Well here it is, after several months of hard work, my finished TFA Han Solo blaster. This piece used the same model used for the film, the HFC M712 airsoft with short magazine, the Dark Energy Creations parts kit, and an alumnus side plate from the Junkyard run. I kept the airsoft internals fully functional, so the trigger and hammer action still works. However I ended up gluing the short mag clip in place because it rattled around a lot otherwise, and didnt sit flush with the bottom of the opening as it should, so it will never fire a pellet again.
I've made a lot of stuff over the years and built a lot of kits, but for me this was a whole new level of hard. Not that the DEC kit was hard itself, but I'm not used to working with metal and exact measurements and steel-hard materials, so the learning curve was pretty high for me on this one.
Having said that, I still enjoyed it, and learned a lot. Especially that I need to measure and triple check everything because with metal, there's no going back. Also dont drop pewter parts that you just rinsed with cold water (I cracked my scope mount and had to epoxy fill the crack). I ended up with a somewhat crooked scope because of a bad measurement/drilling job, but again I'm not used to working with metal and don't have a fancy drill press or anything, so all of this was done by hand with a dremel, hack saws, and a power drill. The scope mount rail ended up being a bit crooked, but i cant undrill the hole, so that's how it is. So the scope points up a little bit in the front.
I tried my my best to not only match the weathering of one particular blaster seen in stills and a couple promo shots for the film (easily identified by its weathering pattern) but I also tried to match the varying surface textures and finishes seen. For instance the main body is a semi gloss finish with lots of small dents in the paint (smacking your keys against it repeatedly works great for this), the flash hider is blued, and the scope is gloss black paint. All of the paint hopping and weathering is real, nothing was masked off prior to painting, and it was all chipped off by hand after having stripped the entire thing to bare metal before painting. I went a little overboard on the weathering in a few places, but what can yah do. One kind of annoying thing I've noticed is that the metal finish on the airsoft has tarnished to a darker color, where the silver you can see on the pewter and aluminum parts stays shiny, so there's a bit of a mismatch in the silver color showing through.
Enjoy!
I've made a lot of stuff over the years and built a lot of kits, but for me this was a whole new level of hard. Not that the DEC kit was hard itself, but I'm not used to working with metal and exact measurements and steel-hard materials, so the learning curve was pretty high for me on this one.
Having said that, I still enjoyed it, and learned a lot. Especially that I need to measure and triple check everything because with metal, there's no going back. Also dont drop pewter parts that you just rinsed with cold water (I cracked my scope mount and had to epoxy fill the crack). I ended up with a somewhat crooked scope because of a bad measurement/drilling job, but again I'm not used to working with metal and don't have a fancy drill press or anything, so all of this was done by hand with a dremel, hack saws, and a power drill. The scope mount rail ended up being a bit crooked, but i cant undrill the hole, so that's how it is. So the scope points up a little bit in the front.
I tried my my best to not only match the weathering of one particular blaster seen in stills and a couple promo shots for the film (easily identified by its weathering pattern) but I also tried to match the varying surface textures and finishes seen. For instance the main body is a semi gloss finish with lots of small dents in the paint (smacking your keys against it repeatedly works great for this), the flash hider is blued, and the scope is gloss black paint. All of the paint hopping and weathering is real, nothing was masked off prior to painting, and it was all chipped off by hand after having stripped the entire thing to bare metal before painting. I went a little overboard on the weathering in a few places, but what can yah do. One kind of annoying thing I've noticed is that the metal finish on the airsoft has tarnished to a darker color, where the silver you can see on the pewter and aluminum parts stays shiny, so there's a bit of a mismatch in the silver color showing through.
Enjoy!
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This is my first time doing a Star Wars Blaster, so I'm happy it turned out. I will say I'm reconsidering the ammo mag, as it's one of the heaviest pieces and the entire thing weights over 3 pounds, and is very front heavy so it's pretty hard to hold. If I can get the mag back out, I can disassemble the bulk of it and just glue the bottom plate in place. Hard part is getting it out after i slathered it in epoxy...
