I recently placed a large order for a selection of parts from Umori for my next Proton Pack, including:
* Welded aluminium Proton Gun front barrel with inner barrel for rotation.
* Aluminium front cylinder.
* Aluminium rear cylinder.
* Gold-coloured washers (for Proton Gun barrel)
* S-hook
Welded aluminium front barrel The item is nicely constructed and very clean in all of it's parts.
It should be noted for all future customers considering ordering the front barrel that it's best to do so at the same time you order the rest of the Proton Gun in order to guarantee that all the parts fit. I foolishly ordered my front handle a year or so after I'd ordered one of Umori's aluminium Proton Guns, and the end result is that the inner tube doesn't want to cooperate with being fed into the outer tube that was welded to the Gun Box.
Fortunately, I believe I can work around this... I'd bought some lengths of aluminium tubing back when I was going to attempt to make the front handle, and still having these around, I should be able to use them. After a quick test I've found that the inner tube I'd bought for my effort fits the Gun Box nicely, and with a little persuasion fits the newly-arrived barrel. With a bit of sanding, and maybe a bit of lubricant... I imagine the outer tube will slide nicely on the inner tube for the barrel rotation.
There are two minor issues specific to the front barrel that I'll mention:
The first is that due to the way the weld spot for the rectangular ear has built up, it has made it difficult to use the barrel adaptor I'd bought from Franchesky (it won't sit flat against the edge of the tube). This issue may be correctable by filing the weld spot down a little, so I'm not too worried.
A more significant issue I've encountered however, is that none of the resin grips I've tried* will currently fit between the rectangular ear and the Gun Lock Block. As both have been welded to the barrel the only way to correct this issue will be to file/saw off about 5mm worth of material from whichever grips I end up using.
* I checked to see if either the brown grips I got from Nick-a-tron or the black grips cast from one of the screen-used Packs by Venky would fit, but as they're both about the same size neither option will fit. I recall seeing a build with Umori's welded barrel which was described as having a pair of Venky's grips attached.
Aluminium front and rear cylinders The front cylinder is nicely cut and drilled, but as it's largely unmodified there isn't much room for anything about it to go wrong. The rear cylinder is nicely machined, with a hidden internal space milled into it to reduce the weight. The rear cylinder has also been machined so that a Clippard barb screws smoothly into it as soon as it's out of the box.
Reported more as a matter of idealised personal preference rather than a big issue, is that in an ideal world, the two cylinders and the Gun Lock Block and rectangular Gun Ear would've come with screws for mounting the respective Cylinders to the Gun Box, and the two block details to the grip I'd be installing.
I enquired with Umori as to the sizing, but as he wasn't completely certain I'll default to the smaller of the two sizes he mentioned first... and if need be I'll order the larger size. It's for this reason I would advise either including the screws as standard, like we've seen with various gun knob runs... or including the screw sizes on the part pages. That being said, I am (and I'm sure others are as well) happy to pay a little extra so that the screws are included as standard with those particular parts.
Gold coloured washers and S-Hook Initially listed as sold out on his website, Umori let me know when I'd asked that he had more in stock, which I promptly ordered. They will need a bit of drilling/filing so that they will fit the cap head screws he supplied with my original Proton Gun, but this isn't a huge problem.
The S-Hook is of nice quality, and hopefully will fit my Gun Track when it arrives.
Aside from those few issues, I am extremely satisfied with the transaction and overall quality of the pieces. Umori's communication was good, and I believe his new business model of building up a surplus of particular parts has helped to improve the business experience, removing the past complaint of how long the production time was. I received my parts very quickly after purchase (and that's taking into account we're separated by the Atlantic), and will definitely consider buying from him again.