T-Jay

Congrats on getting this nice piece. It will surely make a great addition to your build. At the end of this chapter you can find a way to install it on your full resin blaster.

Very good Tom. The thin area in the middle of the backplate (where it gets close to the 3 central capacitors) is always a bit tricky. But you still have the option to fill that with green stuff before painting. Power cylinders looking good already.

Thanks for the praise, Jesse. But please stop calling me master. There are so many talented members on this board - just look at your latest update. THIS is a masterpiece! Hats off to your work. Regarding the update for the blaster reference, I am still waiting for Danny (Ripper_L) to add the misssing content. He seems to be very busy. Maybe I will look for a workaround to bring those things online for the builders...

Congratulations on your BBB day - and the latest build progress. I like what you have done with your power cylinders. Why not giving it that final touch and shaping the backplate to type A? It's not too late.

What a monster update, Jesse! I am totally blown away. Simply clicking that "like" button, just isn't enough for THIS effort you went through. Man, I am out of words. Your work raises the bar for this particular resin piece one more time - and we all know, this got difficult during the last years. Never say never, it has been done again. And I think you want to keep me busy with updating the FISD E-11 Blaster Reference, heh? To me it looks like you just posted another addition for it. You truely deserve that contributor ribbon in your signature.

Superb work on the end cap and ring holder. Not sure if that small grub screw in the front sight is always on the right side, as I understood this block to be removable. That being said, I guess you can insert it the other way, too. Maybe someone with a real Sterling chimes in to enlighten us...

This is by far one of the best blaster builds with electronics that I have seen since ages... Biggest respect, Pawel!

WHAT??? Just checked it and except of one broken link, everything seems to work. Maybe it was just an issue with browsing via phone. Anyway, that PDF file is the most important thing. The broken link belongs to my "HOWTO make your power cylinders more accurate" tutorial, which seems to got lost in the recent forum upgrade. Cannot find it since then... Thanks for keeping him covered so fast.

Tino Jacobs 61276 Centurion #361 A4 Tony Thanks in advance Joseph. I love this board My pleasure, brother, and congrats! http://www.whitearmor.net/eib/certificates/61276-centurion.png

Thanks for the flowers - but come on guys, you make me blush. There are many people on FISD, knowing how to build good blasters. Please do not put me on that pedestal. I am just happy that this blaster can keep up with that very cool TM armor. A new scope with lenses? That would finally bring your blaster to 100%. Got you covered, mate. Ready when you are...

Thank you very much for both Tony, the approval for Centurion and the birthday wishes. Don't worry about being a day earlier - THIS already is the best present I can think of. Thanks Dan - and send some birthday wishes to your wife, too - from the unknown guy, who kept you busy with your blaster build (hoping she doesn't mind) Thank you Patrick. Very glad it all worked well. Also many thanks for your assistance in setting up the EIB and Centurion approval threads. I really appreciate this and the good relationship we meanwhile have. Cannot wait for our next troop and for looking identically - well, except for your shiny white armor seeming to come straight from the Galactic Academy. No battle damages or what? Take care, mate. And see you next week. Thanks for your trust in me. If your armor build will be on the same level as your blaster build, you will soon get those badges too. That is for sure. Thank you Shane. Glad to finally be here. It took far too long (was distracted by some blasters and the idea, to only build a static TK display ). Looking forward to many events in my area now and in the future...

That scope looks beautiful, Tom. Really good work! Regarding your painting plan: yes, you should do the inside of the scope first, then attach the lenses, mask them and give it the outer spray coat. For painting the inside I suggest to use a brush, as spray paint will cause a lot of paint tears inside your scope.

Done.

Hi Dan, you kept your word. I am keeping fingers crossed for you...

It is possible to cover the magnets in both, the mag well and the magazine clip. Although it looks good, it will drastically reduce the required force to unplug the magazine. While trooping, you could lose your magazine clip... The removable magazine is based on the idea to make your blaster smaller for packing it into your trooping bin. If you do not need to make it smaller, you can skip this mod if you like.

Regarding the magnets: if you use all 5 of them and do not use any clay to cover them, their strength should feel fine.

Of course I know, Chris. Following your thread since ages and eagerly waiting for your full kit to be available. By the way, could you tell us drooling troopers any roughly estimated period, when you are ready to offer them?

That is exactly, what I had asked myself. During the last 3 years I had been in contact with the Hengstler main site in Germany, with industrial representatives and with a lot of industrial end users. Absolutely nothing. A funny thing was, when I first called Hengstler and got transferred to "THE" contact person for the 400-series, he immediately was aware and asked, if I belong to a Star Wars club. Looks like he had already received a few calls before. A funny guy though and we had a nice discussion. All machines and tools to build the metal versions from the 400-series are disassembled and removed since decades. They are not able to produce any of the old hardware again - even if they would want it. This makes Chris' metal brackets even more valuable.

Hi Phil. In this build, wet newspapers and dirty water got used to add a slight (and removable) weathering. An easy and simply way. Maybe this is something to start with...

That is a very good idea and a nice summarization of your build. Well done, Dan.

Hi Tom. Very sorry to hear about the broken aluminum stripe. Very often in this forum you can find recommendations to cut that grove on the opposite side of the bend. In general this is a good idea for the following reasons: - it exactly defines the position on the rail where the bend happens - it causes a sharp bend, rather than a soft and curvy bend The only problem is, sometimes people cut too deep and reduce the stability of the material. Then the rail snaps when being bent. To leave enough stability, I would suggest to cut not more than about one third of the thickness. Anyway, it already happened and my words won't help you now, so what to do?! I guess we can forget about gluing and welding that aluminum, so I see these options. You can: - check if the bigger part is still long enough to make the bracket from it - check if you have anything else at home to scratch build the bracket from (bear in mind, this part is hard to see later) - check if you find 2x20mm (or something close to this) aluminum stripes in a local D.I.Y. store Or you can contact me to send you more aluminum (or alternatively go for the finished scope rail). Pick whatever works best for you. And keep up the good work. Things like that can always happen.

Okay, I dismantled the mannequin, took the required photos and added them into the first posting. Keeping fingers crossed now...

Yes, you can leave a small gap to avoid scratches on the receiver tube. No worries. In the movie they had used hot-glue to add the Hengstler counters. Due to the weight of these counters (with metal brackets back then), many fell off and only left the hot-glue residue. This can be seen (for example) on Luke's blaster in ANH when he removes his TK helmet in that Death Star control room...

WOOHAA!!! Metal brackets!!! You found a little treasure in that box.

Scope rail looks good so far and 74mm left for the bracket sounds more than enough. The dimensions of this L-shaped piece are best to find, when attaching the counter to the rail.