cjchiu's airsoft ANH DL-44 blaster (and my first thread)

Welcome to my very first project thread! I've surfed the forums intermittently for sometime, but I finally decided to join the RPF earlier this year. I don't have much in ways of experience, so I decided to make my first project a fairly simple one so that I could practice some finishing (putty, sanding and painting) as well as some weathering techniques. After reading guabe's thread, I settled on using a plastic airsoft base with 3D printed parts from his Shapeways store.

Guabe's thread:
http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=227245

My base C96 (M32) from eBay:


3D Printed parts from Shapeways:
http://shpws.me/CXVx
http://shpws.me/CXVM
http://shpws.me/LZ60


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My M32 arrives! Comparing it to my Denix.


My Shapeways order comes in. Dry fit without the bull barrel.


Dremel off the barrel base so that the bull barrel fits.



Removing some support structures on the scope mount that I thought were unneeded.


Drilled my holes and mounted the scope for fit.


Liking how this looks so far.


Filled in the screw holes.


Dremeled off the switch on the left side and filled in that hole. Sanded the sight.


Sanded the bull barrel a little shorter as I felt it was a little too long.


After some more sanding, I painted the base gun, sprayed the 3D printed parts with filler primer and put pewter Rub 'n Buff on the flash hider and scope mount cross bar.




After sanding the 3D parts again, painted with satin black.


Using toothpaste, I masked off some areas on the cross bar that I wanted the "metal" appearance to show through. After painting and drying, wiped it off with a damp paper towel.





Put Spanish Copper Rub 'n Buff on the scope lenses and scope wheel. Remasked off the mystery disk and colored in with pewter Rub 'n Buff (unhappy with my previous attempt). Smeared some ebony Rub 'n Buff on the flash hider. Superglued remaining greeblies. Pretty much done!






Still needs a little touch up paint and scope lenses. I don't plan on trying to accurize the base gun anymore as it still functions. In hindsight, the M32 would've been a much better base for a TFA build. Oh well. I'm also considering graphite powder to make it look more gun metal but I'm afraid it would be too messy. Anyone else with experience or suggestions on this?

Thanks everyone for looking,
Chris

that came out great!!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Great build! Awesome instructions!

cjchiu said:

I'm also considering graphite powder to make it look more gun metal but I'm afraid it would be too messy. Anyone else with experience or suggestions on this?

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Great looking build!

I've used graphite powder a number of times on prop guns. Just sort of wiped it onto the areas where I wanted to give it a metal look. I've also taken the stick of graphite and run it along sharp edges on the prop to bring out some edge distressing. It looks very good when its done, and if you're not planning to handle the prop, just display it, you can leave it as is, but if you're planning to handle it, you will need to seal the graphite.

I've usually used Tamiya flat clear to seal graphite, you don't need to give the piece a heavy coating, just a quick pass or two to seal the powder. Be aware though, that it will dull down the graphite a fair bit. These days I'm more fond of laying down a black gloss coat, going over it with a silver/chrome color, then laying down a coat of flat black. I do my weathering with 000 steel wool and a very light rub across the prop to slowly bring out the silver undercoat.

This one was done using the graphite method:


This was with the 3 coat paint and steel wool method:

Looks good!!! I've been eying that pistol for a while as an inexpensive build. How much were the parts from shapeways?

Collektor thank you so much for those tips! I may try your 3 coat paint method on my pre-Worldcon Coyle Blade Runner blaster.

tomm1999 said:

Great build! Awesome instructions!

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halliwax said:

that came out great!!!

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Thanks guys!

doctorDWwho said:

Looks good!!! I've been eying that pistol for a while as an inexpensive build. How much were the parts from shapeways?

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Shapeways wasn't cheap (about $130) but considering that I spent less than $15 for the base gun, I thought it was a fun project and much better than other 3d printed offerings or painted Rubies on eBay and Etsy. I think I got free shipping or some promotion like that at time.

cjchiu said:

Shapeways wasn't cheap (about $130) but considering that I spent less than $15 for the base gun, I thought it was a fun project and much better than other 3d printed offerings or painted Rubies on eBay and Etsy. I think I got free shipping or some promotion like that at time.

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Sheesh...that's more than I thought, but I guess you get what you pay for