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Bulldog44

Imperial Attaché[TK]
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Posts posted by Bulldog44

  1. Sorry no updates for the blasters but looking for information on measurements for the power cylinders.

     

    I am in the process of making my own set of power cylinders and looking to buy resistors that are located behind the main baseplate. I have read through Playfulwolfcub's info but can't seem to find the correct resistors to order. I don't want to waste lots of money ordering possibilities so if someone has the correct size I can refer to that would great. I think Usaeatt2 listed the specs on the resistors he used but it does not seem to guarantee the sizes when ordering. He said they were about 9.2mm in length?     

     

    The power cylinders are certainly not easy to make. I am making lots of guesses on the dimensions to keep these original as possible and not rely heavily on Playfulwolfcub's (Andy's) research too much out of respect. Most of the materials are locally purchased items so the measurements are restricted to what I can buy here. The only things that I need to source from outside Japan are the resistors if I can't find them here and the 10BA bolts and nuts from the UK. 

     

    Any help here is greatly appreciated. 

    • Like 1
  2. 12 hours ago, T-Jay said:

    My Phoenix Props kits a few years ago all had a one-piece folding stock, which (as far as I know) was cast from the cleaned Sterling parts set that you have now.

     

    I always wanted to see (and have) a detailed resin folding stock. Yeah, it might break - but I would take that risk. :D

    Interesting. I had a look back into Dday's posts and it seems he did cast the stock in 2 parts at first but then moved back to a one piece cast. So your stock is the newer Phoenix prop stock. https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/28047-phoenix-props-e-11-stormtrooper-blaster-kits-a-new-hope-and-esb/?do=findComment&comment=414476

    This explains a lot as I noticed on the wishbone stock part I have the paint texture is still present as it was on the DVH stock. So he somehow casted the stock, cut up a few stocks  & separated the parts and recasted them. 

    I understand why he did this now as it is very time consuming to cast all the parts, especially when you are offering blaster kits.. But like the scopes, I always want to have all the parts like the real deal. Not sure I will ever offer full kits but would like to try to cast all the parts and see how things stand from there. When that time comes I will certainly be interested to your feedback on the parts like you did with the scopes. ;)

     

  3. Hi Dylan. I bought an ATA kit many moons ago with hopes to use it at a practice build. I worried about messing it up so I never put it together until this year. I bought a pre-assembled RS helmet to help me at the time as a reference. It seemed the longer I prolonged doing it I started to doubt I could do it well. Instead of waiting,  I say go for it and build the ATA kit, take your time with trimming and setting up the 2 halves to place the holes and of course the ears, go real slow and steady. Its a fun helmet to build and think you can do it. I did make a few mistakes here and there but nothing I could not hide or fix. 

    But if you still feel like you want a pre-built helmet all of the makers recommended above are great. The RS helmet has all the original bumps and oddities. When I first got it and compared it to my ATA kit , I was bit surprised how much thinner the plastic was. Its nice to have the 2 to compare. 

     

    Side note: My ATA helmet is smaller in size than my RS helmet. Not sure if this is common or a result of the bucks used by ATA shrinking over time when vacuum forming. But the fit for the ATA is a tighter on my head. Side by side you can see the size difference too.

  4. Here is a quick look at the 3 types of folding stocks I will be using for my blasters.

    The top stock is the original one from the DVH kit; one full casted piece, non-moving parts 

    The middle stock is from Phoenix Props kit. I am not sure if this was modified to cast into 2 parts from the DVH kit stock. It still has the old sterling paint in some areas so I think that is what this is from. Then Dday went with newer parts to cast from. I might be wrong about this so please feel free correct me. 

    The bottom stock is casted from the paint stripped parts I acquired from Dday. 

    Side View

    OdBpn2O.jpg

    Top View

    ps1v6iK.jpg

    Parts For Part 

    Nvre49y.jpg

     

    For the DVH and Phoenix Prop stocks I am working on removing the inner resin to fit in the folding arm tubing. The DVH stock is really interesting as it has all the paint texture and battle worn look & feel to it. Lots to clean up and patch but still fun to work on. Nice point about this stock is the hinge mount part is casted with the stock wishbone arms so its easy to glue onto the receiver tube & the outer hinge caps are casted into the piece.  The Phoenix Prop stock was a huge improvement from the DVH and Doopy stocks as it added more depth and detail by molding the handle part separately. No Need to carve out areas to make it appear like 2 parts. 

     

    The stock I casted will have all the parts included. I have only molded the large parts so far but hope to start on the smaller parts at some point. The stock will be fully movable, lightweight but with the parts being plastic and very thin, I don't think it will be very strong and will eventually break.

    :DJust fun to go from a static one piece stock assembly to a 1:1 part for part replica. 

     

    • Like 3
  5. Hi Tino! Yes, well overdue indeed. I am out of space and excuses so this had to get started. Hoping to add a bit of history info on the development of the kits from DVH, DDay to the parts I am now slowly molding and casting in phases. 
    For the DVH kit there are a lot of areas that require drilling out to get that realistic look but I think I might not go too crazy with this one and leave it mostly as it came. 
    And about the bayonet lug flattened area on the receiver tube continued from this thread -https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/48391-sterling-smg-mk4-l2a3/?do=findComment&comment=704931  I believe you are 100% correct that the flattened area extends to the second hole. I only have the casting of the front end of the receiver to reference. It looks like it goes past the first hole but the front end was part I have is cut off slightly past the first hole so it’s hard to tell for sure. This is the only thing that seems to be incorrect on Andy’s template. I am not sure if this was intentional or a detail he missed. Maybe there variations on different era sterling’s. 
    7QG0ASj.png
    Just to keep an accurate account of the builds I didn’t use the temples seen above for the first 4 receiver tubes I drilled out. I used the e-11 temple found in the template section. Both templates are very close in comparison but I think Andy’s template seems to bit more accurate when using my DDay aluminum receiver tube as a second reference. 


     

    Blaster #2 - Hybrid/ FrankenBlaster  (Local plumbing PVC pipe receiver)

    Doopy parts: magazine well, possibly using doopy counter too

    DVH/Dday parts: Folding stock

    Magazine clip from Gazmosis

    Additionally Bulldog Prop parts.
    PXCclZo.jpg
    The DDay folding stock was casted in 2 parts and really helped give that extra look of realism. I still need to add the folding arm pipe detail once I get the inside area drilled out. 
    IUtcrzR.jpg
    Next up, I still need to fix the bayonet lug flattened area to extend to the second hole on this receiver tube and all the other tubes I have in the cue. 

     

     

    • Like 1
  6. Original DVH E-11 Blaster Kit (2014)

    yRraIan.jpg?1
    SAXYIuc.jpg

    Already started to build the kit but will try to record progress from here. I have a few other blasters in progress too made up from spare parts from Doopy, DDay and my own casted parts. I will update those blasters here as well. Stay tuned! 
     

    The DVH kit came with a 40mm diameter pipe and the inner diameter was big enough for the bolt to fit inside. Unfortunately the 40mm pipe looks too big so I went with some locally found pvc pipe that measures almost exactly 38.1mm outer diameter. The walls of the pipe are too thick to fit the bolt so for this blaster the original DVH bolt will not be used. I might make a custom bolt plate or make a partial bolt cast that can be trimmed and glued in place. 
     

    Other parts that still need some work are the t-tracks and the folding stock. The power cylinders are too big looking so I will not use the ones supplied with the kit. The scope and counter have some issues but I will use them anyway. In general most of the parts came very unfinished and required lots of trimming, sanding and re-shaping with epoxy putty. This was a new groundbreaking kit at the time being cast from original parts that still preserved the paint & patina finish. It paved the way for more accurate cast from original part kits and inspired me to have a go at casting original scopes.
    Thought it was about time to break out the parts & bring this kit to life. 
     

    • Like 3
  7. Nice job with the knurling on the front sight. Once that black coat of paint is applied it is like magic. The one thing I dislike about 3D printed parts is as you mentioned, they can warp in the sun. I had this problem with an F-11D kit I recently assembled. Was devastated to discover the parts warped beyond repair and had to finish it as it was. 

    Great work and looking forward to seeing this completed.

  8. It would be great to see any photos of the electronics and step of progress if you documented them. Electronics is still a foreign language to me so I am interested to learn more how builders mod existing kits or  build them from the ground up. 

    The double laser diodes look cool. 

  9. I recently was able to download individual folders with all the photos, no problem. Not sure about downloading the entire collection of photos I uploaded to PB, but perhaps if done by folders, it works. It zipped them then I just extracted and uploaded to Imgur.

  10. 2 hours ago, Sly11 said:

    RA Props? do you have some contact information by chance Brian!

    Sure. Here it is:

    http://www.stormtrooperblaster.com/shop.html

    http://www.stormtrooperblaster.com/stormtrooper-blaster-accessories.html

     

    The site header says RA props but the web address title is stormtrooper blaster. Robert is great to deal with. Unfortunately I juts contacted him to buy some t track and he said operations were at a halt and resuming production of his inventory is uncertain at this point. Whats listed up is all there is at the moment and I did not see the stock listed. 

     

    I just noticed in my rush to post a reply yesterday the original posting member wanted stock information not the actual folding stock... :lol: Stupid me. 

     

  11. Hi Erik. This is a tall order to find the correct setup for a functioning scope. I own several real scopes that I use to cast resin copies. I tried many times to find some alternative ways to transplant existing scope setups inside the M38 or M19 replica scopes but found it difficult to say the least. I will never say impossible as I know there are people out there with great ideas and knowledge to make it work somehow.  I was able to buy the remaining stock of original prisms and prism cells for the M38s and M19s. Even with those prisms I could not get the correct lenses to make the scope work correctly. These were very precisely made back in the day. Having custom lenses and prisms made would cost me my kidney or kidneys so that idea went out the door quickly.    But with all that said, I would keep testing various lenses and see if you can get the image to invert as you hope. Maybe someone with optic expertise can help figure out a good but cheap way to make this happen. 

    Check out my resin scope kits on my FB page https://www.facebook.com/BulldogPropsJapan . These are exact copies of the original scopes inside and out so you could try and replicate the original lens/prism setup as closely as possible. 

    • Like 2
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