Nicky's E11 build number 2 [DVH kit with pipe and extras]

[Nicky]

Hi!

So last year I made a hasbro E11 converted with doopy's kit, meant to be a toss around blaster. At the same time ordered the full kit from doopydoo, but as people know: doopy has problems delivering orders and doing proper customer service. So I lost money with them, but I wasn't left without hope. A member of the FISD boards TK-6908 aka Darth Voorhees, responded to the doopydoo complaint thread on here, bringing an idea and a project to give the community an alternative and reliable source for E11 kits. He worked real hard to get all parts and produce a new kit called the DVH and I got squeezed into the first run.

So this is the build thread
Note: all images but one are thumbnails and zoomable.

Comments about the kit I received:
I asked that he doesn't trim or finish any part as I want a little credit for the assembly lol, so it does not look ready to glue on perfect right out of the box, due to bubbles in the resin, and the casting entries. That's something for me to fix. The kit comes a pipe cut to length, and with templates for the front and rear halves of the barrel. Strangely it comes with two rear caps, one with the D ring support molded in, one with it separated that I will use. It comes a metal rail too but I won't use it.

Actually I will use from other sources the T-Tracks from Marv, and scope rail/bracket from EvilBoy. You may find these easily on the ongoing sales forum if available at time of reading.

Here's the first pic of parts out of the box.



Note: Marv's t-tracks upper left corner.




Build and modding process.

Tools used:
-Dremel with various bits, you'll see bits used in the pics.
-Power drill with bits from 3.2mm to 10mm.
-2 part epoxy as contact glue.
-2 part epoxy paste as filling and bonding material.
-Allen bolts marked as 6mm diameter. They have no grooves on the side of the head but "screw that". I think you call it 1/4".
-1.5mm and 2.0mm thick Aluminum wire for spring and curled cables.
- Patience + common sense + trial and error.

Important: eyes and airway protection. A vaccum cleaner end was taped to the table later on and helped quite a bit.

If I have a final advice for you is not to take my occasional humor as insurance that everything's gonna go well with the power tools if you just wing it. Be patient, use proper room lighting and watch what you're doing. If anything breaks due to vibrations or slips, don't panic and be thankful you have some bonding paste to refill the mistakes =)

DAY 1

Hengstler Counter.

Most important things first I guess. First I break the button because I know it will eventually break, and drill a hole and on the side so I can slide in my TK-iD. Then I glue the button back on. Note: this is obviously an optional modification, it helps simulate the appearance of a functional counter by clearing space for a print of digits and a transparent plastic piece on top.



After trimming and drilling, and making tunnels and cravaces, here are the results:



Grip

The outer grip needs some heavy cleaning up, and smoothing up. Then an allen bolt that fits right in.


note: you will not need to paint this as the original sterling grip was plastic as well, so you may clean with water, let dry, and attach it only after the rest of the blaster was primered, silvered, and finished so the grip doesn't weather in the "metal style".

D-ring needs a home, that was easy enough. I just drilled through a tunnel and dremeled it open like a trench. I needed to sand the whole bottom too, so that was done.





Folding stock.
I added depth to the details, cleaned up the surfaces too. It had bubble flaws, and the dremel helped me and soon I will use epoxy paste to fill the holes and reshape with the dremel and filers.



Pipe section.
I had to ditch the option of 1/2" holes, why? because I'd have to buy over 20 dollars in hardware or a new power drill to get 10mm bits for example. 1/2", being 12.7mm. So I do smaller holes and widen them until big enough to fit say bolt lever, using the dremel and cone tip. The way I trimmed after the template didn't let the thingie bolt lever fit in right, so I made a second pass with the dremel w/ metal disc, and the cone tip. I also used a tiny cylinder to smoothen the lines a bit everywhere. The barrel holes are not wide enough for the T-tracks to fit in, being 10mm and all. But That's only like 12 holes that needs enlarging, with the dremel again. I have to be conscious about my wallet instead of buying new tools to do what dremel can sort-of do
 
Note 1: At least 3 holes detailed on the template did not need to be drilled, the one below the rail as the rail goes from the rear sight to the closest front barrel hole, and the two meant to affix the folding stock. Unless it's going to be a functional folding stock, just sand/roughen up, and glue the mounting axis of the folding stock, on the pipe.

Note 2: the pipe I have is longer than supposed to and will be shorted later on on the rear end relative to the far end hole and rear sight using reference pictures again.



Do not drill the top hole below the rail, or the two holes at the base of the folding stock like I did.

Needs some sanding to smoothen edges up. I think I made a mistake drilling a big hole in the top of the barrel (middle pic), I think the template was incorrect. OH WELL I'LL JUST FIGURE SOMETHING OUT LOL

Current progress after one afternoon working on it, is pretty much barely any progress, but who cares, I have 4 days left before the troop where it'll be needed




I will add more pics to the steps done above, I didn't transfer the boring "before" shots but I will. Please criticize and advise, without the FISD everything I build would do end up sucking


DAY 2

Today I had to combine laundry and E11 building, had to switch dirty clothes back and forth a dozen times haha.. I used more of my tools and tried a few things, broke a few things, repaired a few things, improvised a lot, and I'm quite happy though I hoped to have done more. But hey, multitasking right? Day 3 will be 100% blaster building.

End cap.
I BROKE IT, AHHH!!! So I had problems fitting on the pipe, not snug at all, and I sanded a bit on the inside of the cap and the outside of the pipe... well it helped crack the end cap alright! I rarely panic.

So if it's broken, I epoxy it!



Then I guess I'll just sand it since the dremel might cause some slight hammering that I might weaken bond.

I used this tool to sand down the PVC pipe, I marked where I knew the 3 ridges would have to go in case I felt like going deeper somewhere.



Front nozzle.
That's pretty straight forward, the untrimmed part had a piece of front sight on and was molded attached to end of the barrel, which isn't the same outer diameter as the PVC pipe. So I trimmed it down to get as little barrel as possible.



Now let's make the end of the barrel match a little bit. I assume the epoxy will leak and I can use it to even out the seam.



After a test fit I see it's not good enough. So I keep dremeling with two bits, one rough, one fine.



Close enough. Epoxy set:



Inner grip and base

That was easy.

I marked and dremeled, then cleaned the surface with hand sanitizer. Dremeled the grip base as well and drilled a hole for a screw to go through, it will also go through the pipe. This screw will be hidden after I'm done with the trigger guard. You may find a different place to put that screw in, that's just where I chose mine.



Here's a pic of the grip on, trigger side. I think I have to dremel that tab between with the 2 notches out. Actually it's done in Day 3.



Glued and scsrewed. The place where I decided to place the grip on the pipe is basically relative to the ejection port based on the sterling manual in the reference gallery.



Didn't take a pic but I glued the trigger in, no spring, no fancy interactivity. No time! Also it's an accident waiting to happen and I don't feel like asking for spares anytime soon


Front sight

And of course, the rail. The front sight didn't have the same curb as the pipe, I had to dremel a bit and then I saw it was flying too much on the edges. Now I know from pictures that it does fly a bit and ends in an inward angle. But I can fix this later, I need to increase the length of the legs on the side.

If it doesn't fit, I epoxy.



Rear sight

Now before I place the rear sight I figured that instead of fiddling with diagrams and being wrong, I'd use Evilboy's rail as reference. I widened the first barrel hole on the "spine" line up to 11mm to fit the rail end and figured I'd just glue the rear sight under where the rail ends.

Well the problem is that this rear sight had to be trimmed to fit the pipe shape and it ended up being too low.



In this pic you see that it doesn't look right when the rail is too low, in the movies the rail is very slim and soft, bends in funny ways under the scope, I want a more idealized straight rail.

So the rear sight is too low to support the rail? No problem, I'll put it on top of an epoxy tower! haha..



Ok that's it for day 2. Day 3 coming next.

What I'll do then is finish up the folding stock, I already drilled 9.5mm holes on it and installed the base point behind the grip. I have to make that epoxy tower more squarish, that means add more epoxy around it until I can dremel it. I think I will plunge a screw right through from the rail to the pipe as well just in case. What else. Oh and you can see there's a spring made of multipurpose aluminum wire. Naturally I messed up the perfect spring shape (happens all the time, what can I say?) and had to adjust every where.

What I also hope to do today is install the T-tracks. It would pretty much finish the whole damn thing before the paint.


DAY 3

Folding stock

Finishing up.



The folding stock comes molded with the mount axis that must be removed entirely and replaced, check your parts use that bridge looking thingie that looks like it could fit under the pipe. Glue that on instead.

The folding stock out of the box looked pretty roughed up and with bubbles, so on day 1 I did some sanding with the dremel. Now it was time to do it a bit more, add epoxy to fill the bubbles, and finesand / polish to clean up.



Taking care of important details first.



First clean up, it's a bit shiny now!




ook the opportunity to add a buttload of epoxy on the rougher parts, and locally to repair damage I did, and that the bubbles did.





And also round up the nozzle joint.



After I let it dry, another round of fine sanding, and cleaning up with the dremel felt bit.



It looks sharp now I've always seen other people "bondo" their things and end up getting smooth results, now it feels like I'm one of them!

So I glued that thing using that support thingie that just needed a bit more sanding to fit the PVC pipe. Yeah, you need a dremel for pretty much everything.

End cap

Alright, so, I sanded both parts, inside of end cap, and the PVC pipe. I wanted to do a locking system, slide in and rotate, using a green pen and paper mask. Not following any model. I ended up sanding pretty hard and the entire end of the pipe too was leveled down to fit in the end cap.




It still wasn't enough. The end cap didn't fit in snug, it resisted.

So I did what any normal person would do, I slammed it in real hard.





It's geometry, it had to happen

To repair that, I used the second end cap, the one that was cast in two parts and had the ring holder integrated, I used my 4 dremel bits, disc, sand, fine sand, felt. The destroyed one will be kept as spare, repaired thoroughly when I have the time.



That one fitted very easily. So yeah, these are two different end caps. So note: trim both inside the cap, and end of the pipe to reach a proper fit - don't force like I did.

T-Tracks

That went without real trouble. The bending angle must be a steep 90 degres, otherwise the track will be slightly elevated. Had to widen the 10mm barrel holes to some approximate "close enough" diameter to let the tracks fit in. Note: these aren't the ones included in the kit but the ones from Marv on these forums. I don't think you can cook the cast ones included in the kit.

Now I figured: why did i bother drill all these holes if they're gonna be hidden? But yeah, it's nice.



Magazine well

Didn't take pics of the entire process there but basically I used an 5mm flat screw, drilled a 4,8mm hole through the magazine well, drilled a 9,5mm hole halfways for the head to fit as the screw isn't that long, and ... well that 9,5mm hole was too deep so I had to use washers

So the mag well is both screwed and glued, like Lou did in his video. Again I used photos from the reference gallery as well as the sterling manual copy to find the placement of the mag well relative to the ejection port and the closest hole on the front barrel.





Alright, that's it for Day 3. The front sight fell off while I was installing the T-Tracks, but it glued again overnight.

To do next in Day 4:

-Glue thingie on barrel where there isn't any hole on where the 7th t-track is not present.
-Glue thingie on magazine
-Glue magazine
-Glue fire selector
-Screw grip more thoroughly using a proper tool
-Trim and finish scope
-Trim and finish hengstler counter, has major bubble issues to epoxy.
-Screw rail
-Screw scope
-Attach Hengstler (figure out how to)


These seem like very quick fixes, right? So maybe the primer paint before I'll go to sleep!


DAY 4


Hengstler?

Always something, right? So the Hengstler needs to be attached somehow, I believe it's half as high as the scope and the front of the counter box matches the joint between the ocular and the magnifier. I drilled two holes on the bracket for the Hengstler, that will be used later.

I took the time to fix biiiiig bubbles in the resin. The center ridge on that face was completely missing so I used piece of t-track left over to recreate that ridge.Sort of.




Scope

I drilled a whole big enough for a lock nut to fit in, matching the length of the screw that'll go through the rail and bracket. The lock nut is glued in with 2 part epoxy.



Useless inedible things

That one has an entire cap missing, I took excess trim from the folding stock. I spent nearly no time on that ridiculous thingie on the front barrel. And I gave the trigger guard a good sanding.



The trigger guard will be glued on top of the screw that holds the grip in place. I had to trim a bit off, that bit is hidden in the grip.



Magazine
You might think the magazine will be a snug fit, think again. You use the mag catch thingie as a support to glueing the mag on the right spot, and make sure to look at different angles on how the mag should be oriented. Hence it's a good point of reference to use that mag catch thingie that needs to be heavily sanded and cut to the right length. So now it's all glued.




Rear sight

It needed a good sanding. Because of the epoxy tower I built on Day 1.



It holds thanks to the epoxy that acts as a very strong glue even here, and a screw that will go through rail, rear sight, epoxy, and PVC pipe.

Nozzle / pipe joint
I sanded that part, partly, hoping that it looked "good enough". It's... okay.



Top view of magazine well and those thingies on it:




Springs
Aluminum wire around broom stick for the bolt spring, thick cables around metal cricular chopstick for the counter cables. They are both pretty rigid and stay in shape.




Primer

As usual I'll wait 1h between light coats. Probably 4 hours between different colors. Primer is set for now. You can also see how I hid that useless hole I drilled on top of the pipe.




Ok, now the fumes gave me a headache. Day 4 is over, on Day 5 I'll do the following:

-Silver coat #1, coat #2
-Black #1, black #2
-Passive weathering, or no weathering
-Counter, fix it!
-Paint black and install counter cables.
-Take lots of pics of the finished blaster!


DAY 5

Alright, here's my night last night:
Waking up every 2 hours and painting outside in the cold of Sweden in my underwear, two coats of each!

So today is just the silver and the matte black that was needed. The scope gets bronze/copper-like instead of silver.
The last coat was done about an hour ago and it's drying out now as we speak. Pictures!







Hopefully, THE END!

Edited April 3, 2013 by Nicky

[coffintanker]

Looking good!

[Evilboy[501st]]

Yay. Can not wait to get mine!

[The5thHorseman[TK]]

I think drilling the PVC pipe will be the most difficult for me too. It's really the step I fear the most !

 

And when I see all the resin dust that came with the sanding, maybe you should add, in addition of Airways protection, a pretty damn good hoover in your "tools used" list

[Nicky]

When drilling the PVC pipe, don't go full diameter. Use a tiny drill first on the center spot first, I did 4mm everywhere first. Then I went a second pass with the full diameter drill bit, it stayed centered on the first hole. Often it required so much torque with the big one that when it finally got through it flew right through the opposite hole, so that's something to be careful about.

Edited February 25, 2013 by Nicky

[DizzyStormtrooper[501st]]

Posting here so I remember when I get mine

[Darth Voorhees[501st]]

When drilling the PVC pipe, don't go full diameter. Use a tiny drill first on the center spot first, I did 4mm everywhere first. Then I went a second pass with the full diameter drill bit, it stayed centered on the first hole. Often it required so much torque with the big one that when it finally got through it flew right through the opposite hole, so that's something to be careful about.

 

yes this is 100% true! I almost drilled my hand the first time i did a pipe build!

 

Its lookin great Nicky!

 

If there is anything yourunsure of, please just ask. I know the videos are missing a few things so dont hesitate to ask me bud!

 

Yea i forgot to mention there are some holes marked on the template i dont use. That one you drilled on top i think is supposed to be for a bolt to go through down to the handle...but thats really a bit overkill to me so i dont use it.

 

Good to see you put the cocking handle on correctly, unlike myself lol.

 

 

TIP..i used 1" gaffers tape and taped the dremel to my shopvac hose end...so it sucked up the dust as i dremeled

Edited February 26, 2013 by Darth Voorhees

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Looking good.

 

I used a drill press and one of these stepped drill bits

 

I tried first using drill bits starting small and going up in size but the bigger you go the more they want to grab and bite into the pvc. These stepped drill bits are great.

[TK bondservnt[501st]]

the holes are 7/16 only 2 are 1/2 I use a variable speed drill to make my holes. then I finish up with the dremel cone tool.

Edited February 26, 2013 by TK Bondservnt 2392

[Nicky]

I'm going to update the first post later on this hour with more progress.

 

Posting here so I remember when I get mine

 

Do so! Don't repeat my mistakes

 

yes this is 100% true! I almost drilled my hand the first time i did a pipe build!

 

Its lookin great Nicky!

 

If there is anything yourunsure of, please just ask. I know the videos are missing a few things so dont hesitate to ask me bud!

 

Yea i forgot to mention there are some holes marked on the template i dont use. That one you drilled on top i think is supposed to be for a bolt to go through down to the handle...but thats really a bit overkill to me so i dont use it.

 

Good to see you put the cocking handle on correctly, unlike myself lol.

 

 

TIP..i used 1" gaffers tape and taped the dremel to my shopvac hose end...so it sucked up the dust as i dremeled

 

 

Thanks! The videos and tips are very welcome it saves me a lot of time experimenting and repairing

 

That extra hole is a total a very impolite person, I didn't need it at all and now it's there! Hopefully it will be hidden by the stuff on top but I'll try and cover it with putty and it will look like a feature lol

 

I have no question in mind right now but I'll come up with something!

 

Looking good.

 

I used a drill press and one of these stepped drill bits

I tried first using drill bits starting small and going up in size but the bigger you go the more they want to grab and bite into the pvc. These stepped drill bits are great.

the holes are 7/16 only 2 are 1/2 I use a variable speed drill to make my holes. then I finish up with the dremel cone tool.

 

Yeah I saw that thing at the HW store and its price was 55 bucks. The dremel cone tool and a circular hand movement does exactly that: save me 55 bucks.

 

Thanks guys for seeing the good in my sloppy work!!!!

 

 

 

UPDATE! Re-uploaded all the pics and added many new ones to day 1, and added day 2.

Edited February 26, 2013 by Nicky

[Darth Voorhees[501st]]

Oh yea when you put the grip on the handle..the grip has 2 little slots in it (on the trigger side on top) you may need to use the cutting wheel of the dremel and just clear em out a bit. That will make the grip go all the way on. I dont know if i did it on your kit or not. If the grip doesnt go all the way on, then i didnt lol.

[Nicky]

haha not sure I know what you mean! I don't know how far it should go but nothing really troublesome, the grip almost reaches the pipe.

 

Looks like this on mine:

 

 

Quick question since I might be painting tomorrow. How do you guys suggest I take it apart for painting? (gray primer, silver/bronze, matte black)

 

I already know I will paint the scope separately since I can detach it, but what about the T-Tracks and painting the inside of the pipe, behind the bolt and stuff?

 

Current progress:

 

TIP..i used 1" gaffers tape and taped the dremel to my shopvac hose end...so it sucked up the dust as i dremeled

 

Taped mine to the table!

 

That was an awesome idea, thanks!

 

 

 

EDIT: Updated first post with Day 3.

Edited February 27, 2013 by Nicky

[Nicky]

GOod news! I'm done with the assembly and I have a day off tomorrow to do the painting I managed to complete the checklist I gave myself yesterday, it didn't go without skipping dinners and other evening responsibilities.

 

I'll upload pics later. EDIT: Uploaded in first post.

 

Here's the current state. To save paint I will avoid overlaps by painting the counter, rail, scope individually. The counter isn't screwed on to anything, I will do that on the rail once I can position it half ways up to the scope, and stop at the ocular.

 

Edited February 28, 2013 by Nicky

[Darth Voorhees[501st]]

Looks good Nicky! You didnt have to paint the grip though! The real ones are plastic so you could have just left it the bare black plastic. The "whiteness" from removing the pour spout goes away if you wash it. But none the less...looks good buddy!

[Techne[TK]]

Very cool to see your working process and results with this different approach.

[Nicky]

Thanks! Yeah I was really tired so I rushed the painting phase. Now with every scratch on the grip it'll go silver haha... oh well. Same with the T-Tracks.

 

I didn't post pics (yet) of how I affix the Hengstler, and basically it's two wood screws, hopefully it will hold. I hope.

[Nicky]

Someone asked recently how I came up with the digits image I printed out and inserted in the counter. Well... good old Paint. Paint.net actually, a freeware you can use.

Google gave me unsatisfying things to use for printing out, so I just used what I saw as inspiration while I just made my own number digits from scratch.

 

Here's my original file with the top 2 layers being the text: ------------

Printed with lower contrast it looks like this:
---------

 

Then I took some plastic packaging and cut a slightly longer but matching strip with the xacto to cover it up.

Edited September 30, 2021 by gmrhodes13
link not working removed

[Pancho[TK]]

you mentioned a video earlier on. where would that be?