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hupspring

501st Stormtrooper[TK]
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Everything posted by hupspring

  1. Winter can't come soon enough. I'm even more excited than I was before, and I was already plenty excited! Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
  2. I haven't done too much work lately other than putting a couple light coats of silver on the left and right sides of the blaster, then masking and putting a coat of bronze on the scope. I also decided to try making my own ghetto power cylinders out of styrene. I found some random parts that looked like they would work - a couple of styrene rods and parts of an old plastic flag pole. I used a black styrene sheet for the base and the back of the cylinders, cutting everything to size basically by eyeballing it since I don't need everything to be accurate for this blaster. Most of these cuts were with the hobby knife, but I did use the rotatry tool to drill holes into the back wall which the power cylinders go through (I've found that I love using the rotary tool...I don't know why I didn't buy one of these years ago). I was going to make some caps for the cylinders, but that seemed like too much work for this. I ended up just filling the cylinders with some spackling. I cut some strips from a thinner piece of white styrene which I'll wrap around the tops and see if looks at least somewhat passable as caps. So far it all looks okay, and I'm hoping that after I finish putting it together and paint it, it will look better.
  3. I used a hobby knife to work at the glue on the top and bottom of the magazine. It took maybe 10 minutes working at it to get it out.
  4. I haven't seen these in any physical stores (I checked Toys-r-us and Target). The cheapest one I found online was Target's online store. I was able to do a little work today - I drilled out the barrel opening (I got the idea from Astyanax) with the rotary tool using the same bit that I used to clean up the barrel holes. It worked out much better than any of my previous drilling (yay experience!). Then I took everything outside and sanded it all down, washed it with soapy water and wiped it off a bit. I let it dry for a while then put on a couple of coats of Flat Black Primer. It was a little breezy so I was spraying a little closer than I probably should, but it's coated in black now. When I washed the parts, I wasn't thinking and dunked the counter in the water. It's hollow inside and has two holes for the screws that attach it to the blaster, so of course water got inside. Rather than waiting and letting it fully dry, I just sprayed it with the rest of the parts. About 20 minutes after the second coat of primer, I picked it up and some more water dribbled out of the part where the counter numbers would go. Apparently that part isn't a solid piece. So water got on the primer, but I don't know if that will be a big deal.
  5. Interesting, I'll have to look into the plastic epoxy. I was thinking about replacing parts, but since this is my cheap test build, I don't really want to add nicer parts to it. I do plan on getting a DD kit someday so this is good practice. Hopefully I can do some more work on it today.
  6. I know it's not screen accurate, but has anyone tried making the ab buttons actually work? I'm sure someone could come up with some really good uses for them, but at the least I was thinking the push to talk feature using the iComm/Aker voice amp could be used on one of the buttons. And some could be set up to play various sounds or music. Any thoughts on this, or would it just be a waste of time (even thought it would be cool to have working buttons)?
  7. While waiting for a Doopydoo’s kit to become available, I decided to get a Rubie’s blaster as a test project. It's cheap and has a lot of the necessary bits already attached, so not a lot needs to be added. And since it's a test build to get my feet wet, I didn't want to spend a lot on something better and possibly ruin it. From reading some of the other posts on the forums, it can look pretty good for being so cheap (after it’s painted, of course). And I can see why it’s so cheap. The paint job is horrible - they just splashed on some orange, not bothering to clean up drips and smudges where orange shouldn’t have been. And the two halves of the blaster aren’t flush on the bottom. I recently got a rotary tool (in preparation for my armor build) and since I’ve never used one before, I figured this build would be the perfect time to learn. I jumped right in and started sanding down the top T track and when I was more or less satisfied with it, I sanded down the bottom right track a little. I should probably do this work in the garage or the backyard...I got little white plastic bits all over the carpet. It looks better, but could use a bit more sanding. I’ll probably go with sandpaper for the rest. Then I took out the screws holding the two halves of the blaster together and unscrewed the counter. I wanted to create a gap between the scope rail and the blaster (as done by Kawnr), so I tried using the rotary tool. I don’t have any cutting bits so I tried what looks like a grinding bit (I should probably learn what all these bits are for). It was going fine until I noticed that I wasn’t staying straight and that the plastic wasn’t actually coming off. Instead of shaving off plastic, the rotary tool was melting it and pushing it behind the path I was moving the tool, then the plastic would solidify again. I ended up breaking out a hobby knife and repeatedly scoring the top and bottom of the plastic that I wanted to remove. Eventually I broke through to the other side and was able to remove the piece. The right side was easier to do since it has the whole section with nothing in the way. For the left side, I had to remove the magazine which took a while since they used a ton of glue (and left a lot of glue residue on the sides of the magazine). With the magazine out, it was a lot easier to get the hobby knife in there to get the plastic cut out. I also wanted to cut out the little section between the scope and the rail, so more knife work on both sides. I kind of broke the tip of the knife blade while doing this (pushing too hard in the corners) and I do believe I’m getting a blister on my finger. But the blaster is looking much better now! The next step was to drill out the holes in the barrel. I thought a drill would do the trick, so I drilled a small pilot hole in the center of each indent on the barrel, then used a large drill bit which looked to be the right size. Not the best idea. The drill bit just pulled the blaster up and melted the plastic, leaving a couple wads of plastic on the sides of a rough hole. I went back to the rotary tool, using the same bit from before when I tried to create the gap under the rail. This wasn’t a good idea either, since the bit was too small - I tried to keep widening the holes but just ended up making bad jagged ovals. I looked back at the bits that came with the rotary tool and found a circular one that looked to be about the size the holes should be. This worked much better! I wish I looked for that sooner! The holes look a little better now, but some are still pretty bad. I don’t know if it’s worth making them all even since some are already too big. The more I look at the holes, the more I want to fix them. Good thing this is a test build! The last couple of things I need to do are to make some power cylinders and possibly add the coiled wires, although I’m not sure if I’ll do that or not. And I’m not quite sure how I’m going to make the power cylinders yet (maybe out of styrene?). I also want to shave off the D ring and put a real one there but I don’t know where I would get one the correct size. Then it’s just painting and weathering. Now I need to go out and buy some paint! -Richard
  8. I just watched the video and I'm amazed with your electronics - the blaster looks and sounds great!
  9. Looks good for $25! I'll be getting one at the end of the week and plan on using it as a test run for when I eventually build a Doopydoos kit. What did you use to open up the scope rail? Makes it look much better.
  10. Grats on your acceptance! And your Death Star room looks awesome. Is the Imperial cog on the wall vinyl?
  11. Looking forward to your build. I ordered one of these and will be getting it next week, so seeing how others are modding it is very helpful.
  12. I also ordered this kit and can't wait until it arrives. In the meantime I've been going through the forums to see what other items I'll need/want, but my wife won't let me get anything yet since the armor won't be here for a while!
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