Starting my Blaster

[MangaMax]

Ok, as i said on another thread, i've been hankering to get another Blaster after selling mine years back.
I got this off of Australia eBay, mainly for the clear orange grips and partly for the fact that it comes with the LED's and battery pack for lighting it up.
But... don't think i'll be lighting it.
(A) The lightbox area is REAL cramped - and i don't think my soldering skills are good enough to be that fiddly:



(B) This is the off-putting bit. To get the wires from the battery pack in the grip, they have to go up the channel you see here, through the plug of resin that is by the side here, then through the gun.
Trouble is, the switch has to be put into that solid plug of resin and then the dummy switch superglued to it.
So i have to carve out a hole big enough to take the switch, plus two channels to take the wires.
No thanks.



Thinking of scrapping the plug (which is a real bad fit) and making a new one from Milliput.
Unless anyone here can help me out?

[joberg]

Well, if you do it by hand (not using any industrial boring tool of any kind that is) you'll have tons of fun (not).
If you're using a dremel, then your job will be very easy. Usually, these kind of projects can be blood, sweat and tears...but you'll be prouder at the end

[hirohawa]

Do you have pics of all the parts un assembled?

Thanks

[MangaMax]

Here you go with the parts that are bothering me:



REALLY don't think i'm up to holllowing out that plug shape just enough to get the tiny switch to fit flush and neatly into it, let alone then cut channels to take the wiring.
So thinking more of having the LED's in it, but just have it in turned off mode
Latest bugbear is that i wanted to paint the rear of the orange grips a brown or black to give a tortoiseshell effect.
Trouble is, whoever produced the kit has sanded down some rough areas on the rear, which has made the resin cloudy.
Which, if i paint it a dark colour, will show up white from the front.
And the air bubbles would show up white too
So thinking the only way round it is to paint the rear white, which would have the effect of making everything a uniform colour - but'd be brighter than i'd have liked.

[andy]

You can hit the inside of the grips with a polish or clear acrylic to get rid of the cloudiness. In the States we often use Future Floor wax for this, not sure if it is sold in Australia or not. Actually the black paint should fill in any scratches or abrasion if it is applied thin enough. Rich Coyle used to paint the inside of his grips silver to make them seem illuminated, but I never liked the look of them. I much prefer the darker look.

Do you have any of the instructions? I might have scans of the PKD-2 Instructions I could send you to help you with the wiring.

Andy

[Mr Webber]

Youll kick yourself Max if you put it together without the working LEDS.
Its a simple job for any electrician and wouldnt cost you much to have it done, find one that charges by the hour as thats all it should take.
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Formerly offworld66

[joberg]

As Andy said: any floor wax will polish your acrylic to perfection.

[daikaiju1]

In Australia I am told the Future equivalent is Pledge One Go. I have a bottle and its a bit orange in colour, but for blaster grips thats great! I have just used it to glaze the bottom parts of my grips where they meet the butt plate and it looks good. I would not use it on a white surface, but as I said, great for blaster grip touch ups!!
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I want more detail, Father!

[joberg]

Welcome aboard Daikaiju1. Eager to see some pics of your blaster

[daikaiju1]

Joberg, thank you for the welcome! I will try to post some pics this weekend but will start another thread so as not to hijack this members thread about his own blaster. Which looks good! Cheers.
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I want more detail, Father!

[MangaMax]

Er... wait till its finished, then say that
Don't mind any sort of hijacking - the more info the better.
Slight delay in my build as one of the triggers was missing, so am waiting for the replacement to arrive before cracking on.

[Fangorn81]

I just built that kit a couple months ago. That piece is ill fitting, and it seems like it could easily have been cast as part of the grip section. I didn't have to bore anything out though. If you do a dry fitting, you will see that one side of that piece is indented and creates a corner for the wires to pass through between the grip channel and the channel that runs under the barrel. It still required a lot of sanding and shaping though.

I also had to relocate the LED switch to the underside of the "clip" instead of the side, because there just wasn't enough room between the LED's.

The real problem I had with the kit was a warped grip. I had to use some insanely powerful glue and clamps to get it to bend enough to lie flat and then stay that way. Luckily it was the side of the grip you don't need to remove to access the batteries.

You can check out my poorly documented work in progress here:
http://trappedstateside.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html

And, regardless, if you have a Dremmel (and I really hope you do) boring through that piece would be a snap. The kit still took me over a week of solid work to finish, and I think it could have turned out a bit better if I had taken more time to get everything right.
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Good against remotes is one thing. Good against the living? That's something else.

Joah Mahan

[MangaMax]

That's some lovely work there - and so odd to see the exact same kit of mine elsewhere.
Must say, i'm luckier than you as there's no warpage to any of the parts.
Replacement triggers arrived so i'm beavering away on it (although the odd-shaped slide switch thing that goes up near the top has gone walkabout on my workbench).
Ummed and ahhed over whether to light it or not - and decided not to.
The wiring wouldn't be a problem, but the fitting of the switch would - whether i put it as suggested or down in the lower section.
Not really bothered as:
When would i ever switch it on?
If i had the red LED's, i'd need the green one's too to make it accurate
But what's the point of that when so much else is inaccurate?
I could do what you've done and improve on the detail.
But how to change the writing on it?

So, all in all, i'm building it out of the box with LED's fitted but not lit. Not that accurate, but still a huge improvement on the one i had back in the early 90's.
Always regretted selling that one, and would be happy to have that one back, so whatever i do - i'm a happy bunny

[joberg]

Fangorn, very good work mate ...don't know what you're talkin' about? This blaster has its rightfull place at Propsummit for sure!

[Staar]

Fangorn mate, that is a terrific piece of work - no question.

Cheers for sharing. Its always a treat to see new interpretations of this iconic piece of hardware.

[Gaff87]

[Fangorn81]

Thanks everyone! I actually posted this kit when I finished it here:

http://propsummit.com/viewtopic.php?t=24&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=140

But, I'm sure it was easily buried among all the introductions.
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Good against remotes is one thing. Good against the living? That's something else.

Joah Mahan

[andy]

Not sure how I missed that? Great job! And welcome, since I missed you the last time.

Andy