodate the bolts I am using. I made comparisons to the resin power cylinders I bought from Playfulwolf/Aaron and this was as close as I could get to match the nuts and bolts he used. Also tried to find the best matching rods for the fuses. 4mm was too thin, 5mm too thick. I had a broken plastic flag pole/stick sitting around and when I matched it to the fuse size of Aaron's fuses, it seemed to be the best out of the four choices I had.Would have preferred to use metal but it will be painted in the end anyway. Scope- drilled out the inside of the scope with a step bit first but should have used the flat wood bits first. Finally got it all done without cracking the scope to pieces. The big hole is bit off centre though. Found a $1.00 magnifying glass lens and fit that into the larger opening, Fits okay. Still some black plastic pieces stuck to the clear plastic from the frame it was mounted in. For the smaller lens, I will try to use some eye lens kit parts used to assemble Gundam models. Post that later if it works. Looks better from the side. Here are the bits I used to drill the holes. Thats all for now!

Awesome! That's the money shot! Exactly what I needed.Super thanks Germain! It's going to be hard to replicate that square end part on the inner rod but I will try it. With this photo I have a great reference point. Arigato!

Thanks Germain. Very helpful. Do you happen to know the measurements for that squarish joint piece ? If you have a topside view as well of that , please post it. Appreciate your help!

I am trying to figure out what the folding stock looks like from underneath , right near the wishbone section; its the moveable joint section for the extending pipe and the stock handle. There are almost no pictures of this area and I need some below, rear and top views of how this stock looks when it's folded up(like the doopy kit stock). If someone could post some nice detailed photos of this , I would deeply appreciate it. Thanks.

Thanks all for adding your thoughts. Luckily I ordered one of Steve's mag clips on the first run. Once saw that, I knew it had to have one. Thanks Derrek for breaking down the complexity of doing a kit. If I had the know how and cash I would love to have a sterling 1:1 accurate replica molded like plactic car models. Probably fragile but replacement parts would be easy to make. Just dreaming!

Thanks Steve and Andrew for pointing that out. I can move it back with no problem and it should stay snug with the rubber squares. Its good to have people steering me correctly. I will get the spring figured out and see if that does the trick like you said Andrew. I do have some sponge pad adhesive that I can use too. Great advice. If I didn't live in Japan, I would just scrap all this and get a real Sterling! Just a question out of curiosity, why aren't there more members or people who make sterling replica kits? The demand is there it seems. I know the start up cost is expensive & time to cast parts is consuming but it would be great to have a selection of blaster kits to choose from or piece together (taking advantage of different materials for each part casted) Are there legal implications for reproducing gun parts ? These may be redundant questions but interested to hear other thoughts or reasons on the matter.

Thanks awesome. Hope to hear what you find out. Certainly keep me posted!