A Few Blade Runner Blaster Questions

KID Q

Jr Member
Hello,
I am currently in the early stages of making my own Blade Runner blaster (I can't afford any of the spectacular kits online, and besides, I enjoy trying to figure out making it on my own) and I had a few questions for you more experienced makers.

First, is the size of this 3d printed model accurate?
https://www.myminifactory.com/object/deckards-blaster-blade-runner-5694

I plan on making mine out of metal as much as possible, but I thought about obtaining a 3D printed one to use as a size/inner workings reference. Is the scale accurate?

Second, where would I obtain an accurate pair of grips? I've found a few for sale on eBay and Etsy, but they seem to be meant to be used for the water gun. Would some of these grips work?

I apologize if these answers can be found elsewhere, but I've scoured here and Propsummit to no avail.
Thank you for any help you can offer!
 
Well i couldn't tell you what was accurate and what wasn't without having one In hand. To compare to the most accurate I have In hand. right off bat I would say that bolt lever is way off.to bulky . look in the project runs up top in the classifieds section for grips and other stuff. best bet Is to try and find one of the squirt guns for as low as possible price.

And If your going to give metal a try. you've got one hell of a monumental task on your plate.


welcome to the RPF
 
What Sean said.

I've been looking into making my own too but reality is I live in an apartment so smithing might be a problem.

I have the Elfin Knights water gun and as far as I can tell it appears to be of the right size and proportions to the hero, except slightly off a little with the grips, just by a whisker.
The overall dimensions should be 245mm long by 160mm high (that's from the grip plate to end of barrel and same to top of receiver).
Not sure what the Tomenosuke measurements are but I measured the water gun and it matches that precisely, give or take a millimetre. So I'd recommend getting one of those as your best reference for shaping parts.

I also bought one of Rgriesbeck's 3d printed kits to get an idea of how the cylinder and the bolt handle might work. Awesome kit but its smaller than the water gun so I won't be using that for getting correct proportions.

I haven't done any metal casting before so can't give you any tips there. The real difficult part is going to be the cylinder mechanism, getting it to rotate when you pull the trigger. That will be the real trick to work out without having one in front of you, if you go that far.

Best of luck.
 
I've built many, many BR blasters. My advice for your first one is not to worry about accuracy so much, and don't worry about making any of it metal. Just learn. The blaster is not a terribly complicated beast, because it's just a lot of stuff bolted to a functioning revolver. I generalizing, I'm sure Veektor would disagree with me. :)

Find yourself a nice kit, or a 3D printed kit, get yourself familiar with socket screws, and button cap screws, learn about the styer SL and the charter arms bulldog revolver, study the screen used blaster (which was not available when most of us were first building our blasters way back when) and then just have fun building your first one.

My complaints about the 3D blasters I've seen are usually that the bolt handle is too wide, and some times not quite right on the angle. The side plates can be a little wonky too, and the grips are solid, and some times I see people just paint them flat orange which looks off to me.

These are things you can improve on, and replace, and rebuild if you want ofcourse. But for my money, and for my first build, I had a completely innacurate but awesome Rick Ross kit. It was, and still is a lot of fun to build his kits.
 
Well i couldn't tell you what was accurate and what wasn't without having one In hand. To compare to the most accurate I have In hand. right off bat I would say that bolt lever is way off.to bulky . look in the project runs up top in the classifieds section for grips and other stuff. best bet Is to try and find one of the squirt guns for as low as possible price.

And If your going to give metal a try. you've got one hell of a monumental task on your plate.

welcome to the RPF
Thanks for your advice and welcome!

What Sean said.

I've been looking into making my own too but reality is I live in an apartment so smithing might be a problem.

I have the Elfin Knights water gun and as far as I can tell it appears to be of the right size and proportions to the hero, except slightly off a little with the grips, just by a whisker.
The overall dimensions should be 245mm long by 160mm high (that's from the grip plate to end of barrel and same to top of receiver).
Not sure what the Tomenosuke measurements are but I measured the water gun and it matches that precisely, give or take a millimetre. So I'd recommend getting one of those as your best reference for shaping parts.

I also bought one of Rgriesbeck's 3d printed kits to get an idea of how the cylinder and the bolt handle might work. Awesome kit but its smaller than the water gun so I won't be using that for getting correct proportions.

I haven't done any metal casting before so can't give you any tips there. The real difficult part is going to be the cylinder mechanism, getting it to rotate when you pull the trigger. That will be the real trick to work out without having one in front of you, if you go that far.

Best of luck.
Those measurements are extremely helpful, as is everything else. Thanks a lot for the dimensions, I'll have to track down a cheap water gun then. I do plan on modifying an airsoft pistol so that should make the rotating cylinder a bit easier. Thanks!

Parts of it are pretty close, but overall...no.
Good to know. Thanks!

I've built many, many BR blasters. My advice for your first one is not to worry about accuracy so much, and don't worry about making any of it metal. Just learn. The blaster is not a terribly complicated beast, because it's just a lot of stuff bolted to a functioning revolver. I generalizing, I'm sure Veektor would disagree with me. :)

Find yourself a nice kit, or a 3D printed kit, get yourself familiar with socket screws, and button cap screws, learn about the styer SL and the charter arms bulldog revolver, study the screen used blaster (which was not available when most of us were first building our blasters way back when) and then just have fun building your first one.

My complaints about the 3D blasters I've seen are usually that the bolt handle is too wide, and some times not quite right on the angle. The side plates can be a little wonky too, and the grips are solid, and some times I see people just paint them flat orange which looks off to me.

These are things you can improve on, and replace, and rebuild if you want ofcourse. But for my money, and for my first build, I had a completely innacurate but awesome Rick Ross kit. It was, and still is a lot of fun to build his kits.
This is very good advice, the one I will have a hard time following is worrying about accuracy. I full understand that my first blaster is not going to turn out perfectly accurate, but I want to at least give it a shot. I love trying to make things as accurate to the source material as possible, it's part of the fun to me. That being said, I will keep everything you've said in mind. I want to attempt to craft it in metal, and I know it will probably won't come out looking too great. I also very well may start and quickly release I should be doing in in plastic.

I've studied the screen used blaster, all the shots of the blaster in the movie, the styer and bulldog revolver, all the awesome Tomenosuke mods you guys have done, and the awesome scratch builds people have done, like Adam Savage's. I'm so glad to be making mine in a time with so many references very easily found.
I will have to find a kit of some sort then, the 3D printed one does seem fun although it sounds like it's a bit off. I definitely don't want solid orange grips, I kinda think it ruins the look of the whole blaster.
Thank you for all your words of advice, I really appreciate it.
 
The grip frame isn't that far off of the Tom one, the barrel of the printed one comes out about 18mm not 20mm at 100% as do other parts like the Steyr receiver that is 28mm wide on the print and should be a sliver under 30mm if what I've been looking into is correct.
I started to upgrade the same 3d model with steel parts once the barrel was done I found other parts where too big, Now its a case of fab and print parts to a more correct scale (And I've got no idea what the scale is yet)
Try looking on Propsummit too
 
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The grip frame isn't that far off of the Tom one, the barrel of the printed one comes out about 18mm not 20mm at 100% as do other parts like the Steyr receiver that is 28mm wide on the print and should be a sliver under 30mm if what I've been looking into is correct.
I started to upgrade the same 3d model with steel parts once the barrel was done I found other parts where too big, Now its a case of fab and print parts to a more correct scale (And I've got no idea what the scale is yet)
Try looking on Propsummit too
Good to know. Thanks for the measurements. Good luck on yours, I'd love to see some WIP images.
 
Unless that guy has Hulk Hands.....it looks small. Like 20% too small. I would pick up the water gun and work from there. Its the best bang for your buck.
 
Unless that guy has Hulk Hands.....it looks small. Like 20% too small. I would pick up the water gun and work from there. Its the best bang for your buck.
Good to know. That's a bummer that no one has made a more accurate 3D model. I definitely want the water gun, I just wish I could have picked it up before the price went so crazy high (for a cheap plastic gun)
 
After all the advice about picking up a water gun, I had the thought of instead of getting that, I could track down a rubber casting of the hero prop. These are accurate to the size of the gun, correct? I'd much rather pay for one of these, considering that they were actually used in the production.
Good idea or not?

Thanks!
 
After all the advice about picking up a water gun, I had the thought of instead of getting that, I could track down a rubber casting of the hero prop. These are accurate to the size of the gun, correct? I'd much rather pay for one of these, considering that they were actually used in the production.
Good idea or not?

Thanks!

IIRC the rubber castings are second or third gen castings and have suffered from shrinkage.
 
The water gun is molded from an old Takagi which is slightly larger than the real one particularly with the grips. I'd suggest a printed kit by Rgriesbeck and he can (depending on availability) supply you with cast urethane grips for them.
 
The water gun is molded from an old Takagi which is slightly larger than the real one particularly with the grips. I'd suggest a printed kit by Rgriesbeck and he can (depending on availability) supply you with cast urethane grips for them.
Good to know. It seems like it's way harder than I expected to find one that is the right size. I have almost decided on ordering a Rgriesbeck kit, but I learned that it is about 10% too small. I'm going to talk to him and see if he could scale it up, cause if so I think that one would be perfect for me.
Thanks for your help!
 
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Not sure about it being too small but it is roughly 10% smaller than the Takagi water blaster. I believe he mentioned scaling it after a Tomenosuke so should be more or less spot on.
 
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