Dark CMF

LoL... It is a great kit. Glad I got to cut my teeth with it. The left ear did give me fits for awhile though (it has a bit of a gap). I'll post a thread for it sometime in the near(ish) future.

My bolt will be getting some special sort of attention in the near future. It is the one part that I have not "built" yet - but I did find paint that I'll be using for it!

Wow... Congratulations, Walt! April has been a very congratulatory sort of month for you! I'll share this picture, in honor of WTF's big month: ----------- Recently completed WTF Little TK build!

Very cool! Congratulations! I've been searching out the TK for some time now as well.

Derek, Looking forward to seeing your final build! If you have any questions in the next few weeks, don't hesitate to ask.

Hey John. I thought I had posted this earlier, but I don't see it anywhere so I'm guessing it is half-typed on my iPad at the moment. Anyway, I think your build looks great. There is only one thing that I see that could (potentially) be an issue when you go for EIB/Centurion, and that is with your belt. It looks to me as if you could have shortened the plastic a bit to ensure that your drop boxes aligned with the ends of the belt. Other than that, I'm more excited about my box arriving than ever, due to seeing your armor completed - and inspired by how quickly you managed to do so. I only hope that I can be as exact and efficient when mine arrives - and I'd really love to be able to get my helmet looking something like yours. I really love it!! Good luck with the approval, I expect that you'll have no problems whatsoever!

My last bit of work from last night did not get uploaded, because I did it on the spur of the moment after I finished updating the thread so here are the final four pictures from yesterday's work: Since I had pretty much completed the scope's appearance, I decided to go ahead and do so - with the white crayon. May it finally feel that it has a purpose in the world! All of the lettering has been colored in. After wiping off the excess with the orange towel, I feel that it needs another pass with the crayon... And here is the final appearance of the lettering on the scope! Comments are welcomed as always - thanks for checking it out!

Glad you got a laugh out of that. LoL. I actually drilled everything at 5/16" as that was the size of the steel rod - I knew it was correct because I took the folding stock into Lowe's with me to buy it. I think that people thought I may have been preparing to assemble an SMG in the store when I took out and opened the folding stock, because I was getting some tense looks. Anyway, as I was saying, I drilled the Doopy bracket at 5/16" and had no issues with fit whatsoever. I wonder if there were just discrepancies in some of the stocks, as 19/64" is not at all that far from 5/16". Interesting thing to note though. :/

Thanks! We did place a bowl of water around for that reason after I did it, because Jason had already done it, too. LoL

LoL Aaron... For me that option may as well read "You DO have another option. You could burn down the neighborhood." I've got quite an impressive burn on two fingers right now from my technique. When I was bench grinding the flat spots on the ends for the pin holes to be drilled, I took the mount and immediately after finishing flattening one side, just flipped it over and went to put the other side on the grinder. Of course, I picked it up by the very hot spot that I had just ground flat. I don't need 1,000+ degrees of anything. LoL Interesting - and very cool - option though!

While I can't speak for certain as to what others have done, you could look on smile.amazon.com for some shoe lifts. I'm not sure how much extra height they give you, but as I understand it, it can be an inch or two. Might help. Good luck!

Ah.. The paintjob. If you look at my latest update to my build thread, you'll see that today, I discovered the same thing that you did: A coat of primer and one coat of paint is very easily dinged up. LoL As a result of my experience(s) today, I'll be adding another "base" coat of flat black to my blaster before I mask it off for the textured paint - which will receive three coats in order to create the texture, and after that, I'll be airbrushing another coat or two on it to bring down the color of the textured paint. Of course, I've got to learn to mix the paint, and use the airbrush first. LoL

Thanks, Brian! That video was probably the best one that I've seen on the subject. I think I figured it out alright even if some of mine was still a little bit too wet when I did it. I think it turned out pretty decent anyway. LoL

Since I mentioned that I was going to learn how to dry brush some weathering... I'll show you what happened with that, too. Here it is: I took some Testor's Brass, and did the touching up (dry-brushing) on the scope weathering. This is the first of a few updated weathering pics for you to take a look at, and critique/comment on. Front, right side of the scope. Right side. Front of it. Back-left of the scope. And another look at the left side - you should be able to see that mold-flaw, turned to weathering on the front foot in this picture. That's that. Quite a bit of work done today. I'm going to hit the blaster with another coat of flat black before I begin masking it for the texture painting sometime during the next week or so. As always, let me know what you think, and what you've got to say. Thank you for checking it out!

So since day #2 maybe... sometime very early in my build any way, I've made it a point that I don't really have much in the way of power tools. When I decided that I did want to put the real folding stock on my Doopy, I thought very hard about how I wanted to mount it to the build. Before I ordered it, I talked to one of my buddies at work, whom I had been told has a fantastic workshop in his garage, and asked him if he'd be able to help me out with a bit of metal fabrication. He said that he really does a lot of wood working, but he'd be more than willing to give it a try with me. So today, I went over to his house and here is what happened next: Did I say workshop? This place is almost the perfect "mancave" he had one of the hockey games on television, he's got a computer running Netflix and gaming to the television, game systems, audio setup through that same computer (which runs to multiple screens) and oh.. yeah, look at the workshop!!! Behind me, was a band saw, a jigsaw, and a belt sander besides what can be seen in the picture. Anyway, now that there are power tools available - it's time to make some magic!!! We started by measuring the width of the arms on the mounting bracket from the original stock. We cut off the end of a 5/16" steel rod that I picked up at Lowe's for about $5, because the last 1/2" or so was a little warped. Next, we transferred the mounting bracket measurement to the steel rod. Took the end to the bench grinder to square the end a bit, before cutting checking the measurement and cutting it to the proper length. Next stop - the drill press - to drill a 9/16" deep channel that was 7/32" wide in each end of the metal rod. Channel being drilled on one end. We hit each end with the bench grinder, to create a flat spot where we'd be able to drill the retaining pin holes through. Here, the locations are marked for drilling. One of the 7/32" channels. And the other one... The mounting bracket with the rivets test fitted into the channels. Test fitting the bracket with the stock. Here, Jason is drilling one of the pin holes through the bracket. Here, I'm about to drill the 5/16" channel in the stock mounting bracket on the Doopy. He wanted nothing to do with this particular part. LoL Drilled cleanly through! The hole DID intrude into the chamber. That means that I'm going to have to grind out a hollow in the bracket in order to allow my bolt to slide back and forth. That will be happening later though. Here, you can see what I was just talking about - the channel definitely cut into the chamber, ever so slightly. After a quick trip to the bench grinder's steel brush, the bracket is test-fitted into the Doopy. Looks good to me! Using the calipers to measure the distance between the centers of the pin holes. Using the same caliper measurement to mark the locations for drilling the pin holes in the bracket on the Doopy. Pin drilling holes marked on the E-11. So, at this point in time, I've returned to my house. Here, I have the stock, the rivets, the original pins, and two brads - which will replace the original pins in my build. Test fitting it after drilling the holes for the pins - without the stock. Both rivet pins installed. The stock arms are clearly going to require some modification for this to work. I missed a picture of it somehow, but the stock was taken to the Dremel where a cutting wheel was used to "shave" the stock arms to the appropriate width, each. Here, it is mocked-up for a test-fit! Clearly, the arms fit just fine now. Stock fully extended. The hole for the stock latch is not wide enough, and does not extend close enough to the barrel tip for the latch to work properly. Time to take out the rotary tool and make it work! After grinding it out, the latch works. Here is the right side. Here's the left side! Here's a look at the work I had to do in order to allow the folding stock latch to catch and hold onto the barrel. So there you have it! My folding stock will work just wonderfully on the Doopydoos Resin kit. One more batch of pictures coming your way momentarily!!

Okay. AWESOME stuff got done today, but it will be in my second set of updates tonight. Here comes the first batch: In order to attach the Sterling folding stock to my Doopy, I've got to take it off of it's original mounting bracket by tapping out the pins in the outer housing of the bracket. The pins VERY SERIOUSLY resisted being removed. It took me nearly an hour of work to get them out. Ultimately, it was the tip of the screw in the picture here that allowed me to push the pins out. You see what happened to the brad that I tried to use... After removing the pins, you can pull the rivets out of the mounting bracket, as you see here. After fighting with the pins, I was frustrated to have to fight to get the stock arms off of the mounting bracket, but I had to - and I did. It is now ready for mounting on my blaster, but my blaster is not ready for it to be mounted. There is still a LOT of work (fabrication, really) to be done before I get to that point. Took some 1200 grit sandpaper to the scope for some initial weathering. For the most part, I like the effect, but I know that there is too much resin or primer (white spots) showing in some of the weathering spots so I'll figure out drybrushing later on and bring some brass back into the weathering. Here, you can see that the bottom of the three is a bit white, as opposed to yellow looking. I think the front looks pretty decent overall. Right side, with another large white spot towards the front of the scope. Back of the scope. I do feel that it needs some more brass... SO that's it for the first update. Next comes the FUN one!!

Derek, you're looking good brother. No need to worry about anything at this point. I think that your trigger guard fix looks great, once it is painted nobody will see it at all. I might give it a little more sanding, but I don't know that it will be very necessary. If you hadn't epoxied your trigger guard, I'd have suggested redrilling the channel for your spring in the trigger, but with the guard in place - like you said - you've pretty much got what you're going to have. As for your folding stock issue... Check your PMs. You're on a good path man. Your blaster will be fine. Like I mentioned elsewhere, take your time and have fun. If you go and look at my build, you'll see that I began (I believe) posting it on the 21st of January. Over three months ago. A bit here, a bit there and before you know it - you'll be painting and getting ready for final assembly! Keep at it!

Mag clip will be a late addition, courtesy of Tino... The one you saw here was on the mag from Steve.

John, congrats on the kit. Without having any armor (Rob is building my kit right now) I can tell you that stairs are typically difficult for TKs. You should invest in some fans or fan kits to cycle the air out of the helmet and prevent fogging. Mobility... You should really post some pictures before anyone offers any advice in that regard, because you might need to make some adjustments to the peats or simply to the strapping.

I'm heavily intrigued by the crayon idea... I'm pretty close to needing to do that, too, since my scope is actually weathered (for the most part) already.

Since the last image was of the blaster primered and waiting, we'll lead off this installment with this photo: Grab some flat black paint, and head outside to meet the blaster! Patiently waiting for some paint. That patience is rewarded here. Another angle... same paint job. Hengstler Counter, waiting for it's turn. A fresh coat of paint on the counter. It will still need another coat at some point in time before final assembly. While paint is drying, I've received another package from England!! (Additionally, I've received another project to paint and build. ) Just to see how it might look (of course, it will have the real stock and the other parts on it) when it is sitting on it's eventual stand. Not too shabby! As long as I'm outside using the black spray paint, I'll take care of the scope, too. Back to watching paint dry, I go... That's it for now, thanks for stopping by and reading/following along. Please feel free to leave comments/questions, knock-knock jokes here!

As I mentioned earlier, the nuts on the power cylinders were free spinning while I was cutting them to the proper length. To me, this was an indication of what they'd be prone to do if left to their own ideas. Here they are, freely movable, after having the bolts cut to size. Here's my solution. A little bit of a squeeze of gel type super glue on each one, before turning them tightly to the bottom. Glue applied. Hehe... PRIME TIME!!! Primed and drying. That's it for this group of pictures. Just a few more to share tonight before I have to get back to work on the blaster tomorrow.

Congratulations, Kyle. Good to know that it worked out for you!

Yeah. LoL. That's exactly what it is. It was a glaring act of laziness meeting opportunity. I suppose future uses will need to be applied in layers, rather than blobs. LoL

LoL. The Bondo that I've got is a pre-mixed spot-filler compound. I didn't think it was economically sensible to buy a "bucket" (or whatever it comes in) of Bondo for AN E-11 build.