Dark CMF

Aaron, you are absolutely correct. That grease is just about the most foul-smelling substance known to man. LoL Also... I get what you're saying, but it was some VERY good and valuable experience!! Ricky, I've always planned to do it. I just originally planned to do it as an upgrade later on. Something changed my plans and accelerated my timeline a little bit.

Mostly, yes. I'll be looking into a small piece of steel tubing, or possibly wooden dowel, and will follow the methodology applied by Steve in his recent build.

Looking good overall, John. As for your last question about removing E6000 - as you are aware - I've got no practical experience, but I know of two separate people that have put the parts into the freezer for a few hours, or overnight, and it comes apart pretty easily, to hear them tell it.

Remember a few days ago, when I said that I took the plunge on another mod for the build? Well, I received two boxes in the mail today, and one of them had contents that are appropriate to share here. So, I'm going to share some of the contents of one of the boxes here. Ready??? Here's what was in the box: Folded... UN-Folded!!! Very Excited!! Can't wait to get this mod done!

I think you'll find that it is we who are excited, about a great many things. Post 'em... Someone will buy some things (I'll be keeping an eye out!)

Thank you all for the votes - and equally so, for the kind words! Much appreciation.

Okay everyone. My wife has entered a photo of our two and a half year old son, Kellan, in a photo contest at Grandparents dot com. This is simply, as the title suggests, a shameless plea for votes. My wife asked me to post it here, and I won't lie - I'd love it if he won. Here's the link: http://a.pgtb.me/4lG8VP His picture is him with bunny ears, in a basket with some blankets, and it is called "My Cuddle Bunny - He hopped right into my heart" and it is posted by Luciana Waychoff. It opens through Facebook, I believe so you may have to be signed in to a FB account and like the page in order to cast a vote. Thanks in advance to any of you who happen to take the time to do so.

Heh... Just took the plunge on another mod. More to follow on this - when stuff arrives. In other news, my scope is Brass colored!

We'll be watching with great interest, Ian!! Can't wait to see it get underway.

Nice work, Eli!

Looks great Tino! I'll be watching closely - I've started priming my parts now!

Thank you, Soren. Excellent to see you. I hope and trust that all is well for you and your family. Thank you, Steve. Truly humbling. I'm going to have to take a picture of the collective tools that I use. LoL. I meant exactly what I said when I said I would make OSHA very, very nervous. LoL. Cordless drill, the small rotary tool, and now a dremel. That's all the power I've been using. Thank you, Ricky. Glad that you're enjoying it!

It should have the Hengstler counter in it. The only things that are missing are the scope rail and the hengstler bracket. I'd advise you to replace the D-ring that comes with the kit, also - now that I think about it.

It's all good, Paul. You've just got to decide how "realistic/accurate" or "Screen-Accurate" you want to make your blaster. You can go all out, and it will take a lot of extra work, or you can just try to make a screen-accurate one, which doesn't really require much extra, besides what you've mentioned already. You've definitely got a lot of resources available to you though, for just about any modification that you might decide to do.

Paul, Congrats on your Doopy kit - it is a blast to work with! There are seriously hundreds of build threads available for you to research the process. Have you been here yet: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/forum/116-blastech-e11/. There are as many different modifications you can do, as there are build threads. Take a look at some of those, and see if any strike your fancy! Good luck, and have fun!

Oh, that's a pretty cool idea. I'll be watching to see what comes of it. He has made some very significant contributions to the EU indeed!

The real key to this: I don't have a vise of any kind. When you're holding the parts in your hand and drilling/Dremelling them, the cost of failure goes up exponentially. LoL Thanks for the little nudge, bro!

6 x 10, got it! Thanks. A few of those will be in my next shopping list when I run out to Lowe's.

Awesome work, Daniel!

You're absolutely correct, Tino... As you see, I clearly mentioned epoxy would be involved in the assembly. There isn't really a choice in the matter. Ohhhhhh... I have a new idea to make it work!! I'll put a piece of wood inside of the bolt, and run the screw through it. That will provide enough resistance for the screw threads to remain still when I put the charging handle on! Thanks for mentioning it - made me think a bit more, and I believe I now have a viable solution! (much like the scope earlier!)

As mentioned previously, a thank you is in order to Aaron for prodding (ever so lovingly and gently) me about drilling through the scope. It was my original intent, and I got spooked when the channel behind the large lens was offset a bit and tracking towards the outside of the scope. Funny thing is that after reading Aaron's post earlier tonight, I had an epiphany: I had been drilling the scope out backwards. Rather than starting with the large bit, and scaling back as I went, I should have started with the smallest spade bit, and increased the size of the channel as I moved forward towards the large lens. One must remember to use the bit that will leave the small shelf for the lens to rest on though. Anyway, yeah... I drilled it out. On to the pics from today's work. Once again, to the back porch - this time, the coat hanger aperture will hold an actual part, not a test part. The end cap will be primed and painted today. Primed, and ready to paint. One quick coat, waiting to dry. A few minutes later, a second light coat. Back to the scope. As I mentioned in this post's intro, I had been doing it backwards. I started with the 1/4" spade bit today. The bit will definitely reach from one end of the scope to the other, so you've got to be careful about drilling through the resin in a bad spot - like... NOT in the center. Starting with the large end, I drilled out a 1/4" channel all the way through to the lower section of the scope. I then drilled from the front (small lens) side on an upward angle at the back of the lens piece, to intercept the channel from the large lens side. This is done up to show the approximate angles that I used when drilling the 1/4" spade bit's channels. The red line shows roughly how far back the channel for the lens aperture was already drilled. The green lines show the channel I drilled from the Large lens area, forward, and the blue lines show the angle that I used to drill the channel in the front to intercept the green line channel. Hopefully, this will assist anyone else that wants to attempt this mod. Moved up to the 5/16" spade bit for the next channel increase. Same process here. Started with the large lens end, and switched to the small side to increase the channel all the way through the scope. Bit by bit (literally ) the channel will be increased, large lens end - then small lens end. This time, it is the 3/8" spade bit. 3/8" at least, all the way through, and I'm realizing that I don't have a lot of extra room in the transitional area so I'm getting close to done with this project. Onward and upward to the 7/16" spade bit. After that one, I feel that I've still got another increase available to me. 1/2" spade bit. This will be the final one. It's getting a little bit snug. LoL Here we have it! Drilled all the way through, to an opening of no less than 1/2" at any point. Looking through the scope, you can see the red color from the picture above the stove in the scope. Light clearly passing through the lenses. So, that's that. Aaron provided the little bit of extra motivation and thought that I needed to keep it going on the scope, so thanks to him on that one. As I said, it was my original desire, but I spooked myself out of doing it with the off-centered channel. The extra time between the two bits of work and his statement were enough to make me see it differently and make the decision to start with the small bit instead of the large. Not sure what happens next. I'm sure something gets painted - and I really need to come up with some counter numbers pretty freaking quickly! Thanks for reading along, and as always, please leave questions, comments, and advice/observations for everyone to share!

Aaron... Thank you. There will be another update tonight. What could it be? What could it be?????

Looking good, Tino! I thought it was probably you with the green stuff, but logically assumed that if it had been you, you'd have done it here, as well. For the record, I've painted a part. LoL. . We will have to paint stuff eventually.

Aaaahhhhhhh... I shared it on Facebook, and encouraged everyone to watch the other videos. I also mentioned that someone MUST work in an FX house somewhere. Thanks for sharing that tidbit. Very awesome vids. I had to subscribe.

Very nice looking work, Todd!!