Thrawn's guard Posted October 17, 2015 Author Report Posted October 17, 2015 (edited) Hey Mike I used the following for the power cylinders:- 1) K&S 135 brass tube 3/8 x 12" (9.52mm outer diameter). 2) AGU 40A car audio glass tube fuses (1.5" x 0.4" / 38mm x 10mm). Let me know if you have problems finding them as I should be able to send you the links or post some. I got the brass tube from eBay and the fuses from Amazon. I should also have some further update photos to post sometime tomorrow. Edited October 17, 2015 by Thrawn's guard 1 Quote
Thrawn's guard Posted October 18, 2015 Author Report Posted October 18, 2015 Looking around the house for something which could be used to replicate this detail I came across some standard UK mains plug fuses. These provide me with the size of cylinder I was looking for as well as being very inexpensive. Another advantage of using these fuses is that they come with ‘dimple’ in the centre of the end caps as shown in the photograph below (Dimple on the left and drilled end cap on the right). This is great for locating the drill correctly when forming the hole in the cap. Taking a 3mm diameter drill bit I carefully drilled a hole in the end cap, (See the fuse on the right in the photograph above), and removed the inside of the fuse. The drill diameter was chosen to be just slightly larger than the diameter of the bolt head so that the bolt could be dropped in to the end of the fuse. The photograph below shows how these items are fitted together to form the rear of the power cylinder detail. The final task was to paint the fuse with a rust coloured brown paint. You will only see this if you look carefully but it was a small additional detail that I wanted to include. 1 Quote
Thrawn's guard Posted October 18, 2015 Author Report Posted October 18, 2015 I also couldn't wait to see how the power cylinders were going to look like once installed on the blaster therefore I had a very quick test for as shown in the photographs below. 2 Quote
crisisfilms Posted October 18, 2015 Report Posted October 18, 2015 Wow, I was gonna go much simpler with my power cylinders when I got to that point but I am amazed at what you've done and may have to try my hand at my own now. Keep up the great work. 1 Quote
AgeOfStrife Posted October 18, 2015 Report Posted October 18, 2015 The details on these cylinders is going to really put your blaster up another level. I've stuck with the Doopys cylinders, but might replace them if I can motivate myself to follow your lead. 1 Quote
Thrawn's guard Posted October 19, 2015 Author Report Posted October 19, 2015 Thanks for the kind words guys I'm really pleased with what I have been able to do so far and glad that others are finding it of use/interest. Quote
Thrawn's guard Posted October 19, 2015 Author Report Posted October 19, 2015 I did manage to get a little extra done yesterday namely the installation of the wire to the front of the power cylinders though this proved to be a little fiddly. I removed the wires from the front of the fuses one by one, bent them to shape, (so that they would pass from the front of the fuse to the holes in the wing plate), before cutting them to length. I then carefully applied a small amount of glue to the ends of the wire (the ends of the wire were inserted in to the front of the fuse and wing plate). 1 Quote
Bulldog44[TK] Posted October 19, 2015 Report Posted October 19, 2015 Dang! You went all out on these power cylinders. Awesome results! Almost too pretty to paint! Quote
I'm Batman[501st] Posted October 19, 2015 Report Posted October 19, 2015 Wow. Way beyond my patience or skill levels. Great job! They do look like they're sitting high (not saying that they actually are though). They'll probably blend in more once they got some paint on them and not so bling bling. Quote
Thrawn's guard Posted October 20, 2015 Author Report Posted October 20, 2015 (edited) Dang! You went all out on these power cylinders. Awesome results! Almost too pretty to paint! I know what you mean about the paint Brian but I'm sure once I do apply the paint it will be OK. Wow. Way beyond my patience or skill levels. Great job! They do look like they're sitting high (not saying that they actually are though). They'll probably blend in more once they got some paint on them and not so bling bling. Hi Ian I'll double check the height but am pretty sure that is is correct. If I do need to lower it I can connect the base plate to the side of the end plate which will drop it down in the region of 1.5mm. Edited October 20, 2015 by Thrawn's guard Quote
Thrawn's guard Posted October 22, 2015 Author Report Posted October 22, 2015 (edited) I now have my resistors for the rear of the power cylinders ordered so hopefully they will arrive sometime this weekend and I can crack on with completing this build. To be honest I will be a little sad to finish as it has been very enjoyable however I am also looking forward to having a 100% completed E11. Edited October 22, 2015 by Thrawn's guard 2 Quote
Thrawn's guard Posted October 24, 2015 Author Report Posted October 24, 2015 (edited) I managed to find some resistors similar to the ones that Aaron told me about previously and purchased them via mail order which arrived earlier today (These resistors are 9.7mm long and have a diameter of 3.4mm). Looking at some of the reference pictures available on the FISD forums I understand that there are a number of different variations for the arrangement of the resistors at the rear of the power cylinders however I opted to go for an arrangements with four resistors. As far as I can see the wires connecting the resistors and the fuses have textile insulation which only occurs only where the wires are likely to touch each other. In other words there are also short sections of wire without insulation. Taking this in to account I have arranged the insulated sections of the wires so that the bare wire is always located next to an insulated section. I’ll try to explain how I produced the resistors detail on my build. Firstly I cut one of the long wire sections on a resistor to approximately 6mm long. I then took a section of the textile covered wire provided in Tino’s completion set and pushed the longer section of wire, with a little glue on it, in to the insulated wire. Note that I had removed the copper strands to allow me to push the new wire in to position. One quick tip is that if you apply a little glue to the end of the textile wire as soon as you cut it and then roll it between your fingers the glue prevents the textile insulation from fraying (My first attempt disintegrated as I worked with it. You can see in the photograph above how the insulation starts to fray. I then took another resistor and cut the wire section a little longer. Taking the end of this section of wire I applied a little glue and pushed it in to the other end of the textile insulated wire however this time I only pushed it part way in so that I had a section of bare wire approximately 4mm long still showing. This process was repeated so that I had another arrangement consisting of two resistors and a section of connecting wire. I then cut the sections of wire which come out of the lower two fuses and angles them so that they touched the bare sections of wire between the resistors. Taking a section of the insulated wire it was cut to length so that it could be bent from the end of the top fuse to the section of bare wire next to the outer pair of resistors. I pushed and glued a short section of wire in to the end of the textile wire and once secure cut off all but 2mm of this wire. This wire is then pushed in to the hole in the end of the top fuse. The other end was then glued on to the section of bare wire on the outer pair of resistors. I still have the small wing plates to add I then intend to paint everything with a bolt gun metal paint, (Except for the red insulation wire), before applying a flat black.The power cylinders should then be ready to attach on to the blaster. Edited October 25, 2015 by Thrawn's guard 3 Quote
Thrawn's guard Posted October 25, 2015 Author Report Posted October 25, 2015 (edited) I formed the wing plates by using a sharp craft knife to cut out two small strips of ABS plastic (I used part of the sheet supplied in Tino’s completion set. These were then glued in to place using E6000 glue. Once the glue had dried I painted all the power cylinder assembly with bolt gun metal paint (except for the red textile insulation and the underside of the base plate). A flat black paint was then applied to everything including the textile insulation however I ensured that some small areas of the textile insulation were left unpainted as was the case on the screen used blasters. I found when placing the power cylinder assembly on the top of the magazine that the two resistors closest to the receiver were too close to the magazine release switch and as a result were preventing it from being operated. I overcome this issue by applying a small amount of E6000 glue to the rear of the back plate and side of the resistor closest to the plate and pushing the two together and holding in place for a couple of minutes. This moved the resistors sufficiently to allow me to place the power cylinders on top of the magazine where I had planned without them getting in the way of the switch. Looking at various photographs it can be seen that the resistors were not generally neatly placed in a straight line so if anything I think this minor modification makes the blaster a little more screen accurate. The final stage was to lightly weather the power cylinders using a fine sand paper on the painted surfaces. As far as I understand from my research the power cylinders were placed on the magazine both in line with the end face of the magazine and in line with the barrel. My personal opinion however is that because these are not part of a targeting system they wouldn’t need to point towards the target and as such it makes more sense to me to position them in line with what they are connection to (The magazine). Before I glue these in to position I would however be interested to know what other people’s opinion on this subject is. Below I have taken a series of photographs showing the power cylinders in place. Edited October 25, 2015 by Thrawn's guard 5 Quote
TK-50101 Blue Snaggletooth[TK] Posted October 25, 2015 Report Posted October 25, 2015 love this build 1 Quote
I'm Batman[501st] Posted October 25, 2015 Report Posted October 25, 2015 Incredible work. I like the angled position as you have them. 1 Quote
Thrawn's guard Posted October 26, 2015 Author Report Posted October 26, 2015 Thanks everyone for all of the positive feedback it really means a lot. Incredible work. I like the angled position as you have them. Thanks Ian for your thoughts. I have decided to go for this position. Quote
Thrawn's guard Posted October 26, 2015 Author Report Posted October 26, 2015 Well at last my build is finally finished so thought that I'd share a couple of quick photos of the finished blaster. I also intended to eat the 2 packets of Haribo bears provided in Tino's completion set and counter in celebration however I only managed to eat a single bear as my two daughters had different ideas and wiped them all out in a fraction of a second. I'll put together some more finished pictures along with some closing comments and thoughts as soon as I can however in the meantime I hope that my build thread is of some use to other builders and shows that someone with very little prior experience in this sort of thing can put together a decent blaster so long as they are prepared to carry out research and put some time aside. 3 Quote
AgeOfStrife Posted October 26, 2015 Report Posted October 26, 2015 Fantastic build. Now you can take a break 1 Quote
hupspring[TK] Posted October 26, 2015 Report Posted October 26, 2015 It's been fun watching your build! The finished blaster looks great with incredible detail. 1 Quote
T-Jay[TK] Posted October 26, 2015 Report Posted October 26, 2015 Chris, congratulations on completing this beauty - and sorry for your daughters snatching away your gummy bears. But I really liked the fact you saved them until the build was finished! In my opinion this is one of the very best E-11 that has recently been built and you can be proud of what you've done! 2 Quote
I'm Batman[501st] Posted October 26, 2015 Report Posted October 26, 2015 What he said ^^ Now you need the armour to match! 1 Quote
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