Dark PWF

Vern, would you mind posting the photo for general purpose? I've actually done a very small amount of digging tonight for such a photo, after seeing Steve's work here. I knew it was on the front, but didn't know how far back it goes. If you would post it, it would be of assistance to me and, I'm sure, many others down the road. Thanks.

Note to self: You CAN put a real stock on the Doopy! It will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine! Looking great!!!

Somehow I don't recall seeing this even though I re-read your thread from time to time Eric, as I await my very own Canadian stamp-covered box full o'bliss. Granted, I need to receive that email full o'bliss first, but se la vie... Well stated, and hats off to you for being a stand-up guy (which is tough not to do when you're an RT-Mod TK, I understand that) about the Centurion application. I was very anxious about the announced changes before I had a chance to see them, because I basically put my build shopping on pause to see if I needed to learn anything differently when the time comes. Thankfully the changes are not drastic in practice - as opposed to their impact. Leadership is always best when forged in example, and examples are always best when demonstrated as opposed to dictated. You honor the Detachment, the title of DL, and the spirit of Centurion with your actions Eric. I'll proudly follow you into the hall of advance certified RT-Mod kits, when the opportunity presents itself to me.

Also, I have to add that Tim Horton's is awesomesauce all day long, and I don't even like coffee. I got hooked on some of their pastries and chocolate drinks while I was in Afghanistan, as we had one on our "boardwalk" at Kandahar!!!

I think that is quite valuable info, Vern. Thanks for sharing it!!

I have to say that as someone with nothing more than a research-based knowledge/awareness of any of the armor and the processes involved in making it, even to my basically un-trained eye it does look very much like a cleaned-up recast.

Sounds like a score, Ricky!!!

I think that you're looking pretty good there, Gary. As Germain said, the biceps are the only pieces that draw attention to themselves because of the current fit, and I do see what you're getting at with the thigh/shin gap. Can you snap a picture of the Sniper plate's attachment area? I'm no expert yet, but it does look (from the full armor picture) as if the sniper plate might be mounted a bit lower than it should be. If that IS the case, moving it up to the ridge line on the greave will close that gap up somewhat. Anyone else see what I'm getting at, or am I seriously off-base here? I don't want to steer you wrong Gary. It is an observation - but I don't have armor yet, and haven't built any so I'd prefer someone else confirm or crush the notion that I've proposed.

Wow... Some truly impressive and creative work happening Diana (and crew)! I hope that I don't have to emulate much of it, as I shouldn't have to do much down-sizing (I don't think, anyway) but this is definitely one of the armor builds that should be required reading just for new builders (like I WILL be hopefully soon) to understand that there are ways to do almost anything that needs to happen with the armor, and that even as a novice, you can do some really advanced type work, with a little bit of patience and persistence! Definitely going to be followed and referenced if needed, when my box(es?) arrive from Canada!!

Very cool work, both of you! This is definitely one of those things that is awesome to have access to, just for general background knowledge and history. Truly cool to get this type of understanding clearly (mostly) spelled out! Also, what are the odds that two of you happened to decide to try the same project at the same time??? Someone want to tell me the odds? LoL

Karin, that is brilliant and I do get what you mean. Since I've already cut the section out of the retainer, I'll be picking up a short length of plastic tubing during my shopping on Monday, and go that route with it! This "fix" will appear in the thread in the relatively near future! Thank you for the praise on the build so far. It does mean a lot to me. Just wait til I get to that Hengstler Counter mod that I've been hinting at - which very well might be within the next week or so - I'm quite excited about that one. I mean - REALLY excited. I can't wait to get it underway and share it with everyone!

Thank you, Ian! Hopefully the finished product is worthy of following! I don't think it would have been EASIER to trim the D-Ring . Based on your stated reason for doing so however, it might have been a good approach. The D-Ring does slide side to side based on the modification that I've made. Food for thought, I suppose - and yes, definitely worth considering if you're building one in the future.

Thank you, Jason!! I'm so happy that I found those bits. LoL. This would not have been possible with my former favorite one. Not even close!

I next turned my attention to preparing the E-11 pieces to accommodate the magnificent D-Ring that arrived from Austria recently. If you're building one of these kits, keep in mind that the "Queen of Handguards" knows a thing or three about D-Rings, as well! Here you see the two D-Rings in my possession in a comparison photo. Karin's shiny, splendid specimen is on the top, taped to a piece of cardboard for safe and secure shipping. The D-Ring supplied with the Doopydoos kit is the white one on the bottom. Here, they are seen with the D-Ring cap in between them. Obviously, I have to make a modification to this piece, to accept the new D-Ring. A Work-In-Progress photo here shows that I chose to stick to my usual "grind a bit, test the fit" mantra when working with parts that have to be fit together. I find that doing this ensures that I don't over do it on any parts while doing this type of work. One more Work-In-Progress shot - from the side this time... Top-down view after grinding a bit more. Side view after a bit more grinding... Test-fit photo! Looks good to me. Test-fit flipped over and another photo taken. I am indeed happy with it. Bonus photo! Box of parts. This box came with Chinese food in it. It was pretty good, but I knew that the box (with the sealable lid seen under it here) would be perfect for storing parts of my E-11 during the build process. This is critical, because there is more than one cat (and the oft-mentioned two year old) here in the house that would love to get their paws/hands on small parts like this. With this Chinese food box, they cannot do so! This is the part where you get to comment and ask questions again. I'll get those post-sanding photos of the stock slot edited into the previous post shortly! Thanks for taking the time to follow along and thank you for your comments, and continued kind words and suggestions during the build!

For "Day #8" I decided to follow up on what Germain had mentioned a while ago - fixing the cut-out slot in the butt stock, I then cleaned up the D-Ring retainer. Enough of this though, here come the photos: The last time we saw the cut-out slot in the butt stock, this is what it looked like. The other side looked like this. Going to my new favorite bit (good thing I found all of those other parts!), I set out to re-shape the stock arm inside of the butt-stock. I started by shaping the actual opening first. I used the tip of the bit to hollow out the space above the stock arm before moving on to the arm itself. I then moved on to the arm and the space to the left, under the arm. I realized that getting the shape of the arm itself would not give me the result that I wanted, the shape of the entire opening needed to be right. Here you can see that I started working on the "wall" beneath the arm, on the left-hand side in the picture. On the other side, I began the same process, shaping the opening as well as the arm and the space at the front of the opening (towards the barrel tip). At this point, I'm truly happy with the shape of it all, but need to take some of my sanding files to the general shape of the area, as the rotary tool is a bit too aggressive for the type of precise detail that I want to add to it for the final touch. I'll come back to a very small addition to this piece after the D-Ring cap, and I'll get a few pictures of the openings here, after I put the sanding files on it. I'll just edit this post, and add those two pictures at the end. Please offer any comments or ask any questions that you have for me! EDIT: Here are the final two photos, after the sanding files were run through the slot a few times... Very minor change, but I feel that it made a nice impact!

Thanks, Ricky! More to follow, of course!

Alrighty, I did some more work tonight. As I usually do, I'm making my announcement tonight, after I've done the work and uploaded my photos to the web. Tomorrow or Thursday, I'll post them here and give my blow-by-blow account of the work that took place!!! Sorry for the delay in this installment coming along. Life has been hectic these last few days - but productive in every aspect, too!

John, welcome aboard! The Doopydoos kit is a very fun build. There are a LOT of build threads that show what others have done with both of these questions. For #1, the trigger does need to be sanded down some, as it probably has excess material on it from the molding process. Any combination of sanding the trigger itself, and sanding the trigger well a bit will get it to fit. All you need to do is sand a bit, and check the fit. If it still doesn't fit, sand some more and check again until you've got a fit that you're comfortable with. If you exercise a bit of patience with the kit, it is not too daunting. In the event that you were to sand a bit too much off, you could build it back up with some Bondo or modeling putty and sand it back to the appropriate size/shape. For #2, most of them have the arms glued just behind the pistol grip, and then again, underneath the barrel up at the front as you asked. If you review the build threads of other members in this same section of the forum you'll find the answers to most likely any questions that you can come up with. Good luck, and do your research. Measure the placement of the parts, mark the placement with a pencil if you have to - it's erasable. Get a build thread going so that others can assist you along the way and, when in doubt, ask like you did here!

Awesome stuff, Kyle! Looks like you guys stole the show! Way to represent!

The "TK Hand guard" and the "One HANd guard?"

Absolutely brilliant and exciting stuff, Sean! Keep at it!

Alrighty then. I declared when I started posting tonight, that I intended to drill holes when I was doing this work yesterday, and that's what I have done. Okay, okay... I then put screws into those holes, which I had NOT declared I would be doing. From here on out, I'll MOSTLY be drilling holes. There will be one screw inserted at some point. Starting with (once again) the pistol grip! In a previous installment of my build thread, I traced the outline of the selector switch and did test fits for the location at each firing mode. Then marked a spot in the center for drilling at a later date. That date - last night. Here's the hole, drilled out. Next, I very carefully drilled a matching hole in the fire selector mode lever. Remember when I said that there would be a screw inserted into a freshly drilled hole at some point in time? This is it. Obviously, this screw will need to be altered (cut just about in half, actually) when the time to assemble it comes up in the build. I'll cut it shorter, and glue it into the pistol grip, allowing the lever to turn on the top of the screw so that it "functions" by moving between the three positions. I'm going to break format here, and include a scant bit of work on another part, in this post... Hengstler Counter wire connection points. Left hole (as you look AT the blaster) is drilled, right side is marked. Right side is drilled! Weapons experts... Does that third point get drilled out as well? I've seen some that do, and some that don't. As there isn't a blaster CRL, I'm asking for your input directly on this one. Advise me, please! EDIT: I've been thinking about this, and the original state of the Hengstler Counter (three metal leads attached) brings me to the conclusion that the third point SHOULD be drilled out. When they built the blasters, they simply removed those metal leads. I won't drill before anyone else can confirm this for me, but the thought occurred to me and I wanted to put it here in the build thread to share with anyone following along. That's all the pictures that I have for tonight. Thanks for checking in and as always... Please leave me feedback/commentary/points of correction etc...

After I had managed to successfully secure the pistol grip to the barrel for a test-fit, I turned my attention to the next set of holes that I had to drill. The ones needed to mount the folding stock in a manner that it would be semi-functional. Here are those pictures: (I told you you'd hardly realize that I'd paused!) Made a small mark in the center of the arm, where I would be drilling. Placed a few rubber bands around the E-11 in order to hold the folding stock mostly in place while drilling the hole. This one may seem silly, but I put the mechanical pencil under the butt stock at the front of the barrel, to keep it from resting on the table. That took a decent amount of pressure off of the arms and allowed the mounting point to stay where it needed to more easily. Like I said, seems silly, but it worked. Murphy's laws of combat state: If it's stupid but works, it isn't stupid. I'll file this one under that principle. Other side, stock arm marked with 9/64" which is the drill bit size that I used - because that is slightly smaller than the screws that I'll be using to attach the stock to the rifle. WA-WA-WE-WA!! At this point in time, I'm very happy with my test fit, but I must make sure that it "works" as expected... Oh yeah! It works. My next maneuver was to pick up the E-11 and run to the bedroom where my wife was reading something on her Kindle. I ran into the room going "pew pew pew." To which she replied "Thank God you're a Stormtrooper. I know that you missed." Grrrrrr... I then broke into my explanation as to why that particular school of thought is no good (I'll treat all of you to it sometime either after my E-11 is completed and before my armor arrives, or after my armor is completed, depending on when I get that excellent email from Rob). So... That's the folding stock test-fit in all of the glory I can muster for it based on the state of the build. Everything has since been disassembled, because it will be primed and painted before going together ultimately. Comments, questions, concerns, stories to share with the group... I've got just one more little batch of update photos to share tonight and they're coming up next after this word from our sponsors!

As promised, I've got more build pictures! Last night, I wasn't planning on doing very much work - most times, I never do plan on doing "much" work. My thought process is always something like "Oh, it IS getting late. I think tonight, I'll just sand off the knob on the left-hand side of the folding stock and call it a night." Somehow, that plan turns into grinding, sanding, cutting, shaping, drilling, etc eight or nine parts for the better part of five hours. Last night though... It was SLIGHTLY different. I planned on drilling a few holes. Nothing more. Here are the pics: Started with the thought that I'd drill the hole through my pistol grip, into the barrel. Then thought, well, if I do that it would make good sense to put the inner barrel inside of the barrel so that the hole gets drilled into it as well. That way, when I put it all together, the screw from the pistol grip will keep the inner barrel secured! This is a win! So, to do that I had to have my inner barrel available and in the barrel. What I'm using for my inner barrel is a 1/2" x 18" piece of black PVC pipe that I picked up at Lowe's for about $1.39. It is intended to be used for yard sprinkler systems, and it fits in the Doopydoos barrel PERFECTLY, as you'll see very soon. As promised, here you can see the PVC pipe placed in the barrel. Knowing that I was going to be drilling it for eventual placement, I put the cap head screws in the barrel tip to prevent the PVC from sliding too far forward when I drilled. Just another look at the PVC as seen through some of the holes in the forward barrel. It very clearly states right here in the charging handle channel that this is for OUTDOOR USE ONLY. DO NOT FIRE YOUR BlasTech E-11 Rifles in the house!!! You can also see the description of the pipe from the sticker... 1/2" x 18" nipple. Yes. That IS what it says. I missed a picture that should go right here. The first thing I did was to place the barrel upside-down on the table so I could see the place where the pistol grip is supposed to be mounted. I took my metal ruler and drew a straight line right down the middle of the barrel, to aid in placing the pistol grip so that the hole would be drilled in the correct location. Next, I used the folding stock connector to stabilize the pistol grip while it was centered on the line that I previously drew. While holding the pistol grip in place against the stock mount, I drew lines on each of the sides of the pistol grip, to ensure that I knew where the sides should be when I drilled the hole. This is what it looked like after I drew my three lines. I then drilled the hole through the pistol grip, the barrel, and the black PVC Inner Barrel. As long as I'm drilling holes for screws, I figured... Let's make sure that this will work! GREAT SUCCESS! I LIKE! Looks pretty good during the test-fit, to me! I took a larger drill bit and countersunk the hole just a bit, to ensure that the screw does not block the pistol grip. Before assembly, I'll take the rotary tool and grind down the screw head a bit, to make sure of that. One more look at the pistol grip hole before moving on! As has become my practice, I'm going to post this one up, to allow for easier commenting and reading before moving on to the next bit of work that I did last night... More to follow momentarily, and unless you're reading this in real-time as I'm typing it, I promise you won't even know that I paused!