The Mando Project (S.A. Blaster, Metal Beskar Ingot and I guess maybe the whole darn suit...!)

[JOATRASH FX]

OK, I've been doing a ton of work on the blaster over the last few days. (And I remodeled the slide again! What is this.. the sixth or seventh time?) I have several more parts printed (photos soon) and have been working on the main receiver, putting keys into the halves, making a cover that can be opened and generally making room for electronics and the moving trigger.

 

[UnitPD]

Looks good

 

[JOATRASH FX]

Another breakdown of some of the parts:

And assembled:

Some parts are still missing and others are still being worked on, but it's coming along. (All the rivets and things will be separate piecs from the looks of it.) I know I promised an update with printed parts and I worked on it until 5 AM yesterday... main receiver is growing in the printer right now and as soon as the parts are out I'll post some photos.

 

[JOATRASH FX]

Since the 25th is not the "main" Xmas day here in Sweden (they celebrate all the big stuff on the 24th... Santa comes in the evening after dinner instead of in the middle of the night, haha), I figured I'd give y'all a Festivus update.


Here are some photos of the kit just stuck and taped together. The parts are basically straight from the printer- supports have been removed, but no sanding of the contact points or fitting-tweaks have been done. The grip frame in the final version will be hollow and should have enough room to fit a Blaster Core board or similar.

The cleaning rod shown is real brass, which I hope will be the case in the final version even though I wasn't planning it from the start. Now, I don't have a mill to cut the grooves in the metal, so I modeled and printed a small tool that served as a "guide" for my dremel wheel, allowing me to hand-machine the cutouts fairly precisely. The front end "loop" of the rod will be made with brass strip, bent and inserted into the rod (which is actually a tube in the photo). I'm still not sure yet what I'll do about the bracket. I did do the part as a print and it turned out great, but I might try cutting it from thin brass sheet, or I'll have it printed in metal at Sh*peways, along with the safety, ejector block and trigger, for my own copy. (Will probably let others that want real brass all the way get them the same way, directly from SW.)

The little "nub" on the left side of the slide is just a rounded brass nut cut down to size!

A short video:

Here's the battery cover removed. It will be held in place with one screw, that will also hold the cleaning rod bracket.

It's a tight fit for the trigger, but it works nicely. There is a specially formed "seat" that holds the push-button for the trigger (useful even if no electronics are installed). An upgraded grip frame (shown below) has a small pin, that will sit opposite the one in the trigger IF an extra spring is needed.

Video of the trigger. (Sorry about the compression... not sure why it ended up like that because it was shot in 1080 and exported lossless.)

Here's a breakdown showing most of the parts. A few have been tweaked since it was taken, with the biggest change being the grip frame which will (as mentioned above) be hollow so that it can house electronics.

I currently have what I hope to be the final version of all the parts (including new grips with textured wood grain) running in the printer. Will start a proper buildup soon!

 

[Scarecrow Joe]

Yes. Coming along nicely!

 

[UnitPD]

Looks REALLY good

 

[sctcarts]

So cool!

 

[JBReplicas]

Absolutely fantastic, easily the best interpretation of this gun I’ve seen so far!

 

[JOATRASH FX]

Thanks guys! : )

Here's another small update.

Hollow gripframe turned out OK. I reckon both effects board AND battery could fit in the grip, since I also hollowed out the grips. Seems fairly durable too, though I wouldn't step on it for fear of crushing.

Here's a better look a the pass-through slot for wiring. You can see it widens in the middle. The grips are only a couple mm thick in some places, which is why they start to become translucent.

The wood grain is too shallow however, so I'm redoing the grips to make it deeper. Also, just when I thought I was "done", another little thing popped into my head that I want to try to prep it for electronics (even though I'm not really planning on adding any to my own blaster). Not sure if it'll work or not. We'll see. And tomorrow when the hobby shops open again I can go out and get some more brass!

 

[sctcarts]

I might have missed it, but will you be offering kit versions? Your work on this is easily the best I've seen!

 

[JOATRASH FX]

I might have missed it, but will you be offering kit versions? Your work on this is easily the best I've seen!

Check the junkyard! : ) (And thank you, Sir!)

 

[JOATRASH FX]

I'm 99% done with the model patterns now and in the process of verifying everything before I start to assemble and paint. I did a bunch of experimenting with making the rectangular handle/loop of the cleaning rod out of brass strip but it didn't look right at all, so I just made a printed part out of it, like with the bracket. A quick test with a Molotow pen, then brushed-over with gold candy by Alclad and it matched the look of real brass pretty well. The final version will be airbrushed. (I reckon that it might also be possible to somehow cover them with gold leaf, brass tape or foil.)

But here is that extra thing I mentioned earlier: a moving safety lever that can function as a power switch!

It dawned on me that IF one were to add electronics, there would have to be a power switch somewhere, so instead of having to hide it on the shell, I figured it might be worth building into the functionality of the gun.

I had to go through several revisions with it, and actually made major changes since the videos, but those where after I first got the movement to work fairly smoothly. The hard part was keeping the exterior screen accurate. With a working lever, you see the slot into the gun a little bit- necessary for movement. For the test I used a common 6mmX11mm on/off switch available from just about any good electronics place. Since printed parts can, due to temperature variations, have a tolerance difference of 100-300 microns, there's a little bit of fitting to do with the small parts, but it's better than risking a loose fit.

 

[UnitPD]

Great idea with the safety functioning as the power switch.

 

[JOATRASH FX]

Going though all the reference material again, I'm starting to wonder if they actually have more than one model version of the blaster made, and I don't mean the usual stunt vs hero. I'm seeing lots of discrepancies between episodes. (Heh... seems like they can't decide which way to mount the safety lever either!)

 

[zsherman]

Going though all the reference material again, I'm starting to wonder if they actually have more than one model version of the blaster made, and I don't mean the usual stunt vs hero. I'm seeing lots of discrepancies between episodes. (Heh... seems like they can't decide which way to mount the safety lever either!)

Wonder if it kept falling off and they just reglued it? [emoji23]

 

[JOATRASH FX]

Wonder if it kept falling off and they just reglued it? [emoji23]

Could be, but after having started at photos for a few hours today (before new years supper) I am now convinced there are different models of the gun.

In the last episode, we got a very close shot of the rear of the gun- much closer than in any other episode and that version is VERY different from others that have been used. (Oddly enough though, it seems simpler... almost (mac)clunky and primitive compared to the others. I actually think the gun might be a 3d render in that shot and NOT a physical model. (I thought about it possibly being a cast-iron hero prop or something, but the gun they've had in all the other episodes has looked good enough for closeups. These days even stunt props look fantastic a lot of the time. In this case, I suspect the entire shot may be CG and they did a quick version of the gun for the closeup. (Lots of continuity stuff in the episode too... his gun changes position, gets lost, thenappears in his holster again...!)

Here's a comparison of just a few differences. There are many more.

V1 is the one used in most episodes, V2 is the suspected CGI version from Ep8. You can see the way the sight block is configured is VERY different, the V1 has an extra "step". The cleaning rod bracket is also, from all the shots I have looked at, set into the receiver shell, where the V2 just sits on top. The V1 is also angled and bent outward, the V2 is rounded (like on the real Bergmann) and flat. (A strong hint that it's CG can be seen where the clamp holds the rod... the metal there looks paper-thin... not very practical or realistic to hold it in place! The safety lever on the V1 has a little rounded bulge on the end and the end sticking out looks curved, where the V2 is flat and more angular. (Note how it's also been reversed!)

First I was thinking "GHAAAA, I'm gonna have to redo half the gun!" But after having looked at the photos all day I'm pretty confident my initial observations were not too far off. I did notice a couple other details that I'm going to fix.

 

[JOATRASH FX]

Here's another one. From what I can tell, the only time the rear of the "slide" has sharp edges and is this "flat" is in that closeup in episode 8. I tried to factor in that perspective and focus might be playing tricks, but it looks more rounded in every other shot I can think of, including in high-res photos when the blaster has been on display.

 

[JBReplicas]

Going though all the reference material again, I'm starting to wonder if they actually have more than one model version of the blaster made, and I don't mean the usual stunt vs hero. I'm seeing lots of discrepancies between episodes. (Heh... seems like they can't decide which way to mount the safety lever either!)

1 main hero which was resin and metal and subsequent stunt guns which were rubber, this explains a few of the differences like apparent softness in details in certain areas. The safety switch moving could also be explained by the fact that it was a separate piece, possibly just stuck on wrong in a few instances.

 

[JOATRASH FX]

1 main hero which was resin and metal and subsequent stunt guns which were rubber, this explains a few of the differences like apparent softness in details in certain areas. The safety switch moving could also be explained by the fact that it was a separate piece, possibly just stuck on wrong in a few instances.

Is that official/verified info? (The norm would of course usually be taking a mold of the hero for the rubber stunts.) : ) The safety looks like real metal in many shots, as does the cleaning rod and the little "nub" on the left side. (The cleaning rod is also bent sometimes, especially the front end piece, which certainly makes it look like real metal.) The little "ejector block" or whatever you want to call it on the right side is brass-colored sometimes, and silver others... might be a way of telling the stunts from hero.

Bent cleaning rod loop!

Silver block.

Again silver. Barrel looks slightly bent in this one... stunt perhaps. These are all pretty heavily weathered.

Brass/copper color. The overall finish on these versions look better, with less weathering overall.

The closeup shot in the final episode is still odd though, since it looks so very different in that image. My theory is that a CG artist had to whip up a model pretty quickly, perhaps because the entire shot is CG since you don't see any humans in it, which is why it's much simpler. The surface texture kinda looks little like a typical CG rendered "material" would but I could naturally be completely wrong!

 

[JBReplicas]

There were probably many stunt versions and each will vary slightly in terms of finish, also from lighting, post production effects and all sorts of other variables, so in that respect it is tricky to replicate one specific version. From what I know the stunts had a plastic cleaning rod. I agree that at some point there must be a CG version used.