Dark CMF

Brandon, how big are you, and did you trim your sides at all?

LoL... Derek, if you read my very last paragraph, I asked everyone again about sealant. I have a can here, but the extra coats of paint appear to have made the finish far more durable than it was. Still up in the air about it, pending the community input.

Pictures promised yesterday... Working to deliver them today. Might be posted in several installments though, because I'm watching a VERY important hockey game. LET'S GO HAWKS!!! First things first, I needed to get some paint onto the counter bracket and the scope rail. Flat black for everybody!! Next, I decided that I had to get the bolt/ejection port area painted on the body. Originally, I intended to mask the area and spray it with the flat soft iron. When it came time to do it though, I didn't feel like masking it, because I had other things to do with it. Instead, I opted to simply spray some of the paint into a container and use a brush. My container of choice: A Styrofoam cup from Sonic, because I didn't want to destroy anything that we permanently own. Right here, all I have to do is cut the cup to a more manageable height, and begin painting! Got it painted, sometime in the next few days, I'll give it some silver highlights. OH! Guess what? Spray paint EATS Styrofoam. At least this paint did. It's a good thing that Luciana was supervising today, instead of Feliks. Had it been Feliks, he and I would never have even seen that until it was too late. As it was, Luciana was upset that I was a: Laughing, and b: Stopped to take a picture of it before cleaning it up. Rear sight before weathering. Magazine before weathering. Rear sight, after some light weathering. Another look at the rear sights. Yet another view of the rear sight after weathering. Magazine end after some light weathering. Back of the magazine well and surrounding area after some weathering. Bayonet attaching area, before weathering. Muzzle and front sight area, before weathering. Front right exhaust vent, before weathering. Ejection port area, before weathering. A quick look at the left side of the blaster, after some weathering. Left front of muzzle/front sights, after some weathering. Front of muzzle, after some weathering. Right side of muzzle/exhaust/sight, after weathering. Marking hole locations to drill the holes in the counter bracket. Holes are drilled, and two socket head screws are in place. Looks like it will be a good fit. Using the bracket to mark the hole locations in the counter itself. Holes are drilled, left one has had the screw inserted to tap the thread. After tapping the thread in the right one, the bracket is attached on the right side. Both screws in place, counter mounted to the bracket. About to assemble the scope/counter rail assembly. The Scope on the rail, the counter on it's bracket, and both of them together! All ready to put it on the blaster! And it is in place for a test fit. Looking like it can crush the rebellion all by itself. (Notice that I managed to knock the trigger guard off during this process. It didn't have much epoxy on it last time. This time, it will get significantly more.) Another angle, showing the mounting location. For some reason, in these pictures, the rail appears to be curved upward. It has a slight bow to it, but it doesn't look anything like this amount of bowing in person. Like I was saying... Just looks quite bowed in the pictures. Screw driven into the front of the rear sight to mount the scope rail to the blaster. Used a paint marker to paint the screw head black. Using the paint marker to mark the depth of this screw, for eventual use in attaching the selector switch. Gathering the hardware together that will be used to attach the folding stock. Mounting bracket is installed. Folding stock is affixed to the bracket. Right side hardware is in place. Hardware for the left side is ready to go! Lining up the holes in the blaster, the bracket, and rivet for installation. Now, just a few quick, easy taps with the hammer... Here, the stock is mounted, light weathering is completed. The blaster is basically done. I have to build the bolt/charging handle, mount the selector switch, install the counter numbers after I have them and finish assembling the counter (that's why it has blue tape holding the face on), and a bit of weathering for the bolt. Another look around the blaster: Front left angle of the muzzle. Bayonet area. Rear of the magazine area, you can see that I have darkened the trigger a little bit during my weathering. Magazine end. End cap and rear sight/scope - you can see the red light reflecting off of the scope lens on the blaster. Rear, right oblique view of the end cap. Still need that charging handle and bolt, huh? Right side, ejection port and trigger area. Ejection port area from the front right-hand side. Right, front oblique of the muzzle. Front of scope details. Rear of scope details. So, that's the work that was done. Obviously there are still a few things to do, and I'd appreciate mentioning anything else that should be done that I haven't mentioned and therefore am overlooking. All of the weathering was dry brushed onto the blaster. I'm curious as to whether most of you applied a top-coat/sealant of any kind to the blasters? I bought a can, but with the last few coats of paint, the finish all of a sudden seems far more durable. Thanks again for checking in/following along. Please leave comments/suggestions/questions, etc in the thread for everyone to learn from

Looking good, Derek. I agree with Aaron on the stock. Just rub some putty into the seam, sand it down, and do some touch-up painting on it. Should be good to go!

I'm a big fan of that flat soft iron. Definitely looks the part. Looking good so far!

Awesome issue, PR crew!! Truly inspiring, helpful, informative, and fun. Everything it should be! Thank you.

Looking seriously nice. Curious to see where it tips the scales!

Truthfully, Ian... You're right. LoL There is some innovation to be had, I suppose. I just don't know that I'll be doing much (any) of it. Anyway, back on topic. For the little that I had left to do, I've gotten quite a bit accomplished today. Weathering, and most of the assembly are completed. I've got counter numbers inbound to me now (a big thanks to SIMpixels for those!), so once I've got them, I'll be able to assemble the counter. I've got to get the bolt/charging handle completed. I've got to get the selector switch completed. Other than that, it's done. We'll see what happens tomorrow. LoL Looks like I have even more time to finish though, as I still have not received shipping confirmation for my armor. Picture update will be posted within the next 24-48 hours. They're already loaded on Photobucket.

Looks good Jesse! Waiting on shipping notification from a Rob right now, myself! Good luck on your build's finish, and approval!

Under Armour is a very popular choice in the Legion. You just have to black out the logos.

Perfectly in tact eh? No one likes a bragger. . Looking forward to the build, my friend!

Great job MWG!!!

I don't know that it will... Not because I won't be thorough with it, but there really it's that much flexibility in building it, and no need for innovation to do anything with it.

Thanks, Andrew! I did it by hand. LoL. The only drill press use was in fabricating the mount for the folding stock. Aaron, I too love the Strawberry Shortcake ice cream bars. We may have to comiserate on this one day. On a side note: I received the email today. My armor ships tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"c: Other 1st timers had done it & I can shamelessly copy them! Thanks ;)" There you go, Sam! There isn't much that happens that is actually a truly original idea with the DoopyDoos kits. It does seem as though there have been a massive influx of new mods to them in recent months though. Your special project very well may be the newest awesome addition! Once something has been done and documented at FISD, all you've got to do is shamelessly copy them! Just to add on to what Germain said above, take a look at the angle of your spring also. While working on mine, I realized that the angle that the spring was drilled into the trigger could have an impact on the appearance/position of the trigger also. For example, if the spring is parallelling the barrel itself, it could cause the situation that you have, and looking at your spring's angle, that might be a part of the issue. If it is too perpendicular to the barrel, it would have a hard time staying in place. There is a "sweet spot" for the angle of the spring which - if the other end is in the center of the trigger - will cause it to sit just about right. In thinking about this, it dawns on me that it might be a good idea to put the pivot pin in the middle, and put a small spring at each end (larger one in the back though) to keep some cushion and equilibrium in the trigger. Hmmmmm... Food for thought. Worth checking out perhaps.

Very cool, Alan!! Love it.

Thank you Q, and Brian! I've managed to get a little bit of that "next" batch of work done since my last post, so let's just get right to the pictures: The first thing I did was to attach the inner barrel. Here you see the barrel as it looked before the attachment of the inner barrel. Here you see the blaster with the inner barrel. Towards the rear of the inner barrel, you can see the opening cut into it, to serve as the lock for the scope rail. When assembling it, I want to be sure to put that opening towards the top of the blaster, so I don't have to try to spin the barrel inside of the blaster and risk scratching the finish on the inner barrel. Clearly, the scope rail cut-out is in the proper location. I now put the scope rail in place to keep the inner barrel in place while I secure it with a screw from underneath in the trigger group area. Another look at the underside of the barrel with the inner barrel in place. Screw and drill (with screwdriver bit) are ready to get to work. Screw is in place and the inner barrel is going nowhere now. The trigger guard is the next piece to be attached. To do this, I will go back to my old friend, the two-part, five minute epoxy. After mixing and applying the epoxy, the trigger guard received a few minutes of manual pressure. Once I stopped applying manual pressure, I wrapped three rubber bands on the trigger to keep pressure on it until the glue had plenty of time to set. One of the things that I kept (conveniently?) trying to forget was that I needed to make a bracket to mount the Hengstler Counter to the blaster. Here, I have laid out my supplies for the creation of the bracket. After using the sharpie and my ruler to mark the shape and size on the sheet of metal I was very excited to get it cut out and get it ready to mount the counter. After I got the cutting-out underway, I realized that it would have been better to draw it with the counter tab to the outside of the sheet, because it would have been easier to cut out. You'll also notice that I have two lines drawn across the tab that will be used to mount the counter. The reason for that was to ensure that I had enough sheet metal available to mount it at the right height on the blaster. I will be using the tin snips to cut out the bracket. Half-way through the cutting process, I bent the end of the bracket down to assist with cutting it out. Because, as I mentioned, this was a little challenging - but only a little bit, in the grand scheme of things. Here it is - ready for a bit of filing on the edges. Filing is about to take place. Just a little bit to remove the teeth marks from the snips. Some painter's tape to assist with a test fit of the bracket to the scope rail, and the counter to the bracket. Looking at the counter from the front, during the test fit. Looking from the top, down, during the test fit. The left side of the blaster, with the counter still attached to the scope rail with painter's tape. Here, the scope has been added to the test fit. I used the Sharpie to mark the location to drill the holes through the brackets. Note to people following along - take a measurement of the distance for these holes from the feet of your scope, instead of trying to eye-ball it like I did. You'll see why before too long now. Since I don't have a vise (or a workshop, even) I improvised here and taped the rail to the bottom of a cardboard box, to keep it in the right spot while drilling. The holes have been drilled. I put the socket head screws in, through the brackets for a test fit, and they worked out just fine as you can see here. After my initial attempt at this test fit, I cut some of that extra metal off of the counter tab, so it wouldn't be pressing into the blaster's barrel. Looking down the barrel during the test fittings. You can see the two socket head screws, which are still through the bracket and the scope rail. I put the two other socket head screws onto the counter mounting tab, to ensure that they would work for the purpose of mounting the counter, and they look good to me. Taped the scope onto the rail, to get a better feel for how everything was going to fit together, and mark the locations for drilling the holes in the feet of the scope. At this point in time, I'm feeling really confident about my process, so I simply took a spot of silver paint to mark the drilling location. But, since I had that arrogant confidence about what I was doing, I opted to leave the scope attached to the rail while drilling the holes in the feet. I advise you to NOT do that - much like measuring the distance between the feet before drilling the holes in the rail. And this is why I've been urging you to not do it exactly how I did. You can see the crack in the front of the scope foot here. Thankfully, I had just enough space that it didn't explode like a previous part chose to do. I took the drill bit, and used it to make the holes in the scope feet slightly larger, and took advantage of the opportunity to angle the hole in the front foot a little bit further away from the front of the foot. It worked out much better after that, but had I simply measured the distance before drilling the rails, this probably would never have happened. As you can see here, the screws will get themselves deep enough into the scope that I'll be able to easily mount the scope to the rail. That's the update for today. I've now got to put some paint on the rail again and do a bit of weathering before I eventually build the bolt. Outside of that, I've got to get the selector switch in place, and put the clear-coat on it before assembling everything. Just about done now, and barring any craziness I expect that it will be done no later than the end of this weekend. As always, please leave your comments and questions here in the thread, and thank you for following along.

Looking really good, Bryan!! Very nice.

LoL, Ian. As Kellan Stormtrooper is just beyond 2.5 years old, I don't yet have concerns about stepping on Legos in my bare feet. I DO, however, have to be very aware of the likelihood of stepping on Thomas and his Friends. LoL

Looking good, Sam. I came to figure out (as a first time builder myself) that much of this seemed far more difficult in principle than in practice when it came time to do it. Much of it was simply deciding that a: It had to be done, and b: I could do it. Off to a great start, and seriously can't wait for the secret project's reveal!

Thank you, Aaron. It is amusing sometimes, to look at the little things that one figures out, completely by accident isn't it? THIS, is exactly what I'm hoping to provide, Sam. Thank you for checking in. Your build is looking quite nice in the early going. Great work!

Updates are always fun, Brian. Family is always there. I'm sure that most of us fully understand that. If it takes too long, I'll come over and help you with it. Not that I seem to work very fast, either. LoL

I said that I had a few more photos to share from some quick work I did tonight (literally, about ten to fifteen minutes worth of work) so here they come. These first few photos are simply to show the pistol grip's new gloss black finish after it had 24 hours to dry. Another look at the pistol grip after 24 hours. Here, we have the blaster, the trigger, the trigger retaining pin, and a spring from a pen. You've all seen the video of the trigger in action already, so there won't be a video tonight, but the trigger will be installed. I started by putting the spring in the hole drilled into the trigger group area. Next I made sure that the other end of the spring fit into the hole drilled into the back of the trigger. Finally, I put the trigger retaining pin into the blaster, and it is installed. It is not the right color though, so that has to be addressed too. You can barely see it, but there is a yellow microbrush with a bit of flat black paint on the end of it. That paint is about to be applied to the trigger retaining pin. The final thing I did tonight was give the T-Tracks a quick rubbing. I discovered while painting the scope, that rubbing the flat black paint would give it a bit of a sheen. Since the T-Tracks are of a different material than the blaster itself, I wanted them to appear to be made of a different material - even if they are the same color. That's it for tonight. Tomorrow, I may go ahead and install the inner barrel and the trigger guard. I'm working to figure out exactly how my selector switch will be installed, but that might be happening tomorrow as well. I've got to pick up a couple of screws for the scope to be mounted to the rail, and cut out the counter bracket too. I will probably go ahead and put a little bit of dry-brush weathering to some of the areas on the blaster, too. I'll be putting a protective sealant coat on the whole thing before I install the folding stock, and I do keep forgetting that I've got to paint the bolt that is visible in the ejection port, too. LoL. I may get that done tomorrow as well. Anyway, that's it for today, so as always thank you for following along and please leave your questions and comments. I still haven't heard anything from Rob about my kit getting shipped, and I'm starting to get antsy about that, but I suppose that I've got a little bit more time to finish the E-11.

One of these days, I'm going to pick up my Dremel and cut out the piece of ABS I need to finish up my bolt. It is inevitable because eventually I will run out of parts to paint. LoL Here's the next batch of paint work: Starting out, I have the scope and the blaster here. My (original) plan is to paint the screws on the front of the scope, and paint the trigger group area on the blaster. I've got a selection of brushes and microbrushes at the ready, as well as the requisite bowl of thinner. Starting with the scope and the bottle of "Steel" paint. Looking right at the freshly painted screws from in front of the scope. Another, slightly angled, look at them. Trigger group area, which will be getting a coat of Silver paint. Left side is painted. I originally planned to mask everything off and do this, but since I was using the microbrushes, I opted to give it a whirl without the masking. A look at the right side of the blaster, and some of the work on the underside which is in progress. Using the microbrush, I outlined the area in the trigger group area that is to be painted Silver. A full coat applied to the trigger group. A 3/4 view of the paint in the trigger group. The microbrushes worked quite well although they are hardly capable of taking an absolute novice painter like myself and making a pro out of him or her. Granted, had I masked it, it would likely have been at least a little better, but I'm not at all unhappy with it. L to R: The Charging Handle, Selector Switch, and Trigger. All of which will receive some silver dry-brushing. Which turned out slightly more like a coat of paint than I'd wanted/envisioned them, but as I have always sucked at dry-brushing (since childhood) I'm overall pleased with the effect. I do feel that I had a bit too much paint in the brush but again, like the trigger group area - I'm not at all unhappy with the look that I've achieved here. Slightly different angles on the pieces, after the dry-brushing. As I said... I had an "original" plan and I have what I did. I decided that I needed to paint the brass screws on the Hengstler counter too, so I went and got the counter and the brass paint. Top screw is now brass. Side screw before paint (Left side, before paint, as it turns out in a moment) After painting the screw brass (while looking at SorenM's finished paint job) I decided to weather the Hengstler counter a bit as well. The flash makes the effect stand out a bit more than it does in natural lighting. I really do feel that I got this piece to look quite good with the dry-brush weathering, even if it looks a little overdone in this picture. Both of the sides visible here have been weathered similarly, but as the flash isn't hitting them head-on, it doesn't stand out as brightly. These ones look a little MORE weathered in natural lighting. LoL. The bottom - which I modified heavily to get the detail work on - has been weathered as well! Since I was sitting around, surrounded by paints, and feeling motivated by the counter's successful weathering, I decided to put the gloss black on the pistol grip, too. Rear-Left view of the pistol grip with the gloss black applied. Right side, with gloss black applied - and again, I'm waiting for paint to dry. I'd say that's it for tonight, but I've got a few more photos to post, from a bit of work just a few minutes ago.