HMSwolfe’s 3D Printed Custom Blasters thread - Free Files

I’ve got the blaster printing again. There was a small mishap with about half a centimeter’s worth of a layer not printing right, but it seems to have smoothed over. However, I am becoming a more cautious and less optimistic person about the print, so I have re-sliced the blaster into different parts to print in a different orientation should this print fail.
 
A problem that I’m noticing is that occasionally the extruder gear won’t catch the filament correctly, which causes the gaps I noticed. It seems like the gear should be lower, but I can’t get it to.
 
It may look a little messy, but here is the first fully printed part from the blaster!
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Hooray for a successful print!

I got an Ender-5 a year ago, and I've come to the conclusion that the Ender series is not nearly as suitable as a starting printer as people claim it is. They're getting better, but there's so many QC issues. The one that really screwed me up was the print bed not being flat. (Not the removable surface, the aluminium plate underneath that.) Something else that might give you challenges is the heater element - it doesn't cover the entire build plate, so the edges will be cooler than the centre.

Assuming your extruder works like mine did, there should be a thumb screw on the arm you press to load/unload filament that you can adjust to increase or decrease gear tension on the filament. Apologies if you've already tried that!

Anyway, I think these designs look awesome and I'm happy that you're making progress towards realising them!
 
The Ender is probably a perfect printer for someone. Some people love to tinker and troubleshoot and stuff like that. I, however…am not the most mechanically-minded, and definitely would have preferred something that worked out of the box.
 
After a few more days of head-scratching, troubleshooting, and adjustments, as well as a waste of half a wheel of filament, I have the other half to the lower!
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Progress is slow. The upper printed fine, but there were some problems with the last print, i.e., the scope, scope mounts, trigger, etc. The scope mounts were far too flimsy, especially with the lower infill I used. So I’ll do some redesigning with that. In other news, mostly just sanding what I do have printed in preparation for primer.
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Hoping to make use of this pen spring to get some functionality out of the trigger.
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It being as cold as it is, and living in an apartment, and I don’t really have the option to be doing a ton of priming or bondo-ing at the moment. So, while I do little bits of sanding on the printed gun, I turned my attention to another design I had banging around. Still refining it.
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Comparing the flash hiders, I think the simple cone works better; to my eye, the more cylindrical style on the second post looks like a modern suppressor and pulls the weapon away from the 1920s design cues that most blasters have.

On the other hand, the second scope feels more Star-Warsy to me. Although I'm a firm believer that any Star Wars weapon should be able to mount any of the scopes - that is, in my opinion a sighting device in Star Wars is not normally an integral part of the weapon, just as it isn't in the real world.

On both, the not-actually-a-hammer really jumps out to me, because it's clearly based on a C96 hammer - and it's just as clearly not actually doing anything useful. Were it me, I think I'd either just delete that part entirely or extend it underneath, with a circular profile, so that it looked like it could cock back.

Overall, though, this is very impressive! The general feel works with other Star Wars weapons, and this comes across as a sidearm someone might actually carry. My comments are meant to help inspire you, not drag you down - at the end of the day, make it work for you!
 
Comparing the flash hiders, I think the simple cone works better; to my eye, the more cylindrical style on the second post looks like a modern suppressor and pulls the weapon away from the 1920s design cues that most blasters have.

On the other hand, the second scope feels more Star-Warsy to me. Although I'm a firm believer that any Star Wars weapon should be able to mount any of the scopes - that is, in my opinion a sighting device in Star Wars is not normally an integral part of the weapon, just as it isn't in the real world.

On both, the not-actually-a-hammer really jumps out to me, because it's clearly based on a C96 hammer - and it's just as clearly not actually doing anything useful. Were it me, I think I'd either just delete that part entirely or extend it underneath, with a circular profile, so that it looked like it could cock back.

Overall, though, this is very impressive! The general feel works with other Star Wars weapons, and this comes across as a sidearm someone might actually carry. My comments are meant to help inspire you, not drag you down - at the end of the day, make it work for you!
The comments really do help! I’ve been bouncing back and forth on the flash hider for a while. While the hero DL-44 is close to my heart, the Greedo Killer flash hider has an interesting look to it that I tried to incorporate here. I’ll work on that.

As for the rear, I honestly have no idea what I’m doing back there, so I’ll keep working at it.
 
Adam Savage had a comment about when he was a newbie making models for ILM, a supervisor told him that "every detail has a story." After that, Adam started deciding what each greeble actually did before he added it to the model.

Based on that, perhaps decising what that knurled knob that's clearly meant to be operated by a thumb actually does might help? And, if you need more insight into the real guns, C&RSenal on YouTube is a great channel for making deep dives into a weapon's history and design. They've covered the C96 as well as the various Lugers, the Borschart pistol Mado's sidearm is based on, the Nambu pistol, and others like the Savage that don't have blasters based on them but I think really should. :)
 
Oops! I meant Bergmann when referring to Mando's pistol.

That said, the Borchardt is an amazing looking weapon, but also really impractical. It was good for 1893, but - well, there's a reason why the Luger (which is the exact same action without that ridiculous clock spring and with better ergonomics) is iconic and the Borchardt is obscure.

In 3d printer terms, the Borchardt is a Reprap Darwin and the Luger is a Prussa I3 Mk II. :)

There are certainly some interesting design cues to lift from this, but if you do I'd take care not to end up with too much bulk or mass behind the grip. That's the real problem with the Borchardt and there's a reason why very few other pistols ever looked like that.
 
This concept is looking really cool! Are you planning of making the files available for sale, or something like that?
 

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