#4859662
Yesterday (Monday) I started on the thrower since I had visions of the dimensions dancing in my head. Clock in time was noon.

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It took me 2 hours to plot out and score the main body, slow blow and switch bars.

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For the first time I actually didn't use any pencil marks except to indicate pieces that are scrap. Measured, marked a tiny spot with the sharp end of the caliper, then used the straight angle ruler and scored the razor along it. It's super clean but I had to press on the ruler super hard to keep it from straying.

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Sure would be cool it there were kits in this fashion huh?

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I subtracted the thickness of the styrene from the radius of the bend and cut out a piece. This will theoretically aid in forming the bend.

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Cut out the front hole for the 1"pvc handle. Don't really like how the HProps plans I'm using seem to have measured around the weld lines. Was a bit misleading but reference shots cleared it up.


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I measured the pvc and divided it by half to get the radius.

I drilled out the holes for all the switches and scored out the bar graph window. Used measurements from Spingfaces' bezel kit for sale thread, cause I ordered one! Woo! Didn't take any picks of these pieces.


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For the vents I measured and scored in some pilot divots. I drilled six 3/8" holes using the step bit I'm in love with. I then connected the holes by scoring to China and back 6 times over a period of almost 2 hours! That literally hurt. A little filing and damn it looks almost machine cut!

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Started gluing the body together.

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You can see the radius rail.

I started to bend the radius over some 1"pvc as I have for every other bend so far. It was almost 9pm, I was hungry, rushing, tired, and this happened:

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I hadn't noticed I over scored a section and it made the piece start to crack in the middle of the bend section! Ah! I knew I should have used the heat gun. I decided to stop for the day. Hopefully I can salvage the piece as I don't want to make the vents again! I'm hoping with heat it'll just bend and I can fill in the crack and abrase it smooth.

I'm wondering how to cut the hole for the rear handle. Thinking of just mitering 1"pvc and tracing it out onto the styrene. Then I'll just score that line. Hmmm.


That's it! 9 hours with half hour taken for lunch.
#4859719
Came home from work today to this:

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What could it be?
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Alice pack LC-1 black frame, LC-2 straps and kidney pad.

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Was thinking about this piece all day lol. Broke out the heat gun. Had to heat it twice but it's acceptable and will be great once I particle paper elbow blast it.

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The crack widened but didn't get longer. It's more of a slit now and can easily be filled in.

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Crack didn't go all the way through for long. I'll fill it with glue to strengthen it.

That's it for tonight.
#4859739
Well done on not throwing the start of your Thrower across the room lol. It's what I would have done after nearly 9 hours haha. Seriously immense, I bow to your incredible scratch build skills
#4859754
Venkman's Swagger wrote:Well done on not throwing the start of your Thrower across the room lol. It's what I would have done after nearly 9 hours haha. Seriously immense, I bow to your incredible scratch build skills
Oh believe me, I wanted to throw it! Always good to sleep on a project when you start getting frustrated. Thanks for the kind words!
#4859756
Batfly wrote:
Venkman's Swagger wrote:Well done on not throwing the start of your Thrower across the room lol. It's what I would have done after nearly 9 hours haha. Seriously immense, I bow to your incredible scratch build skills
Oh believe me, I wanted to throw it! Always good to sleep on a project when you start getting frustrated. Thanks for the kind words!
I agree totally dude and you're welcome. Takes a skilled person to do what you're doing
#4859848
Update for last night. This was in the mailbox after work:

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Woohoo, resin crank knob! Very minor clean was needed and done.

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I'll probably fill this in, even though it'll most likely never get seen once on the pack.

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I glued on six runners along the perimeter of the bottom plate. This will help keep everything straight while gluing the rest of the thrower body together. It'll also make it super easy to screw the plate on. Made sure to be clear of where screws will go.

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I marked a line 0.177" from the top and 0.125" from the side on the face plate.

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PPD to the rescue! Didn't have to miter anything. Woohoo.

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I measured the width, divided it in half, and marked that from the line I drew on the face plate. Then I taped on a piece of styreneper pendicular to the plate behind the side line I marked earlier , held up my mini square to it, put the PPD on the faceplate pressed against the perpendicular piece, and marked the center of the PPD.

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I then traced the front edge of the PDD, removed the side piece, and tapped on the PPD. Went on to trace the back of the PPD.

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Scored out the oval.

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Carefully snapped out the oval.

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Filed it at the angle the pipe handle went in and test fit. Looking good!

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Glued on the curved side/top piece.

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Runners on bottom plate doing what their designed to do. :)

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Drilled cable access holes in the rear plate and front slow blow box plate.

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Yay they line up.

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Glued on back and face plates.

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Do mind the gap sir!

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This of course will get filled in. I planned for this as I wanted the faceplate super level for the bar graph all the while not having to worry about super accuracy with the edge of the curved top and side.

Added copious amounts of glue to all seems to be cleaned up later.

That's it! Funny how much smaller this turned out to be than I thought it would.
#4860038
Yesterday's progress report:


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Glued up the slow blow bar. Made sure to make the access window.

How is 1/8th inch styrene with drilling and tapping? Or should I get fitting nuts and epoxy them behind the screw holes? I might do that anyway.

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Roughed up some angled bevels for the switch box.

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Glued together.

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Put an access panel in this guy too.

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Made it flush by laying in some styrene rails for it to rest on and to drill and tap for screws.

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Cleaned up and smoothed out the main gun box. Really like how this came out! I'm aware my vents are a little wider than they should be but I'm not caring, it doesn't look bad. I'm happy that they are straight and the same length.

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The crack in the radius smoothed over really well. I had put a gob of glue on there the previous night and it really helped. Depending on how it looks after I primer it, it still may need more attention with filling.

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An inside shot for the heck of it.

At this point my girlfriend went to walk our dog and she came back up with a package!

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I feel like a kid every time I see the no ghosts logo on a delivery.

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Yeah yeah! Got my leg house and nipple. This is such a nice color yellow! Got the little red and clear light caps, an orange hat light cover which I'm thinking of getting another to make the one next to the vents orange, I like how it looks more than white! There are the two legris banjo replicas that have some nice weight. Got another hose barb as I accidentally ordered only one before. Last but not least is the acrylic tube wand barrel tip.

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All my greebles so far holding a convention.

Then I realised this package was sitting out as it was too big for the mailbox. There might be more smaller packages in actual mailbox as I had ordered from several sources. So I went down with the mailbox key and low and behold there were two bubble envelopes.

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It was my Dale RH-50 resistor. I thought it was for only one when I "bought it now". Wasn't too happy it was for $15. I guess it was for a lot of 5 which I don't recall seeing info on but hey, now it was only $3 woo! Yeah the ends are white but I'll hit that with either a shapie or black acrylic paint. I'm so tempted to redo the greeble convention shot including one of these. Oh well lol.

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Also got in my Spongeface bargraph bezel kit. It looks so nice with just the bezel in the gun box. This thing is sweet with the lenticular lens, tinting sheet, and laser cut plexi window. Makes me wish I was further along already!

That's it. I called it quits early as we had a DJ Snake concert to go to at the Aragon. Twas a lot of fun! And loud! Twelve hours after it ended now and my left ear is still ringing hehe.

I'm pooped and might not do a damn thing to the pack or thrower today. I'm ok with that! Sort of, lol.
#4860137
Thank VS and Morf! DarkSpectre and Richierich, I can't wait to see it either!

"Now make it, make it, make it, make it!
Faster, faster, faster, faster!
Work through the pain, work it through the pain.

Now make it, make it, make it, make it!
Faster, faster, faster, faster!
I cherish these moments I can't wait to see it! "

#4860842
Finally a day off after a 7 day work week! Only one day off though until Friday (today's Sunday). So to not burn out I only did so much. I decided to get the Trigger Bar (TB) and Instrument Bar (IB) done.

First up was to clean them up.

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Before shots of the makeover.

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I started with the IB and just got all seems, excess glue, protruding sides, and scratches repeatedly-scuffed away.

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Did the same for the TB. Made sure to keep the pointed tip centered by not eroding away too much material on any single side.

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I refound and redrew my center line and aligned the IB onto the TB the best I could to reference picks. I also picked the highest reference position as I like a higher button. Found this out while playing, er... dry fitting pieces. I also found center of the trace marks and made pilot divots for the stepper bit to make wire pass throughs.

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I moved onto the main body and rounded some edges and knocked down corners per reference.

Did the same for the IB and TB.

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Slightly rounded the corners and cleaned up the faces of the IB access panel.

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Drilled out the pass through holes.

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Then glued them together. I better be happy with the positioning! Lol

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Should be a breeze to wire this guy up!

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Drilled the holes for the slow blow clip lite and hose barb.

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Yeah!

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Super happy with the angle and height.

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For fun.

That's it for today. Stay tuned.
#4860874
Love it, love it! Such clean work, the styrene is a great material to work with, really nice when you get to sand the seams down clean. I know what you mean about the gun body being small, i thought my measurements were off when i first got the main body together ;) but it soon takes shape with all the other bits attached. Impressive building, looking forward to the next update :)
#4861410
Small update from last night. But first...

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...this came in Thursday, 4/21.

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Got another orange hat light. I love the look of the thrower with the orange light next to the vents. Also got in the front, top, and lower right knobs for the thrower. Anyone know where I can source the right upper knob with the set screw that holds the green pop lever?

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Also got the 3/4" splitless loom and 1/4" split loom with a foot extra than recommended for oops moments.

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Also got these super beautiful dry rub transfers!

Now back to last night's small update. Didn't get much done as we got hair cuts and had a Prince tribute party to go to. But I still wanted to get something done between those activities. I starred at the bumper for a couple minutes and decided it was not the day to coarsely elbow grease rub the hell out if it. I decided on making the booster plug.

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I measured the inner diameter of the booster tube and divided it in half. Used the calipers to scrape out a circle on some scrap styrene. I scored it with the blade and snapped it out.

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I cleaned up the circle and cut out four legs.

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Glued them on and it looks like a pizza saver. Lol

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The pizza saver legs keeps it level inside the tube. This way I didn't have to wrap a piece of styrene to make a cylinder. Works pretty well.

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Guesstimating from Stephan's plans, I figured the plug post to be 2 inches down into the tube and a quarter inch sticking out the top. So I cut a section 2.125" long to compensate for the top thickness.

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I measured the post width and added .05 to it and then divided that in half. The extra is so I have material past the post sides to clean up even with the sides. I snapped out the post lid circle the same way as before.

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Glued it on and waited about 20 minutes for the glue to set some.

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Granularly scraped away the excess lid material and rounded the top edge slightly per references. Then I glued it to the top of the pizza saver.

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Of course I had to test fit it. It's snug which I consider to be a good thing. It's such a small detail but adds so much I think! I'll make it permanent after I drill holes and epoxy in screws.

That was all for yesterday's progress. Only about 1.5 hours. Stay tuned for today's yet to be started work. Will I put off the bumper clean up again? Will I do multiple little things for the pack? Will I make the thrower handle, barrel, cylinders and ear pieces? Find out later on the next episode of Batfly's Scratch/First Pack Build All 0.125" Styrene!
twmedford23 liked this
#4861495
Venkman's Swagger wrote:Looks sweet man. You can grab the threaded side knob for the lever at freekygeeky.net
Ok cool I'll check him out. Thanks!

Didn't get much done yesterday physically. Mostly research, research, and more research. Had to find lengths of the front and rear handle piping. Rear was easy, between 8.25" to 8.75". I chose right down the middle at 8.5".

The front handle is a little trickier as most people seem to be using Throwing Chicken or Nikatron kits, and they have mounting nubs that offsets the length I need. I'm not doing a rotating barrel so I just need the length from the front of the gun body to right before the metal collar/after the switch and hat light ear. It might be easier after I make some grips and the ear pieces and barrel lock. Then I'll just have to find the size of the area from the barrel lock to the gun body. If anyone can fill me in on this detail things would be a lot easier lol.

Grips I've found were also different sizes front to back. Position and orientation of the rear grips throughout the packs were also different. Fronts were 4.75"and rears at 4.5" long. Some packs the rear grips had the larger raised end forward and some toward the back. Spacing from the rear handle end seems to be between 0.25" to 0.75".

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So, in between researching I got only the handle pipes done. I say in between because I'd find one dimension, implement it, then find another. Case in point being here, I first saw 9"recommended for rear. Measured and cut that. It seemed long so I ran to references. Remembered the pics with tape measures, they show it at 8.25", but only up to the welds. Some say up to 8.75". I figured 0.25 was enough to compensate for the welds so I chose 8.5" and recut.

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With the 1" pipe inserted I marked the material I wanted to remove to gain clearance inside the thrower body. I know sink drain pipe is the more accurate OD at 1.25", I'm happy with the strength and loom fit of the pvc.

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I put a rotary tool bit in my drill press and upped the rpm one gear (cheap a** $10 rotary tool is nowhere near beefy enough for pvc pipe). Worked pretty well and with crazy flashing.

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Cleaned up the flashing with a file.

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Inside view with tube inserted after material removal. (captain obvious is obvious[emoji14])

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The front handle is just roughed in. My research shows the barrel lock at 0.5", grips at 4.75", larger ear at 0.6875". I guessed the rear nub portion to be 1.3125", this could be too large. This gives me 7.25" exposed pipe from gun body to end of hat light ear. I am giving 1.5" to be epoxied inside the body and it's plenty of leeway when I get the ears, grips, lock made in case I need to take more off. Does anyone know what this length actually should be?

That was it for yesterday. Eight hours of research with this in between lol.

Hopefully today I'll do the ears and such. Maybe even work on the grips. I plan to make them out of wood. :) See ya!
#4861509
Just found EJ's "ultimate" thrower blueprints. Adding up his figures I come to a front handle tube length of 6.9375". I'll keep a range of 6.9375" to 7.25" in mind after I make all the accoutrements and see where things lie. Any input? I'm also going crazy looking for dimensions for the rear cylinder. Anyone have any insight into the rear cylinder?
#4861625
Update for yesterday. Disappointing day. Didn't get much done due to the first failure of this build. But before the failure...

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It was such a beautiful morning in the high 60s that I did my rear cylinder research on the balcony with a nice mug of chai tea.

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Found a pretty head on shot of the rear cylinder side. Using the known measurement of the IB, I zoomed the picture so it was actual scale on the screen.

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I literally held a tape measure to the screen and came up with this. Finished my tea and went inside.

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I was looking at the IB and didn't like how thick the access panel was, so I abraised it to half it's original thickness. This pic is that result.

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Here you can see the comparison. The thickness of the bottom of the IB was what the panel used to be.

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I'm much happier with it. Took about an hour.

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There's a before/older shot.

Ok, onto the failure. I basically tried to free hand lathe a rear cylinder. It worked, but very sloppily:

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I started with the sanding sponge as it was exactly one inch on the edge. Had such high hopes! PVC is pretty tough stuff. It chewed up the sponge more than anything. So I put several sculpting tools and even screw drivers to the task. After 2 hours of wasted energy and time, I ended up with this:

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This will not do!

So then I remembered sink drain plumbing is slightly less in diameter than 1" PVC! Why didn't I think of that first?! Probably because I don't have any 1.25" sink drain plumbing.

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With new hope I decided on making the top and bottom with 1" PVC and attaching them to a middle section section of drain plumbing.

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In my ecstatic state of elation I forgot to compensate for the thickness of a styrene cap. So I had to measure the inner diameter of the PVC and cut a circle to glue into the top piece. Oh well. The inner circle (sounds so secret society) was made to fit snugly so I could have it sit a little raised to be able to make it flush when cleaning it up. I glued from the back first and let it sit too cure some.

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I then cut a piece of PVC for the front cylinder making sure to correct for a lid! Made the lid a little larger than the PVC diameter for ease of clean up.

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Glued on and set aside.

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Finally, I poured glue into the seem on the front of the rear cylinder top piece.

That was it for yesterday. Wanted to get so much more done, but found a good way not to do something lol.

Today I'm off to home depot for sink drain plumbing. Ironically not for the thrower handles, lol. I'm going to finish and clean up yesterday's work and also get the barrel ears and lock done today. Fingers (not streams) crossed!
#4861630
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Mini update while I eat breakfast at noon thirty.


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Took the dog out and this was waiting for me.

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What could this be for? Hehe. Any guesses?
#4861668
Here's some test video of the arrival.


1080p @ 60fps


Slow motion!

So pretty :D

Also just got back from the depot. Why are those trips never quick in and out affairs?!

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Ended up with this loot:
1.25" drain pipe for rear cylinder.

Pipe insulation for Alice frame. Think I should have gone with the smaller size. I'll see how this works. If I don't like it it's only $2.

Screws! I never listed what I needed for the P clamp so now I gotta look that up, blah, later though.

Ok, no I need to get to work! Stay tuned.
#4861795
Finally home and changed out of work clothes. Time for yesterday's styrene progress.

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With new, slightly thinner drain pipe in my possession, I first ground down the beveled edge it had. Next I scribed a line 1" from the end.

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I then carefully went around this line several times with my pvc cutter till it made it through.

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Smoothed down the mushrooming from cutting.

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Glued on the top being very careful to center it. I let it sit for 5 minutes.

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Carefully put on the bottom piece. Let it sit for about ten minutes.

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Then I grip-killingly scuffed away the glue on top. Supa clean. I just need to cut away the sides of the cylinder and cut then glue in new sides and arches. That is unless...

I can't decide if I want to idolize this part and make it touch the IB and guntrack, or go for more accurate with space in between? I'll sleep on it.

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I moved onto the banjo and hat light/switch ears. I figured out measurements with a lot of help from Ejgunth's thrower blueprints. I started by scrapping in a 1.32" circle with calipers, the diameter of the handle. This made it easy to cut in the dimensions.

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Sides glued on. I'm a fan of cleaning up overhangs as opposed to mitering.

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Last side on. Slimmed it with glue.

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It got everywhere. I'm mean everywhere. ::eye roll::

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Scored out the the HL/S ear with the same method.

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Put on both sides first. Realized I should have first put in only one side and the bottom piece. That way I wouldn't have to squeeze the bottom in between the sides. Then I could just lay on the other side.

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Oh well, it went in perfectly anyway. Slimmed it's seems as well.

And that was it for last night. Don't know when I'll start again. Perhaps Friday: my next day off. Maybe sooner. Not tonight lol.
OCP_Model-001 liked this
#4862063
Got a little done last night after work while waiting for my girlfriend to get out of work herself.

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Cleaned up the banjo ear. Very happy with how it turned out.

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Cleaned up the switch ear. Somehow I made it ~0.65" wide instead of 0.75". This would probably work, but I think I'll probably remake it. Weird. I wouldn't have noticed except it did look off to me just in dry fitting.

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Cleaned up the front cylinder as well.

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Finally, I made pilot divots for drilling mounting holes in the IB and gun body.

That's it. Tomorrow is a day off, should get some more done. I'm thinking gun track and redoing the switch ear and make the barrel lock. I also want to lay in styrene mounting brackets to the n-filter, ion arm, and hga. Thinking of epoxying in a washer and nut to the inside of the parts/back of the mounting brackets for reinforced threading. That way I could just tighten things on from inside the shell. Does this sound like a good idea?
#4862186
Every time I call out what I'm planning to get done the next day it seems like that jinxes it lol. Sort of a frustrating day today.

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Started with remaking to switch ear. Here it is all measured and scored out.

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Score, bend, snap: styrene pieces.

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Glued together and set aside.

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Measured out where I need to cut and what stays. Decided on idealizing this piece. To me that means flush up against the instrument bar and gun track. I know this isn't accurate, but there's a lot of people out there that have theirs like this. It's seems common with resin kits. It'll be structurally more stable this way as well.

So I was thinking how to remove material. I first tried with my scroll saw. It seemed to work until I flipped it over to have a look. The reverse side went all squirrelly into the material to keep. I was thinking I could just patch and clean it up. Nope! Then the next side just fell away at the glue seem when trying to cut it. This ticked me off and I chucked it onto the floor hard and it exploded. I was able to save the top, but had to redo the middle and back pieces. Then the normal glue just wouldn't hold, so I broke out the pvc glue. Stinky woozy pvc glue. That worked, but not without the lid fighting me.

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I got out a hack saw blade for metals, just the blade, and first slowly and carefully scored in guide channels. Then I went to town.

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This came out a little bit sloppy, but acceptable and cleanable.

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I found some scraps the size I needed and sheeted shark skin scuffed away an extreme angle to fill in the top and bottom cut-aways to fit inside the round PVC. I didn't get pics of these pieces before gluing. I was too ticked from before.

I gooped it up with glue like crazy. I can hide a lot of the sins once it's fully cured and cleaned up.

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Then I cleaned up the switch ear and put in the pilot divots. The smaller one is the old one. I know it's not much of a size difference, but I noticed it and it was bugging me. Happier now.

And, the most frustrating part of today, that's all I got done!
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