I'm very pleased so far. I'm just waiting on some more ABS and then I have to make the bumpers and paint it. Same process as before. Filled with epoxy putty and steel washers to give it weight in the grip. The barrel is reinforced with a 1/4" aluminum rod. Though this time around I was more cautious and made sure to keep the build much neater and refined than before.
The remaining Veron Mark cylinders I had left over from the first build were used here. Todd sells these in sets of 3 and you need 1.5 per gun, though now the rear section was cut to the correct length. The first version I left too long without realizing it. While I know that the retaining pin at the front of the gun is still present on the real prop, as evidenced by Scottjua's video previewing the Blaster Factory version of this pistol, the plastic molding of the Rubies toy wasn't prominent enough to warrant having to cut out the notch in the Veron cylinder to accomodate it.
Normally I would have done so, but the molded "knurling" was so soft, that even with paint it would have looked sloppy. In order to get a more seamless look, I opted to keep the cylinder intact and hollowed it out with a drill to slide over the barrel. In order to do this I had to saw off the pin as well as the front sight, which I'd done right after I split the toy in half and filled it with epoxy. This meant that once the cylinders were added I would need to reattach the sight and fill in the seam where the cut was made. A non visible detail was that I used my heatgun to shape some ABS to the inside of the main cylinder in order to shore up the gap inside the hollow end, ensuring that the glue would have something to adhere it to the slide of the pistol, as well as aligning it to sit straight instead of canting downward due to the steps inside the cylinder.
The nice thing about this inexpensive toy is that they really nailed the 1:1 ratio of the real Margolin so that the back half of the cylinder, which only needed minor shaping and extra halving due to the previous build, is that the curvature on the inside of the cylinder sits perfectly on the top of the main barrel. The front site was then reattached and some very thin gray styrene glued to the top and then scored with a hobby saw to replicate the machined knurls. I also added some of this gray styrene to the underside to make the step underneath it more prominent, as the plastic molding was a bit softer on this toy vs. the last one, just to give it more dimension and to make the entire sight look like a separate piece added to the pistol rather than molded with the main barrel. My only gripe is that when I cut the sight off, I cut it unevenly so it does sit slightly misaligned, but this is pretty minor, so it's really a nitpick more than anything else.
With the steel washers used to make up the flash hider it balances the grip nicely by redistributing some of the weight towards the nose. These have been glued in pairs of two and sandwiched between thin rings of styrene that I built up out of 11/32" diameter tubing. The only difference is that the real prop has 9 and mine only has 8, as I cut the aluminum rod just a little too short. There's 2 layers of tubing sliced open and slid over the main 11/32" size tube to bulk up the outer portion to the correct diameter. A dremel helped slice the tubing into strips to fill in the gaps where the extra layers didn't make it evenly around the layers beneath it, as well as superglue and baking soda to create a uniform outer diameter. Then I sanded the whole thing to get it smooth, then cut it into 1/8" thick rings to alternate between the steel washers. These small parts were then stacked/ glued and slid over the aluminum rod and then capped with a hex screw to ensure that should the glue give way, the hex screw would keep them all from sliding off. Then epoxy putty was added to fill the tip, and drilled out slightly to expose the emitter. I even added some to the tip, which was made of 4 washers with a beveled finishing washer, and this putty smoothed out the stacked washers to give it a uniform thickness which will be look even with a monochromatic layer of paint.
I added some abs to the top of the barrel in front of the rear site, just to raise the profile up a little higher. I then filed down the stepped section in front of that and added carefully shaped abs pieces to make the hexagonal shape. I used a heat gun to soften the material ever so slightly so that I could use one of my leathercraft tools to score some very delicate lines to simulate knurling.
A thin strip of styrene was cut to shape and notched on the other end with a standard paper hole punch in the front of the righthand grip and then two small pieces of abs were glue together and shaped. These make up the safety, and the notched end of the little gray strip of styrene sits flush against the curvature of the grip, simulating what is on the real pistol, a channel that seats the safety bar and button. I heated the small notch with the heat gun and used another leathercraft tool to add some knurling to it, just to give it dimension. Otherwise it would have appeared to be a random greeblie, rather than a safety.
Another small detail was that on the rear site adjustment wheel I heated up the plastic and used metal alphabet stamps (the lowercase letter "V" laying sideways) to simulate what appears to be arrow shaped markings on the real part. I used a fine tip chisel to add the curved detail that connects these two markings. It looks terrible now, just some dings and scratches in the hideous dayglow orange paint, but once hit with black, it should look really good.
The whole pistol has been sanded down with 200 grit sandpaper and then wetsanded with 1000 grit for a comfortable grip. This should give the paint good adhesion as well as a nice smooth finish.
Keep in mind that the differing colors and shapes look wildly out of place, but once painted these details will make more sense. I'm excited to paint this one up. I learned a good paint technique that should give me a nice finish out of a rattlecan. This time I'll be hitting it with satin black, and then taping off the grips to hit with gloss black to simulate the injection molded plastic of the real grips. I'll "flame blue" the fins to give it some detail and the cylinders will be taped off so that they can retain their flat finish and contrast with the rest of the pistol. After that I may add some very subtle silver details with a paint pen to highlight any of the small areas. Then I'll add a real screw to the side of the front sight, and paint it black with a paint pen, just to get a touch of differentiation between the satin finish of the main gun. I've also notched a section on the side of the rear sight and drilled a hole to simulate the section where a pin holds the notched plate on the real gun, and I'll be adding a metal pin with some glue. The holes I drilled into either side of the trigger will be painted silver too.
The one detail I'm still debating about adding is the screw with spring that sits below the trigger guard. I have the parts to add, but I love the seamless look and feel of the grip that I worry those will interfere with the handling of the pistol, as well as catching on the leather holster I'm planning on building for this.
And a picture of the incredible Field Marshall blaster I'm using as reference.
This pistol will be part of a costume that I have planned that I haven't seen anyone tackle yet, but I'll add details as I build each part.
Sorry for the super long post. Hopefully it was an interesting read.
. Now I can start cutting the Graflex and drill some holes.
