jonhaag

Our house was without AC from Saturday to mid-day Wednesday, so all progress came to grinding halt as we essentially moved in with the in-laws for a few days. On a good note though, all of the T-Tracks have been printed so I just need to glue those on tonight and I'm on track to lay down the first layer(s) of paint by Sunday methinks.

Definitely loving seeing it all come together like this. I got version 2.0 of the files. Definitely looks like he improved the barrel connection/strength. Little bummed that I'm so far along now that the hollowed out receiver exists. Thankfully, since it's modular, I may go back and make an electronics-filled receiver down the road since I have a Disney E-11 I can gut.

Finished up the bipod after having to get a little creative with how to join the halves of the legs I printed (since the original files are way to long to print intact on my printer). I wound up printing two tabs, attaching them to the insides of the legs, and then using those to give much more surface area to adhere the pieces together. The bipod is fully functional, though I won't connect it to the barrel until all sealing and painting is done. Coming down to the end of the printing phase: I did a bunch of rough sanding today and now I just need to finish printing and attach T-Tracks. Then I can get to work sealing with XTC-3D and then painting.

Yeah, I'm super impressed with it. Definitely some parts that you can tell are not fully thought out in a 3D printing context, but there hasn't been anything a little creative and thoughtful slicing hasn't fixed. It's been an excellent learning experience considering I only got my printer a month ago - great opportunity for me to learn things that work/don't work when printing and how to use several software tools. I've been emailing him today to let him know about the right leg bit, and also giving him some additional feedback on updates he's making that he's shared with me. He's going to be publishing a new model, T-Tracks included, soon.

Not sure if he's updated any more parts, but just a heads up that the right leg file is just the object's shell without any interior. Took a print gone quite wrong to realize that. Thankfully running it through the Repair function in Netfabb corrected that.

Don't want to use up as much filament from my other color spools, since green is my least used. The whole thing will get several coats of black paint in the end anyway.

Really coming together, despite some gluing drama tonight. Assembled the various parts of the barrel into two separate halves. Epoxied, sanded, and painted the inner barrel this afternoon. Put it all together tonight: The point where the inner and outer barrels connect to the part that screws into the receiver proved to be a bear to get to stick together. I broke 3 of the 4 tabs that help align the outer barrel thanks to not letting the super glue cure enough before putting weight on the barrel when I tried assembling the whole gun. I sanded the ends a bit, applied super glue around the rim of the outer barrel, made a bed of E6000 in the notch where the inner barrel connects, and put it all together again. Let it cure a while tonight, screwed it all together again, and gave it another shot at seeing if it held weight... Thankfully, it did, at least for now. I'm thinking once the E6000 fully cures I'll be golden. Now to finish printing the bipod, add T Tracks, and then epoxy, sand, paint, and weather.

So as to not continue posting all of my stuff in da_prop_maker's thread: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/34925-My-DLT-19-project I'm starting up my own thread here on FISD to track my progress on my own 3D printed DLT. I picked up a Monoprice 3D printer about a month ago, and as luck would have it, came across da_prop_maker's thread and reached out to the person he had worked with on a MG34 printable model as seen here: https://sketchfab.com/models/ce8a6e64b78143568ac80c3f740f29e4 (If you want the file yourself, contact Máté and he'll sell it to you - support your artists!) My printer's build plate is 8"x8"x7", so I've had to get creative with slicing the some of the larger parts to get them to fit, in addition to some of the smaller parts to allow them to be printed without supports. I'm pretty far along now, but here's some pics of my progress so far: I need to take more pictures of the latest parts I've printed to finish out the barrel. Printing the bipod legs will prove to be an adventure I fear...

I was directed to a T Track model on Thingiverse. Downloaded it, cut out a curve based on the radius of the barrel, and printed a small chunk to test the fit:

Just realized the model doesn't have T-Tracks... Any suggestions on where to buy them or how to make them?

I'm working with a 8x8x7 build area on my Monoprice printer. I've had to split several large pieces already, but it's nothing glue and sanding won't solve.

I'm going to assume it'll wind up being a spool worth or so of filament.

Here's my current progress: Still need to fill some gaps of my own creation and fix a few small printer issues. I'll be starting in on the barrel in the next few days.

We will find out once it's all put together. I'll probably use PVC for the barrel rather than printing since that'll be the weakest large part.

I was scared that it wouldn't work, but it actually works out just fine on these two halves. Just have to figure out the right place to start inserting the male end the first time you do it. Only issue I've had was I forgot to add any tolerance to the dovetail joint I used to combine the splits I had to make for the buttstock and it cracked a little when I went to slide it together. Easy enough fix though, and I've added tolerances to my joints going forward.

Begun, my printing has...

Definitely interested in trying this one out myself!

A garrison-mate worked with a company to do a custom run of spray paint that was color-matched to the ANOVOS ABS.

Here's ultimately what mine looked like: Inside view: Painted: Worn: The curve makes gluing the shims awkward, and I'll ultimately need to give them a water bath to shape the whole part a bit better, but they close thanks to the industrial strength Velcro and they stay put. Ultimately, I will make seams disappear with ABS paste sometime down the line.

Newly approved TK 12130 requesting access: http://www.501st.com/members/displaymember.php?userID=21802&costumeID=124 Thanks!

Big congrats! As a fellow bigger guy, your application photos served as an excellent reference as I've been putting the finishing touches on my kit.

Submission pics from this weekend's armor party. Huge thanks to my local garrison for helping with the final suit up, adjustments, and pictures! A couple notes on my pics: - Sniper plate would not behave, but I will be installing some foam to keep it forward and in front of the thigh. - Totally forgot to slide my ammo boxes onto the belt for pics, but as shown in my last post they are there now. - I got the supplies for my belt/garter system to hold the thighs up better, which will help with the sniper knee too. - I need to replace the snaps for the belt connection on my ab plate. Those are ANOVOS snaps right now, which don't work well with the Tandy snaps on the new belt. The right snap came loose during pics, but we didn't notice it until afterward. - I will also be replacing the elastic straps on my chest to ab connection with normal straps to prevent the ab from slipping too low depending on how I'm standing or moving. It was realllly bright outside when we took these shots But it was all worth it, as I got my approval email from our GML this afternoon! Just waiting on my legion ID now 3 months of work and I'm all set* to start trooping! *After I knock out a handful of fixes as noted plus a few more upgrades on my list...

Time for a biiiiiiig update. I've been neglecting this thread as I was making a mad dash to get my kit finished up in time to do a final suit up and take pics at a local armor party this weekend (shoutout to Garrison Tyranus). Here's pics of all of the pieces I put finishing touches on: Ammo belt Painted thigh shims and cover strips Sniper knee ANOVOS to TKittel belt transplant (followed a thread here on FISD for attaching the plastic without needing to replace the rivets) Thermal detonator A bit of a mishap here - I used ukwrath's measurements for the butt snaps, but it looks like his snaps were smaller. Mine overlapped using his measurements, so I had to drill a new hole to make mine fit. I'll see about adding a dab of ABS paste to fill that hole soon. I'm sure I missed a part or two, but that's been the bulk of my work for the past week or two. Which all leads up to my next post... Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Finally tackled painting the ab buttons tonight: Used toothpicks to apply the paint. Pretty happy overall with the results.

I saw that and was considering it. Still doesn't quite address my need to be able to trim the shims down over time that well.