Right after dropping off some pieces of my metal gun to be welded, I was invited to march in the UNA Parade. (UNA stands for University of North Alabama, not Unlicensed Nuclear Accelerator.)
My wand light and sound kits, and their attendant wires and switches, had all been removed from my resin gun to be put into the metal one. But, with insufficient time to complete the aluminum gun, I reassembled the resin one without lights or sound. I installed non-functional switches from some leftover and broken ones, and in fact used about 85% duplicate pieces which were not slated to be used on the metal gun. I put the pack lights into standalone mode and controlled them via the main power toggle on the switch bracket.
So I was remarkably calm when the gun shook free from the V-hook as my youngest and I jogged to catch up to Brandon's Ecto at one point. I scooped up the three chunks it had broken into, tugged the fortuitously empty loom tubing out of the mousehole of the pack, and kept right on marching. Had the switches been connected, I'd have had to take off the entire pack.
My youngest looked at the parts lying on the front seat of Ecto and said, "Oh no, now you'll never have it ready in time for Hallowe'en!" I said it was just the backup gun, it wasn't even going to be used this Hallowe'en, but his comment kept rolling through my head so I decided to show him just how fast and easy the repair to this 'stunt thrower' would be. As I'm still awaiting some parts for my metal thrower, it didn't postpone that work.
I worked on it some on Monday and Tuesday, and by Tuesday night had it back to almost exactly how it looked on Saturday morning before the Parade. The only thing I didn't repair were some broken heatsink fins, although I do have an extra aluminum heatsink if I ever decide to grind the resin one completely off.
The parts that aren't attached are the ones that I don't have spares for, which will be transferred to the metal 'hero gun' soon. Everything else you see assembled on that gun is all duplicate parts, usually of lesser quality than the ones I've set aside for the other gun. I mean, if you're ever gonna drop your gun on the pavement, that was the day you wanted it to happen.
Alex