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Kevin, Outer spring = 0.75" or about 14 gauge Inner spring = 0.65" or about 15 gauge

If you buy real springs from Apex, you'll have enough spring for two or possibly three blasters because you'll need to cut the springs down to reduce the amount of force they place on resin parts. I'd grab the muzzle screws too - last time I checked, they were only $2 and the cross hatch pattern is unlike anything you'll find at a hardware store. Great build! That folding stock looks totally legit!!!

I would DEFINITELY buy your book on weathering techniques. Unbelievable realism!!!!

This build is BITCHIN'!!! Nice work Sean!

INCREDIBLE WORK, TINO!!! Where's your trigger guard?

A resin barrel will not satisfy the legal issue. Why? Just using bolts, the resin barrel could be easily removed and a real barrel installed = illegal. I've seen legal demils with welded bolts (so they can't be removed), but welded bolts REALLY detract from the appearance. Going a step up, I could install a resin barrel with bolts AND a welded cross pin, but a resin barrel would melt while welding the pin. Trust me, I've been thinking about this for months. Mine is an expensive solution, but I think it will satisfy all the legal obstacles.

Thanks for the professional pictures, Tr00per! End caps never looked so good! These (based on the later cap) coming to a sales thread SOON!

Hi guys, it's been awhile, but I've been thinking about this update for months. As Carl mentioned above, fabricating a replica with a parts kit and a real barrel IS ILLEGAL. Because of this, I came VERY close to cutting my replica in half, but I thought there must be a better way... I designed the following part in Rhino 5 and got it machined at a local CNC machine shop. I believe this part will solve all of my issues and qualify my blaster as "demilled". I call it a "Sterling Spool". The spool is SOLID, no bore. The solid rear end of the spool will be clearly visible through the ejection port when the bolt is retracted. It has four 7/16" holes cross drilled through the tapered "barrel" area. These holes line up perfectly with the 7/16" holes in the receiver. The rear hole will be fitted with a 7/16" pin. The pin will be rosette welded to the receiver, top and bottom. After welding, the spool can't be removed from the receiver without serious modifications. T-track covers the top weld and the stock covers the bottom weld. The folding stock can be opened to show the bottom weld, if desired. The remaining 3 cross drilled holes are to show the spool could never be made into a functional barrel, even if someone tried to bore and rifle it. These holes will be plainly visible through the row of receiver holes that doesn't have a T-track - this should help with any kind of inspection. The front end is threaded exactly the same as a real Sterling barrel and original Sterling hardware works just fine. With the spool installed, my blaster becomes nothing more than a nut cracker that looks like a gun. This modification makes it clearly IMPOSSIBLE to chamber a round or fire the gun. I'll be welding this spool piece into place very soon and I'll post pictures of the process. ENJOY!!! Aaron Left to right: real barrel, resin barrel and my spool

WHOA!!! This build is SPECTACULAR!!!! Incredible work Kevin, and thanks for all the kudos in your posts! Aaron

WHOA! Thanks for the highlighting, Ian. I didn't notice that before, but I see it now! I'm going to take an educated guess here... I'd be willing to bet the highlighted differences are due to the fact that my Sterling replica is based on parts made at the government owned Fazakerley facility. We've already seen other differences such as the infamous "slotted versus solid extractor" which created a small ruckus here several months ago. Little differences like this make my replica even more valuable to me. Take a look at this link for more background history: http://sterlingl2a3.com/markings-and-spares/ There's a lot of cool stuff on that website if you click around on the tabs at the top of the page. Sterling apparently beefed up or changed certain areas of the gun over the years and this could be another one of those subtle changes. OR, it could just be a difference between the caps being manufactured at the Sterling and Fazakerley factories. Difficult to say for sure, but leave it to you guys to notice such things! I learned something today! Kevin, you're making me laugh!!!

The end caps are the same. The recess I machined is slightly too high, so the ring doesn't fall in the same location. I machined the recess based on the location of a center countersink on the inside of the cap. Easy to be off a little when moving from inside to outside. If I did it again, I would do things differently based on what I learned the first time...

Hmmm... You have me thinking, Brian. Maybe it would be better to cast the end cap as one piece and create a 2 piece D-ring instead. Casting the 2 pieces in resin would be easy, but fragile. Fabricating the 2 pieces from metal would be more difficult, but strong. I'll have to think about this. You are correct about rolling a flat sheet. Rolling it by hand would be difficult, especially near the ends. Rolling it on a slip roll would require the slip roll to be disassembled to remove each finished part. BUT, if many rings were CNC'd into a tube, then the rings could be pared off on a lathe. Or maybe a rotary laser cutter - I wonder if such a thing exists? The knurling on the sight guard is almost exactly 3/4" from front to rear. The pattern on the part is already reversed, so normal knurling wheels would work, if I can find them 3/4" wide. The problem with the front sight guard is the thickness. I was thinking 1/16" thick so it could be formed by hand. The actual part is just over 1.5 times as thick and would be impossible to form by hand. Which makes me think I could form simple dies and press them into shape on a hydraulic press. All of this is possible, but it comes down to cost. Only making a few causes the cost to be too high. Sterling was producing hundreds of thousands of these. Either way, reverse engineering is fun!

After multiple requests and a few stops and starts, I've finally made some progress on this... At first glance, molding a Sterling end cap doesn't seem too difficult. However, based on the modifications required for resin builds, I wanted to "make a better end cap". I thought I would simply disassemble the cap with an acetylene torch and mold the parts, but that's where the problems started. The Sterling end cap and lug are actually ONE SOLID PIECE of machined steel. The lug is machined into the rear of the cap. It certainly LOOKS like a separate piece, but it's not. I nearly destroyed a perfect cap trying to remove the lug. While heating the cap (bright cherry red), I made an ASTONISHING discovery (or at least I thought so)... I always thought the D-ring was formed from a solid steel rod - it's NOT. My D-ring "fell apart" while heating. It is formed from TWO u-shaped pieces with alignment pins. Best I can tell, each piece has a small amount of silver solder applied, then they are inserted from either side and heated. When I made this discovery, the end cap was so hot, it more or less melted portions of the D-ring. I took measurements and made a CAD drawing of what was left. THIS is what the Sterling D-ring pieces look like, before installation: The notch ring and the front sight guard... From here, I'll further finesse the parts, then make silicone molds for the end cap and lug. Stay tuned for more! Aaron

Hi Eli, I have a bunch of projects which require one or both of your machines. The following project is not on this forum, but has probably been my most successful to date (27,538 views and 662 posts): http://astromech.net/forums/showthread.php?19713-Flatpack-Foot-Shell-Drawings-for-WaterJetting I also had these parts water jetted in clear acrylic to perform a mock up for an aluminum frame: http://astromech.net/forums/showthread.php?25873-Custom-Subframe-Electronics-Install For FISD, I'd like to water jet aluminum sheets for the E-11 end cap "notch ring" and maybe the front sight... I typically use a company called Big Blue Saw. They allow CAD drawings to be loaded to their server, then they cut the parts, package and send them. Great service! Aaron

Ridiculous, in a good way. Do you have snipe hunts in Australia?

SWEET MOTHER OF E-11 BUILDS!!!

Wow, thanks for your superb compliment, Michael! I don't have plans to mold other parts. I only molded these parts to solve problems and simplify pipe builds. With that said, I've had a few requests and even a suggestion to mold and pressure cast an entire kit! Maybe someday. If I do pressure cast a bolt, I would make the bolt and extractor as separate pieces. The ultimate goal would be to allow chambering and extracting resin bullets exactly like a real gun. Fully functional cycling. I can dream, right? Right now, I'm going back to completing my helmet interior kits. Seems like those have been hanging around my shop forever. Twnbrother is building a beta test version of my helmet kit and the results are eye popping! Mike has me excited about the possibilities! Aaron

Congratulations Tim! <big fist pump>

I FINALLY created a sales thread... http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/35572-resin-e-11-barrel-spring-cup-muzzle-runs/?p=466644 Aaron

Ian's legend is lengendary.

Works great. Clean the ABS well and rough up the surface with sandpaper, then mix and apply. I used computer cable nuts. Then I painted the epoxy black to match the interior. Aaron

I've heavily modified nearly every piece of my original AP kit... I'd order an entire new set of AP just to correct the @#$%& sniper plate fit on the original armor. PLEASE tell me the sniper plate just falls into the correct position on the new leg parts...

Thanks Brian! I thought about the front sight guard awhile ago. Getting the knurling pressed into a flat sheet might be easier, but I still haven't crossed that bridge. It would be cool to stamp the correct cross hatch pattern onto a sheet of metal. Machining the stamp wouldn't be a big deal, but the stamp would need to be hardened. I could cast a resin sight guard form... I'm gonna throw out a guess on the D-shaped holes... Everything on a Sterling is designed to keep working, even if the weapon gets really dirty or dropped in the mud. The clearing strips on the bolt and the rollers inside the magazine are good examples of engineering for reliability - dirt has a place to go to prevent the weapon from jamming. My guess is, the D-shape holes prevent dirt from accumulating in the notches. If dirt DID accumulate in the notches, it would eventually become difficult or impossible to properly lock the end cap without stopping to clean the notches. Aaron

Actually, yes. I considered drawing the notch ring in CAD, laying it out flat, then having it laser cut from the appropriate thickness of metal. I would likely try 5052 aluminum and mild steel for the base material. Making it easy to roll will be a factor in the material selection. This would make the notch ring something like photo-etched detail parts upgrades that are popular with scale model builders...

This build continues to impress!!! The notch holes in the rear are D-shaped on the Sterling, so you nailed it! BTW, I have an accurate solution for the rolled edge/tube length problem...see the link below. I machined a groove behind the rolled edge of an original Sterling front, then removed the muzzle. The resulting part is a Sterling muzzle with the original rolled edge STILL ATTACHED - I'll make a silcone mold and cast it in resin. To get the correct tube length, you just use a belt sander or file to take down the front edge of the tube until the dovetail in the muzzle lines up with the tube dovetail. http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/35229-sterling-muzzle-rolled-edge/?p=461337 Aaron