Addertime

That looks pretty nice. I look forward to seeing how the electronics work out.

Outstanding and inspirational work all around. Love the finishing techniques!

The Tube - Part 2 Ejection Port and Muzzle Guards Time to create: 20 minutes Cost of materials: €0.00 The ejection port and muzzle guards were cut from a tiny piece of scrap 20mm pvc conduit from the trash bin. It was a good way to go as the pieces were already curved and required very little shaping. I cut the pattern and as always, used spray glue to adhere the pattern pieces to the tubing. I used aviation snips to cut the rough shapes. Then a bit more snipping and some final shaping with sandpaper. Lastly, I adjusted the curve with pliers and test fitted to a piece of pipe. Perfect fit! Here's what they look like on the tube. I used JB Weld for the attachment and will go back with a second application later to create a fillet resembling a real weld. _____________

Thanks all for the encouragement. More to come!

Several months ago I was looking for a project. I used to build things for a living and now I work in a more virtual environment. I was nostalgic for a hands-on, low-tech build of something... anything... and finally set my sights on an E-11 largely due to the amazing depth or resources available here on FISD. The criteria for the build were simple... create something cool with easily obtained materials and simple tools, build it with very little cost, have fun doing it and do it all without annoying the neighbors. I created a small shop in the corner of my basement storage and armed with a dremel, cordless drill and hand tools, began creating my new toy. I've been working on it for an hour here and an hour there since late January and it's about halfway done. I figured it was about time to unveil my progress. Sadly, I didn't look at my build photos along the way and a lot of them weren't very good so I'll just cover the highlights of the build up to this point and try to be more diligent as the project goes forward. I'm formatting each aspect with time, cost and a description of what I did. The "Time to build" does not include r&d or do-overs and the "Cost of Materials" is based on the amount of material used for the actual build and doesn't include tools purchased or failed experiments. These numbers are basically the, "If I had it to do over tomorrow, I could build for this." So... here we go... _______________ The Tube - Part 1 Time to create: 4 hours Cost of materials: €0.75 I went with a standard pipe build using readily PVC electrical conduit. I wanted the appropriate wall thickness of a real Sterling and schedule 40 PVC seemed way too thick. I found a perfect tube on my first outing and purchased a 2 meter piece of tubing for €2.95 Using a plans found on this forum, I imported the .pdf files into CorelDRAW and redrew them using the imported images for scale. I wanted the seam on the bottom instead of the top, as they were originally created, in case the seam didn't line up perfectly... and it didn't. There was a slight overlap and lining it up was more challenging than anticipated. I drew a line on the pipe (cut to length) and taped the plan along one edge to the pipe and spray glued the paper plan rolling around the tube after spraying and giving the glue a moment to tack up. I drilled the vent holes using the stepping technique and all went fine until I hit a snag toward the end... my drill index used to go with my 1/2" chuck drill press I used to use in my old shop and my 3/8" cordless drill wouldn't accept the last four sizes I needed to use... After a bit of thought, I decided to just try reaming the holes by hand to reach the appropriate bit size. I wrapped a piece of cloth around the bit and bore only took a few twists to bring it up to size. I advanced through the last few bits and got all the holes to the correct sizes. Granted, it took another hour plus and I felt it in my forearms for a few days bit, short of buying new drill bits (which I considered), it was my best option. I scored through the plan with an Xacto knife to indicate the postions of the various other pieces such as the sights, ejection port, etc. and then cut the ejection port, and charging slot by drilling a starter hole and then repeatedly scoring the lines with an Xacto knife. I left the magazine side intact and would later drill a hole for wiring the electronics. __________________

SW Battlefront is a daily, or rather nightly, event in my house.

Cool stuff. They may have to create an 8 bit CRL.

I'd totally be up for naming someone else's kid is that poll ever opens.

I was in your shoes recently, Skye's Vader. I did tons of research but was still indecisive. It's a pretty big decision. After much soul searching, I finally asked myself the hard questions..."Why do I want this?" and "What are my expectations of the finished product?" After I answered those questions, the choice was easy.

It's interesting how opinions vary with age. Whichever film one saw first, as a child, seems to set a marker for them. I saw AHN in 1977. I was 11. I waited desperately for the following two films and ate them up with a spoon. I loved VII because it was the story and style I knew and wanted. I despised Ep. I-III because I felt cheated and let down by something that was very dear to me but I've heard plenty of people over the years who saw I, II or II as children say it's their favorite trilogy. In fact one seemed to be popular with smaller children of the day probably because of the pod race and silly characters. I suppose it's all relative but even when I try to take my bias out of the equation, I still see Ep. I as an abomination and II and III as justifiable backstory but with little entertainment value. I agree with those who said to suggest IV, V, VI and VII in that order and omit I, II and III as they don't "feel" like Star Wars.

Up Sith Creek Stormtroopers? Here? In Vader We Trust A Shot in the Dark Plastic Wars Yeah, I had too much coffee this morning.

Brillianize is a great single step cleaner/polish. It also reduces static.

It sounds like a lot but the full RS commission comes in at about $2140 USD, depending on the exchange rate.

Very cool stuff! Looks like more tech and more costumes to add to the list.

Looks like a great day out!