Dark CMF

Ian, you might be on to something. Glen, you have a rather sizable collection of impressive costumes. Your number would probably be quite daunting to behold. Also, those of you out there that sent PMs.... Email sent!

I'll get the emails sent tomorrow sometime, folks. Let me know what you think after checking it out... Todd, you are probably far more right than you'd believe. I'm shocked when I look at my current total, and i don't have any armor yet. LoL

So awesome, Steve!!! My eyes are done reading for the night, too. Thanks, Andy, for the info on the nuts/bolts!!

Hey everyone, I'm using an Excel spreadsheet that I built to track my spending/parts orders/shipping time, etc. for my TK build. I haven't seen one anywhere else in my time here at FISD, so I decided to share it so that if anyone is interested in doing so, they can use it. Perhaps it is that OCD that my wife swears I have that caused me to do it, perhaps it was excitement plus boredom... No real idea, but I made it so I figure others might be interested in it as well. It is very easy to use, and it will total up the spending for you as you add prices in the price column. If anyone wants to use it, please let me know and I'll send it to you in an email, and if you have any questions about it or suggestions to improve it, please let me know and I'll see what I can do. I'm not an Excel guru, but I'm pretty handy with it. Hopefully this can help some folks out as they go along on their journey to the white side of the dark side!!

Heh... I've written up HALF of my TK backstory so far (it is already fairly large though. LoL). Perhaps when I finish it up completely, I'll post it here and see if the thread gets to generating any more of them.

Thank you Aaron, for your thanks, and for your service as well. Some of those places were far more suffering than others, but I've yet to have a truly BAD experience. I've definitely got a few harrowing sort of stories I could tell, but never a bad experience, in the grand scheme of things. I've managed to make it thus far and I'm here to build an E-11 and TK armor (sooner rather than later, I hope) so nothing can really be called bad as far as the places go. I actually have some very fond memories and stories of each and every one of those places. I do love singing in the mornings though - especially when I know that we can wake up some sleeping people!

During previous posts (way early on, I believe, this time) I mentioned that I was going to be leaving the final hole in the bottom of my barrel until I figured out what I was doing with my folding stock. Since I've got the current scenario worked out, I can go ahead and address that here. So, I started cutting and said "Wait!! Take a before pic, knucklehead!" That is why you see that I've started to do some grinding here already. Sorry, I just got carried away, but I caught it and got the picture taken before I got too far into the work. This is the bit that I was using for this step, which is now basically done - except I realized when I got done cutting this, that I need to figure out how I'm going to secure the folding stock once the inner barrel has been inserted. I guess I'll drill a hole and grind it to the appropriate shape after the fact. We'll see. I'm not losing sleep over that tonight, but it will have to be addressed, or this won't work at all. Once again, going back to things previously mentioned in the thread, the D-Ring retainer. Once I identified the ring sizer as the ideal solution to my problem of a rattling D-Ring, I mentioned that I'd have to do some more grinding on this piece to make it work, so that's what's happening here. Once again, the D-Ring has the ring sizer on it but this time, it fits into the retainer. GREAT SUCCESS! A view from the side, of the same thing. (For the record Karin, a small package of some sort will be making its way to you very soon! ) On to another bit of modding that was inspired by the build that Gazmosis recently started (and others, as well) I want to put the "diamond pattern" on the front sight aperture. Just a side note here: I've mentioned a few times, that my rotary tool is not a Dremel. Although it is serving its purpose, and getting the job done for me, I think that some of the difficulty that I'm having with the very finest of details (carving "OFF" and the arrow into the bottom of the magazine, and this particular modification) is a direct result of my rotary tool not being quite precise enough. Yes, it was a hell of a deal as far as the price is concerned, but I believe that an actual Dremel will allow for far more accurate work in situations like this one so if you have access to one, or the means to pick one up (and I could/should have done so) I recommend using an actual Dremel if you're going to do fine grinding work like this with it. Anyway, I drew the pencil lines on the sight so that I'd know where to begin and end before I started basically doing a cross-hatch on the sight aperture. In hind-sight, I made the lines on the back too high, so I'll be adding a bit more cross-hatching to it before I assemble it, but I only realized that after I had completed working for the night. On the back of the sight, the pattern should extend down to just below the hollow/semi-circle shaped opening. Back to the fine tip for the cross-hatching. In this picture, you can see (slightly) the pattern that I've put on the sight aperture. In this picture, you can't see it so much, but it IS there. In this one, like the top-down view, you can see it better than the last picture. This one is also a little bit better. To complete the pattern, I actually did each set of lines independently: From left to right, slanting upwards all the way across the sight, and then from left to right, slanting downwards in the same fashion. Another top-down view that looks fairly decent. I'm sure that once it is painted, it will be more clearly visible. Here is the list of grinding projects that I had written down for the evening. Here is the grinding list next to the original list of remaining "Home Stretch" projects. You can see that I drew lines/arrows connecting the grinding projects to the larger ones that they support on the right. So that's a wrap for Day #13. I expect that the next installment will actually include some two-part epoxy and a few rubber bands! Thanks again for checking it out, following along, and commenting on it. More to follow!

Moving right along... You should be able to see the little point that is sticking out of the piece in the middle here. I started out looking only to remove that bit, and went all kinds of crazy from there. You'll see what I mean soon - real soon. Quickly ground down, I took this picture because you can see the same spot on both sides, and compare them to each other. I intend to put the slightest little "cut" into the "corner" between the two parts of the stock (the stock arm, and the butt stock), to give the appearance of depth. Here you can more or less see both sides, from the top down view before I make those little "cuts." This is where it gets a little bit crazy, and "what did you do? I don't see it..." If you look at the inside, top edge of the folded up piece (the butt stock), you might be able to see that I took that same bit, and put the very slightest bit of a "cut" along the line where the "two pieces" connect on the stock. This was done to aid in that illusion of depth between the parts. On a real Sterling stock, those are two parts, there is space between them, and I wanted to show that as well as possible. It is a very subtle thing that I hope will have a larger impact when it is completed. I did the same thing to the other side, but I can't seem to find the picture. Ugh... Inspecting the very front of the stock, I noticed a huge difference in the "gap" between the outer piece of the butt stock and the inner piece of the stock arm. I did some grinding on the side, inside of that rounded edge, just above the hinge, to even the gaps on both sides. Here you can see (maybe) that the two sides are fairly even now, after I did some grinding on both sides to get a similar size and shape in that gap. Looking from the right side, across the front. The pieces there are now pretty uniformly shaped, so I'm happier with it. Slightly higher view, you can see "into" the gap a bit better here. I have seen several builds actually drill through these holes, grind out the inside of the folding stock, and replace the "post" inside of it with a piece of dowel. The finished product looks remarkable - and I considered doing it briefly, and then I saw that Gazmosis put a real Sterling L2A3 folding stock onto a Doopy build, and I knew that I would eventually do the same thing. Nevertheless, I want to take this to the next level as best as I can, so I devised my own plan of attack to replicate a similar result. You can see it here, in the second hole from the left. I took that same, versatile bit, and ground out some space between the outer arm, and the post in the center - around the circle. I did it heavier on both sides, to aid in the appearance of depth there, so that it would appear to be a round piece inside of the arm. I went all the way around the circle for the same reason, to provide "depth" between the two pieces of the stock. You can see here that I ground a small line across the top of the opening of the circle that goes into the butt stock. I will be grinding that area out a little bit, to again give it some depth and the appearance of two pieces resting against each other, rather than one solid piece. I switched over to this bit for the last part that I mentioned. Be aware that this bit is actually pretty beastly. It makes very quick work of the resin, so if you use it, take it SLOW... Looking at the work on the bottom of the stock, you can see that I did grind out that space to the left, and made the very subtle cuts along the edge of the "holes" to provide some depth to the space and the appearance of a post/dowel sitting on the inside. It is not very telling here, but I believe that once it is painted, it will add that extra layer of depth that I want to be present. I did switch back to my original bit of the night for this part, actually. If you look at the very little slot above the opening, you'll see that it is not very heavily defined. This is actually an "after" picture. It was really just a dent before I took the rotary tool, and gave it a bit of an edge, again - the idea is that the harder edge will cast a shadow more distinctly after it has been painted, giving the appearance of real depth and therefore, space between the parts of the stock. Same thing on the other side. That completes the work on the folding stock. I do have a few more parts to cover in this series of posts for Day #13, so I'll post this one, and get on with the others. As always, comments, questions, etc, are welcome!

Okay, my guilt for the suffering caused to Karin and Aaron has begun to overwhelm me... Day #13. I fixed my magazine well, and I did a lot of "clean-up" of the folding stock. Nothing that is really going to be considered critical by almost anyone, in fact, a lot of it probably won't really be very noticeable in the pictures that I'm posting, but I did a lot of it based on my thought process. That thought process goes like this: I know that my "test" in building the blaster is going to be the painting of it. That being the case, I want to do everything that I can, before I begin painting, to help give the illusion of depth and separation between the parts of the blaster where that would be necessary. With that in mind, here come the pictures. Hopefully my explanations on these ones will help you to understand what I'm trying to do here... First of all, like I always try to do, I want to let you know what tools I'm using when I do these things, so here is the bit that I picked out for my initial bit of work. In my last post, I showed a picture of the line that I had drawn on the magazine where I intended to grind it out in order to seat the magazine further towards the front of the blaster. Here, you can see how that is coming along as I get started with the work this evening. One other view of it. Even though I did not get "through" my drawn line, this actually puts the magazine far enough forward to support my magazine clip mod that I intend to do later. Rather than keep going and make the resin any thinner (and therefore, weaker) I'm going to stop right there, and do some sanding for final clean-up. As I just mentioned, there is plenty of space in the back of the magazine for the clip that I'll be making. Taking a sanding file to the inside edge that I just ground down. I discovered that I had managed to create an ocean wave type line of ridges on this surface, so I'll sand it smooth, rather than attempting to grind it that way - much simpler and I'm sure, less nerve-wracking. I'm going to post this up, and move on to the folding stock. As always, comments are welcome!

I opened this thread, and the room got muggy. So bizarre. Took me a minute to realize that it is because the thread is dripping with sarcasm. LoL. Can't help but laugh.

Will there be pictures of the boring out?

The next batch of pictures has been moved to Photobucket. I'll get them posted here later on. Probably tonight.

I may have to write my dissertation/thesis on why the Stormtroopers on the Death Star were bad at shooting. The topic seems to be very, very hot these days. It all makes sense, but I've got to write it. LoL

LoL. Thanks, Aaron. My wife swears I'm OCD - she swears that our two year old son inherited it from me, too - I don't think I am though. I'm perfectly happy that you were able to take a trip down memory lane as a result of my thread. (Thanks, by the way, for your service!) Switching to the pliers for trimming them enabled me to force the cuttings downward, directly into the towel. Using the tin snips would have sent them all over the living room. Just would have made a bigger mess for me to clean up later. There is a method to a lot of my madness. I won't profess that it is there for all of it, but it does exist for a lot of it. Thank you for your compliments on the build as well. I'll keep repeating it, but I am having a blast building it, and sharing it.

I'll definitely be following this one. I've got a monocular (a la SIMpixels' mod) en route via the mail already. Looking good so far!

Thank you all, for the kind words. Yes Karin, to hear my wife tell it, you'd have thought that a ring sizer was the most obvious solution in the known universe, but I'd have never come up with that idea on my own. I owe it to you and to her, so thank you for your part. I went a little crazy with the rotary tool last night, and did some clean-up/detailing on the folding stock, the front sight aperture, and cleaned up previously marked front part of the magazine well. I've reached the point where there really is next to nothing left to do that can be considered "prep work." After these pictures get posted, the next batch should include rubber bands wrapped around the E-11 or its various parts. Slowly but surely, I'm moving along. Thanks again, Troopers/Cadet

Very nice find indeed! Looking good.

I figured that some of you might be wondering what became of the E6000 and the ball bearing in the magazine, so here's what happened: In order to prevent Feliks from getting all supervisory and interfering with it overnight - because he was SERIOUSLY interested in it - I hid it under this box in the hopes that it would deter him from taking any untoward actions. Thankfully, it did what it was intended to do, as he did not mess with it. I placed it on these metal rails, to prevent the bearing from being glued into the magazine flush with the surface. This would allow it to sit half-way out of the magazine, to produce the desired effect. And, after a tiny bit of clean-up of excess E6000, here it is! Here it is, test-fit to the blaster. One final look at it, because it is so shiny!!! Thanks for following along, asking questions, and commenting - as always!

Next installment! Previously during my build thread, I made several positive comments about the D-Ring that I received from the Queen of Hand Guards. As part of that thread of discussion, it was pointed out that I had a bit of a rattle/movement issue. Karin suggested that I get a piece of rubber type tubing to secure it. While shopping, I explained what I was looking for to my wife. She had a great - and simpler - solution: Ring sizers! Here, one of the ring sizers has been placed on the D-Ring without any need to open the D-Ring up at all. It will require a little more grinding, but it will provide for a very snug fit once that is done! Moving right along... For reference, this is a shot of one of my assembly pins on my ruler. The pins that I wound up with were just slightly larger than 1/4", call it 3/8" perhaps. Same pin, on the mm side of the ruler. Just about 8mm I suppose. One final test-fit with the new pin emplacements. Very subtle differences, but much better, in the big picture! Still no release button on the end of that magazine... I've got a fix for that though! That solution is a 5mm ball bearing, and some E6000! Place the bearing in the hole, and fill the bottom with E6000. This should work. I hope. Here goes nothing... With the application of the E6000, I mark the bearing emplacement off on my list of "things I can just do right now." Leaving just the front sight, the front sight lock, and gluing it together remaining. Feliks approves!

During the last test-fitting, I noticed a few issues with the location of some of the holes that I had previously drilled. As a result of that, and my OCD-like behavior, I set about making those corrections. Here, they are chronicled for your enjoyment, ridicule, and where applicable - education. The first correction that I decided to address (and by far the simplest) was the rear stock latch. During the test fitting, I had a devil of a time getting the rear cap onto the blaster. I realized that the rear stock latch was too far toward the back. If you look at this picture, you can see that the holes and pins line up just fine. If you look slightly to the left of them, you can see that the front of the bottom of the latch (the gluing surface) is not aligned with the mark on the blaster itself, showing where it should be placed. As I said earlier, this is the simplest fix ever. I'll just move the second hole up to the first pin, and remove the second pin completely from the equation. Problem solved. Since I intend to place the magazine clip on the rear side of the magazine, I know that I'll need to move the magazine forward ever so slightly in the magazine well. The only way to do so is to take the rotary tool and grind the front edge of the inside of the well out a bit. I have marked the line that I intend to create here, in pencil. I'll get to that later (not tonight) but I wanted to explain it since I had drawn on the part now. Here, you see Feliks, my supervisor for the evening. He was a typical supervisor. Constantly meddling with my work, and making me appreciate the moments that he was not sitting here, watching my every move - which didn't even happen last night. Such a slave driver, he is. My other supervisor for the evening! This little TK guy arrived in my mail yesterday, a gift from a friend who - inspired by my journey to the 501st - has begun his own journey to the 501st via www.bikerscout.net! Addressing the alignment of the cylinders on the magazine well was a matter of finding the alignment that I wanted (aligned with the barrel), placing the pin(s) that fit that alignment in the holes, and pressing the other pins into the resin to mark the location(s) for the new holes, as you can see here, there isn't much adjusting to be done. The left-side holes have to be moved very slightly towards the rear of the part. So, it turns out that drill bits are NOT the same thing as rotary tool cutting bits. In fact, when you start applying sideways pressure to a drill bit, it is possible that said drill bit will break. When a drill bit breaks because you are applying sideways pressure to it while drilling into something that is in your hand, you wind up slicing your hand open with the drill bit. Not to worry - tis just a flesh wound. I adjusted the bit, by pulling it out further from the drill and continued drilling as needed. New alignment of the cylinders! Much happiness! Now that my alignment is good, it is back to the pins, to ensure a good overall fit. Cut the pins down, in-place and... Eureka! It fits wonderfully now! Two things of note here: 1. Blood on the barrel. Should this blaster be stolen, the combination of DNA evidence, this time-stamped photo, and the forum posts detailing the situation will support the fact that it is mine, in a court of law! 2. You can see that I drilled new holes at the back of the blaster for the rear sight pins also. They were ever so slightly off-center. Here, I have moved the rear sight pins into their new holes. As I mentioned earlier, the magazine well has some issues with placement also. If you look closely here, you can see that the holes I drilled were a little bit too far towards the rear of the blaster. The magazine well is about 1/8" behind the mark in the resin cast where it should be mounted - much like the rear stock latch. The pencil line is where the front of the magazine well was sitting when pinned to the blaster. You can see the two pencil marks I made for the new holes. Of note is the mark to the rear. Previously I mentioned that I did not like the gap in between the magazine well and the barrel. The hole was drilled slightly lower than it should have been, because when I put my paper template on the barrel to drill, I did so upside down. I should not have been able to see the writing on it, and if you go back to that post you very clearly can see the writing. New holes drilled, no gap! Of course, you can see the old hole right at the joint of the two parts. LoL... Time for a quick dab of putty. The front of the magazine well now meets the mark in the cast depicting where it should be attached. Here's a better look at that visible hole. Pause for a bathroom break, snack break, smoke break... Whatever you need to do, now is the time to do it. I'll be posting more pictures momentarily. When you return (or you could do it before the break, I suppose) leave your questions/comments as appropriate.

Well, I've got a LOT of pictures from last night's work. Getting right to them, here they are: Starting off the night, I had one primary goal in mind and that was to trim the assembly pins down so that all of the pieces fit together properly before I thought about gluing anything. I began with the cylinders which also need to be-realigned on the magazine well, so there will be holes drilled again also. At this point in time, all but the pin on the back, right in this picture have been cut. I opted to use the pliers with the wire cutter as opposed to the tin snips tonight because I was working in the living room. It was an opportunity to stay near my wife while working on the E-11 instead of hiding in the back of the house like normal, due to the noise of grinding or drilling. When able, I used the parts themselves to hold the pins in place while cutting them. This allowed me an easier grip on them, since the parts are larger than the pins themselves and I could also gauge the amount of the pin that needed to be cut from each piece. Here you can see that the magazine well is fitting much better against the barrel, after the pins were cut. There is, however, this unsightly gap on the side. I will address this in a bit. You'll see. Pistol grip pins, before cutting them. Pistol grip, cutting underway. Pistol grip pins, cutting complete! The pistol grip's new test-fit. Much better than the initial one. Pistol grip test-fit from the right side. Rear stock latch pins, before cutting. Rear stock latch pins, after cutting. Rear stock latch, test-fit. Like the previous parts, this is a much better fit than I had previously achieved. Pinned pieces - with a few others, for dramatic/exciting effect - test fitting. Definitely getting excited about the progress so far, at this point in time. Here, you see the cuttings from the pins and to the right, one of the pins that has been cut down to the proper size. I'm going to break this post into the smaller, more commenter friendly sizes. Starting now. Feel free to comment and question as you see fit.

Steve, it is looking brilliant. One day, I'll learn myself to grind and polish up the plexiglass... Looks phenomenal!

Thanks for sharing the screw and nut info, Vern!

Glen, Germain, Thank you for the input. I was actually going for an alignment with the barrel. That was one of those bits of work that really was only SLIGHTLY frustrating. Nothing like drilling out the slot in the folding stock. LoL. I've been doing some work on it tonight. Basically just shortened up the pins, but I also wound up moving some holes, reducing a pin in use, doing some putty work to repair one of the moved pin holes - I spilt more blood. LoL. I did a little bit of other work, too. Pictures have been taken, but not moved to the computer yet. I'll get to that and sharing them here in the next day or two. My test fit tonight, following all of the work, looks a lot tighter than yesterday's. I have applied a dab of E6000 to something, I've got a small bit of grinding to do and expect to be mixing two-part epoxy tomorrow evening, prior to gluing parts together! After that is done, it will be on to the Hengstler Counter and scope assemblies... More to follow!

Brilliant, Anthony Looking forward to the armor build!