Cricket

I could be wrong, but to me, it just looks like a piece of white ABS cut to fit in there as the bracket.

Thanks for that tip, John! I had considered, and actually built, a scope rail using the 1/16" gauge aluminum, just for my own curiosity. I actually prefer the beefier look of the scope rail over the thinner one, even though the fold in the 1/16" aluminum has a sharper bend to it. I could still tweak the thicker one I have, but I'm totally good with how it is now. I think I would be much more picky about this kind of detail if I was going for a full-blown replica.

It seems like progress has been slow on this, but I think I've made some steps onward! I got some more ideas from here. Putting a hole in it. I realized that my 7/16” drill bit was going to be too large to match the existing holes in my Hasbro blaster. Digging through my drill bits, I found that I had 25/64” drill bit that was the closest match for the existing holes. So if you’re looking to do this kind of mod, a 25/64” drill bit is your ticket. Woo! I added holes everywhere except for the areas where the blaster halves meet at the top and bottom. The bottom area will be covered by the folding stock piece, and the top area will be covered with a piece of t-track. Because the Hasbro is somewhat smaller than an ‘approvable’ e-11, the hole templates that I found online for a pipe build wouldn’t work for me. I really didn’t feel like spending the time scaling the template down until I found a perfect match, so I ended up eyeballing the hole placement. The holes aren’t perfectly aligned, but they don’t look too shabby. In areas where I the holes aren’t perfect, I used some Green Stuff to fill in the imperfections. After sanding and painting, they blend in nicely. So why perforate the heck out of a perfectly good Hasbro blaster? My idea behind drilling all the holes is for the benefit of the lights inside my blaster. Instead of the lights shining through the areas with holes only, I am theorizing that there will be some light leaking through all the holes under the t-track when the blaster is fired. If my guess is correct, only the indirect light from the LEDs will be visible, and not the LED bulbs themselves. Which makes for a much sweeter effect when PEW-PEW-PEWing, I think! Cosmetic makeover! Three coats flat black. Nuff said. PVC to Flash Guard. I hated how tiny the flash guard is on this blaster. I had originally intended to simply re-glue the flash guard that was on it (backwards), but I decided that I could do better by crafting my own. Using an piece of PVC pipe that I had in my workshop, I cut off a section of that and sanded it to the shape of the flash guard. I heated it a bit with my heat gun so it would have more of a curve to fit the hole. After gluing with E6000, I painted it flat black. Works for me! Lugging along. I really wanted to add a bayonet lug to my blaster, too. After reading dozens of posts about how to make one, I realized that I had two options: 1. Find an object to make a bayonet lug, or 2. Make a bayonet lug from scratch. I realized that it would take me much less time to make one from scratch, believe it or not! I made a lump of Green Stuff into a shape of a die. I let it dry overnight. Using photos from the Blaster Reference files, I carved a bayonet lug using a Dremel and a small hack saw. It may not be perfect, but it works well enough for me! I attached it to my blaster with some E6000, and secured it further by adding a screw from the inside of the barrel. I hit it with some flat black paint, and it’s done! Right on track. With everything perforated and painted as I wanted it, it was finally time to get some t-tracks installed. I picked up a set of t-tracks from Marv here in the FISD. They are awesome! The Hasbro blaster is somewhat smaller than a full-sized e-11, so I had to reduce the width of the tracks. I sanded down the outer edges of the t-tracks with my belt sander just enough so they wouldn't entirely cover up the holes. Remember, I want the light to shine through a bit from the inside of the barrel. I tried to fit the tracks in using the boiling water technique, but found that it wouldn’t heat up the tracks enough to work with. While the hot water made them bendable, they cooled way too fast to work with. So I grabbed my heat gun, heated up the ends of the t-tracks, and was able to work with ease. It was so flippin’ cool to finally see t-tracks on my blaster! Light show. Just when I began to think that my progress was moving along nicely, I hit a snag. The Hyperdyne light kit isn’t designed to fit in a blaster that has the t-tracks installed. The lights on the system are supposed to fit just inside the holes along the length of the barrel. And now four of those holes are filled in with t-track. The blaster wouldn't close. Oops. Now what?! Dremel to the rescue? I sanded down everything I could to make the lights inside fit, and realized that there were still two areas where the lights wouldn’t fit inside the barrel. I took a leap of faith and gently… oh soooooo gently and slowly while holding my breath and keeping one eye closed… bent the LED lights (oh please don’t break, please please please don’t break…) so they were moved out of the way of the obstructions of the t-tracks on both sides. No breakage, yay! Then once I was able to get them to fit, the real test came. Would everything still function when powered up?! Holding my breath again, I flipped on the power and closed my eyes (please work, please work, please work….). I pulled the trigger. Yaaaassss!!! Everything still worked! Whew! Okay, let’s get everything glued in now, shall we? Securing the motion. Once all the electronics were installed just right, I still had to deal with gluing in the little motor that provides the motion when the trigger is pulled. There is not a lot of room for the motor in there. It took me several hours of gluing, closing, and then having to reopen the blaster, reposition the motor, and glue it again in place so it would have a clear area inside to turn. By the end of the day, I had it just where I wanted, and I was able to button up the blaster with everything inside functioning. Here’s a short video of this little blaster in action, because photos won’t do this upgrade justice. https://youtu.be/cfZgzbTvK98 That’s all for now! I’ll be adding on all the little Doopydoos bells and whistles to the outside of the blaster next. Stay tuned!

I'm not receiving anything but the daily digest for just one thread I'm following. A few weeks ago, I received instant updates to all the topics I followed. I have both boxes checked for notifications for posts and topics I follow. Nothing has gone into my spam folders. Help would be appreciated. I'm using gmail. Thanks!

Love the blaster! But, is that a Lego Blaster Stand?

I feel like I’m in new territory with modding this blaster. I can’t find too many build threads that illustrate what I was looking to accomplish, such as adding a metal scope bracket to a Hasbro blaster, and adding all the holes to the barrel. Maybe I missed that thread! Anyhow, off to winging it I go… Scope rail for the Hasbro. What a PITA! Still, once I got over my learning curve, it wasn’t difficult at all. I used a 1/8”x 3/4”piece of aluminum for my rail, and a 1/16” 2” L shaped piece of aluminum for the counter bracket. I got it all correct on my 4th attempt. Instead of going over the step-by-step, I’ll just list some things I learned from my mistakes: Don’t scratch that. On a 1/8” thick piece of aluminum, every time I scored the inside of where I wanted the 90 degree bend (at the front of the scope rail), it snapped when I bent it at the score line. Maybe it was the stock from Home Depot that was the problem. Anyhow, with a vice grip, some clamps, and patience, I was able to get a nice bend in the aluminum without scoring it. Scored on the left, unscored on the right- Bend before cutting. Because the end of the stock is perfectly straight, I used that to my advantage. I made the 90 degree bend in the stock before cutting my length for the e-11. Even if the length after the 90 degree bend is too long, you can cut that down later. You can see here how the bend was good, but the length after the bend was too long. (I sanded that down so there was less of an incline in the scope rail on the blaster). Oh, and ignore that gaping hole you see there... there's a reason for that... Fit the curve. Using my belt sander and Dremel, I created a curve in the end of the aluminum stock so that it would sit more flush on the barrel. Here you can see how the end curves to the barrel. I drilled a hole into the end of the scope rail to anchor it to the blaster. Measure long. When cutting the length of the scope rail (after you’ve got your super cool 90 degree bend), measure the distance between the front of the 90 degree bend to where you want to anchor the scope rail to the rear sight at the end of the blaster. Add a few centimeters to that. Because the Hasbro blaster has some additional plastic stuff below the scope, the scope rail needs to be positioned a bit higher than a typical pipe build. So the scope rail on the Hasbro will slope down just slightly over the rear sight. That little bend down will take up some of your length. It's much easier to grind down a too-long piece of rail than to end up with one that's too short, 'cos there ain't no fixin' that! (*ahem* ask me how I know...) Dremel < Jigsaw! I was trying to use my Dremel and a cutting wheel to make the little cuts necessary to get the piece to fit into the sight part of the end of the e-11. I couldn’t get my cuts very straight, and it was taking a ridiculously long time to make any progress. Then I realized that I owned a jigsaw and a variety of blades. Woo hoo! A jigsaw fitted with a blade for metal, and I was speeding through my metal cuts with ease. More hacks. The plastic ‘counter’ on the Hasbro sticks out to the point where it renders the counter bracket unusable. So time for the Dremel, and off it goes. There’s a gap once it’s carved out, but the counter on the counter bracket will cover the hole. And if it’s too noticeable, then I will just cover the gap with a piece of black ABS cut to fit. I took down the extra material in the front so the scope is more level. Aaaand that's all for now! Next up will be holes galore and paint, paint, paint...

:dancing-trooper: Congratulations, Christina! You made this build look so easy. Fantastic job!

Are they painted on or decals? Unfortunately, yeah, it looks like they are on the wrong sides. I made the exact same mistake as you, only I had painted my stripes on. I sanded them off and re-applied with a sponge and stencil. A little bit of work, yes, but not impossible to correct. http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/36229-crickets-hero-build-deep-breath-lets-do-this/page-4 If these are decals, then just peel 'em off and reapply! Good luck, trooper!

Huge congrats, Christina!!!! You'll have made Centurion in no time at all with this build. So happy for you!!!!

Good luck!!!! Your armor is awesome!

Way to go!!! Congrats!

Hey Troopers! In case anyone wants to follow my Hasbro blaster upgrade build, I've posted it here: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/37445-hasbro-doopy-conversion-w-hyperdyne-labs-upgrade-pewpewpew/ Have a good weekend!

So while I’m waiting on my armor, I decided to jump into doing a Hasbro build. This is my very first time doing something like this! I have a Hyperfirm, but I also wanted something with sound and lights for fun. So not only am I doing the Doopy’s kit overlay, but I’m upgrading the guts with a Hyperdyne Labs e-11 Blaster Upgrade, too. I don’t expect my blaster to end up super screen accurate, but I’m going to do my best to improve it as well as I can. Here’s some of my progress so far: I’ve been getting ideas from Pandatrooper’s Hasbro build: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/8838-pandatroopers-hasbro-build/ I used this youtube tutorial for a Hasbro conversion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDt7bM2p_3U And this youtube tutorial for the Doopydoos assembly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEwoSCEWRms Great info here, too: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/19872-dm101-doopys-e11-blaster-build/page-3?hl=%20dm101%20%20e-11 http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/32111-fisd-e-11-blaster-reference/ To the build! Blaster before the upgrade: First thing, cutting off the ends of the scope to open the blaster up. Opening up my blaster was a royal PITA. I completely mangled the t-track on the top along the seam because it was completely CA glued on. I think it took me about a little over an hour to pry the entire blaster apart because of all the inside areas that had been glued together. I didn’t want anything major to break, so I took my time. It was very frustrating, and I almost gave up a few times. The feeling of victory when the pieces came apart was exhilarating! Here's the blaster after sanding and the scope cutting. Next, I decided that since I’d mangled the top t-track, I would just replace it. Which meant replacing all of them so they would match. I purchased a set of t-tracks from Marv, and will install them soon. Using my Dremel (which is the most amazing tool EVAR), I sanded off all the tracks. While I was at it, I decided that the backwards flash guards had to go. I gently cut them off with my cutting wheel to save as much of the pieces as possible. I will be gluing just one back on in the correct position on the right side only (because there isn’t supposed to be one on the left). I really didn’t like the Hasbro scope/counter combo, so I decided to 86 them entirely. Well, let’s be honest: I had mangled the sight of the scope when taking the blaster apart. I could have limped along and created a something to patch up the ends that I had cut off. But no. I couldn’t do it! I had purchased an extra scope and counter from Doopy’s when I bought my conversion kit, so ultimately, the decision was easy. I had a challenging time getting started with the first cut of removing the scope. There would be no turning back once I started! So, armed with my Dremel fitted with a cutting wheel, I took a deep breath, and…. Cutting the scope off left me with a gaping hole in the top of the blaster. See below. Scary! But, this will be an easy fix. I will cut out a piece of black ABS, carve it to the shape of the hole, and simply glue it to the top. It will be under the scope and painted, so it won’t really be seen anyhow. Pics of that to come soon. Then there was the issue of how to attach the scope and counter to the blaster. Hm. I didn’t want to glue them on because of how they would sit on the blaster. Plus, I didn't feel that they would be all that stable just glued on there. And I really wanted to have a ‘real’ metal scope rail on my blaster rather than the solid plastic piece (sad excuse for a scope rail) that currently exists. After careful examination, I found out that I could completely grind off the plastic scope rail on the Hasbro without losing integrity to the main housing of the blaster. So off it went. I wasn’t as terrified of this kind of slicing and dicing of the blaster as I was when chopping off the scope. It seems that the first cut is always the most difficult to do, right? I was about to drop yet more money on a pre-made scope rail when I discovered that I could easily (and inexpensively) make my own. Bill Hag is a god! http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/4697-howto-make-a-metal-scope-rail-counter-bracket/ So off to Home Depot to pick up a few pieces of aluminum. I think both pieces cost me less than $10, and I’ve got enough material to make at least 2 scope rails with counter brackets. Sweet! Progress pics of that to come soon. I made some mods to the Doopy’s pieces. I cut off the pre-formed ‘button’ on the ammo box, and glued on a button that was included with the upgraded magazine (also purchased from Doopy’s). The e-11 Conversion Kit has a magazine that fits best with the Hasbro. The ‘Upgraded Magazine’ would fit well on a pipe build, or on something more authentic. I Dremeled out some areas of the folding stock piece to add depth. My carving skills need sharpening, though (see what I did there? Haha…). On a suggestion from Pandatrooper’s build, I added some rivets to the stock, too. Stupid me, I should have just removed the rivet pin first and then glued the rivet in the hole. So the pin is stuck in there now, and I don’t feel like drilling it out (just so my rivet can look a little better). Does anyone really notice rivets, anyways? I also decided to make my folding stock actually pivot off of the blaster so I can remove it if I ever have issues with my electronics. I drilled out this little X on both sides of the blaster. I had to carve out a notch in the handgrip so that the folding stock ends met up perfectly with the X parts of the handgrip. This seemed to take me forever to do! Once everything lined up perfectly, I then drilled holes in the folding stock itself. Using a 2” aluminum screw post, I pushed the post through, and VOILA, fully pivoting folding stock piece. Woo! Once this was installed, I added the front part of the folding stock and lightly glued it into place while it was snugly seated against the blaster. This made sure that there would be no gaps between the folding stock and the blaster once it had dried. The pic below shows that there is no light seeping through between the folding stock pieces and the barrel of the blaster. I will be using Pandatrooper’s method of securing the front of the stock to the blaster with a t-nut mounted inside the blaster and screw through the folding stock. I picked up an upgraded magazine clip from gazmosis. It took me a bit of sanding and shaping, but I got the clip to fit in the Doopy’s magazine nicely. Pics of that to come soon. Oh, and then there’s the Hyperdyne Labs e-11 Blaster Upgrade. So. Much. Pewpewpew! I can’t tell you how much I love this little light/sound setup. And the fact that it vibrates the blaster when fired is such a cool bonus. I took some tips regarding the installation of this kit from this Youtube tutorial for a Hasbro conversion (it’s near the end of the video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDt7bM2p_3U I Dremeled out some extra areas inside of the blaster so everything would fit better, and I added the popsicle stick for the trigger for extra stability. The kit is very, very easy to install. Even if you don’t know anything about electronics, you can install it within minutes. The only info that wasn’t included with the Hyperdyne kit was where to install the green/yellow/red status LED lights on the blaster. Using the video mentioned in the above paragraph, I saw where he had installed his lights, so I used that as my resource. Using a small drill bit on my Dremel, I gently drilled out three holes until they were large enough to fit the lights snugly near the hand grip. I’m still planning on drilling some holes on the left side of the barrel near the bottom and also adding a bayonet lug. My 7/16” drill bit arrives today, so that work will take place over the weekend. After that, the painting process begins (woo!). Can’t wait to get that started. Aaaand that's all for now, folks! Any tips/feedback is always appreciated!

The TM, I'm going to build for myself. The ATA, I might end up building for my husband. He's been really excited about watching my progress with the helmet (and now the blaster). I have a strong feeling that he's gonna want a TK for himself once mine is built! If he doesn't want it, then I'll make the ATA into a Sandy (even if I have to mod the Hero lid I'm working on).

Wait, what?! Oh, wow, I really hope it's not that long. Do you know something I don't? If so, please clue me in! I was placed on ATA's list on Jan. 1 of this year, and I was told it would be an 11 month wait, so I expect to have my TK from Terrell by the end of this year. And I sent my money to Paul for my TM TK back in April. I asked him to build my helmet, so I know it'll take a bit longer to get the kit, but I'm expecting to have that in a few months (if not sooner). He told me that he would be starting on my kit soon. In the meantime, I'm still finishing work on my ATA helmet, but taking my time on it. I've recently plunged headfirst into a Hasbro e-11 conversion, and am adding my Hyperdyne labs upgrade. I'll be posting a link to that build soon. It's more fun to just focus on the build and not worry about posting my pics just yet. Thousands of tiny black plastic shards cover my workspace right now!

Hey, I'm just as dated as you are, then. I saw that movie... three times... in the theater. Great work!

I finally gave in and sanded off the tube stripes on the left side of the helmet (that I had so painstakingly hand painted on), just so they would match the other side. Thanks to AWOL for the suggestion! Before. Sanded off. Stencil applied. Take the time to press down FIRMLY around all the edges to ensure that there are no tiny gaps for paint to seep in. After that, repeat this step once or twice more just to be on the safe side because paint bleed sucks. Apply the paint with a paint brush to the sponge. You want the sponge to be saturated, but not too much. Too much paint on the sponge, and you’ll end up with bubbling on your tube stripes. Thinner application of paint is best, and will give you bubble-free results. I applied 3 layers overall, with two additional layers on an area where the paint wasn’t going on as evenly as I had liked. I began to get impatient, and added thicker coats of paint, which resulted in some minor bubbling. I’m not too concerned about it, though. It still looks a gazillion times better than my prior work, so it’s a win for me. As my tube stripes dried, I decided to tackle my teardrop stripes (that’s what they’re called, right?), using another stencil. Same sponge technique. Right side. Two easy layers, and done. Left side. This one gave me problems. I couldn’t get the stencil to lay flat! Despite trying to seal up the edges, this was my result. Gah! Not to worry, though. The gray paint under the black stripes has cured over a few weeks, so a little thinner to clean up the stripes saved me. The thinner doesn't do any damage to the cured paint in the amounts I use when the paint is still fairly wet. Also, this stencil seemed to be too large in my teardrop. I ‘erased’ the areas that bled out around the stencil as well as reduced the length of the stripes so they would look better balanced within the teardrop itself. Next up: get the stripes painted onto the back of the lid.

I saw that when I was there, too! And haha about the gummy frown! I thought that the blue color of the tube stripes looked off to me as well. Maybe it was the lighting in there.

Looks fab! Beautiful work. ☺

I've been away on a much needed vacation for the past two weeks, so not much progress on my lid has been done. I had two whole days over at Disneyland, and most of that time was spent with my kids in Tomorrowland checking out all the Star Wars stuff. The blue milk bread was delicious. I met Kylo Ren... that was a seriously intense Meet-and-Greet. I could have sworn that it was Adam Driver in there. Very, very accurate, menacing, intimidating... wow. I need more TK training, methinks! I had to go hug a wookie afterwords at the Chewbacca Meet-and-Greet to get the heebie-jeebies off me. So now I'm back home, and ready to get busy with my TK! Some little things were accomplished though before I left, namely placing my order for a Hero kit from Troopermaster. Super excited about this! I'm even having Paul build my helmet, so I'll be left to focusing on the armor itself. And I'm happy waiting for it because I've got another little thing on the way. For Mother's Day, my family purchased a Hyperdyne Labs E-11 Trooper Blaster Upgrade for me!!!! OMG, I about died when they told me about it. I'm almost as excited about this as I am my upcoming TM kit. Can't wait to get it hooked up. Haha! Thank you! The paint I'm using is Model Master (Testor) French Blue (glossy) T53041. It dries ridiculously fast.

Yay, let the build begin! Congrats to you! I'll be following for sure. ☺

I’ve realized that I REALLY didn’t like how the tube stripes I’d painted on the right side of the bucket looked. Instead of trying to fix them, I opted to scrub them. Scrub them off. Initially, sanding them off was scary, because the blue paint went all over the place. See? Then I took some time to sand and polish until it looked nice and clean. Unpolished on the left, polished on the right. I applied the stencil, pressing firmly around the edges to ensure that there would be no paint bleed. I’ve learned that the paint will thicken up quickly if it’s left out, so I dabbed a small puddle of it on my plastic palette and waited. I kept thinking of other ways that I could reduce possible paint bleed. Light bulb… Ah-HA! I would sponge the paint on! A cool nail art technique I learned while involved with the nail polish world is application of nail polish using a cosmetic sponge. You can get all sorts of cool gradient colors this way, and the effect is flawless. So I whipped out a cosmetic sponge, cut it down to a workable size, and applied paint to one end of it. This turns the sponge into a paint stamper with a smooth finish. So I made a bigger mask around the edges of the stencil because I knew it would be messy around the edges. I dabbed the paint on in a single thin layer at a time, allowing a few minutes between coats. Remember, my paint dried super fast, so I was able to work quickly. If your paint dries slowly, then you’ll need to wait until it’s completely dry or else you run the risk of sponging your paint right off the ABS (the paint can get sticky). I only needed three layers. I held my breath as I removed all of the masking material and stencil. Would this work??? YAAASSS!!! The entire process took me less than 15 minutes, and the resulting lines are sharp and clear. It’s an airbrushed look, but without the airbrush. I like how this turned out so much that I’m considering sanding off the hand painted tubes on the left side of my bucket and reapplying them using this technique. I feel like I’ve discovered a new continent! But tell me: surely I can’t have been the only one who has done this technique for tube stripes?

Good tip! I will need to remember this when I finally get to assemble my armor. Hope you're feeling better soon.

That's exactly what I did on my ATA Hero helmet that I'm currently building. I initially applied the ABS paste too thin, and it left awful bubbles in my patching. So my tip to you is make sure the consistency of your paste is like sticky play-dough. Knead a small bit in your fingers to work out any air bubbles that might be in the paste before applying. Then smash it very well into the teeth divot. ABS paste is awesome for this kind of thing! You can find acetone at any beauty supply or drugstore; you don't necessarily have to make a run to the hardware store for this. Just make sure it is labeled as Pure Acetone. Sally Beauty Supply has sizes of Pure Acetone from small bottles all the way up to gallon jugs. Also, make sure you take the time to sand down your ABS patches well so they blend in nicely with the rest of the frown. Good luck with your modding, and post pics!

Hey Brian, Yep! Somewhere like Sally Beauty Supply should have it. Good luck with the repair!