Uber's Poorboy DLT-19

[Ubernostrum[TK]]

Awesome Matt! There was a German trooper that built one all out of wood it was spot on I'm going to try and emulate that as best I can. Good luck! throw on some pics when you're done man!

 

That's the same thing I modeled on, I just don't have the patience right now to all that wood carving, but it was really fantastic work.  I may go for that once I have something workable for trooping, instead of just trying to get out in the field.

 

Meanwhile, as promised, here's a few photos.

 

The bipod is a piece of angle aluminum, that absorbed the wrath of a tough day at work.  I was definitely glad an old UP worker gave me some scrap rail to use as an anvil.

 

For the rest of it (more pictures to come later once I'm done), I took what was left of a 3/4" pvc coupling, drilled a small hole in one side for a screw, then a bigger one for access with a screwdriver opposite.  Once that was attached, I ran a machine screw through the bipod arms to compress them into the coupling.  Right now it's held with nothing but tension and I'll cut off the extra screw at final assembly.  Ill add the glue once I get the primer down, since I feel like it'll be impossible to paint the barrel well with the bipod there.  The "rear" attachment point is part of the old cradle I built while drilling the barrel, just cut really small and rounded off.  A small piece of balsa connects the arms and another small machine screw goes through that, and then into the barrel-mounted piece.

 

Meanwhile, I got the sanding as done as I'm going to get it.  I normally like to play by the 5-foot rule that I learned with my SCA armor.  There's only so much sanding I can tolerate and I'll just to my best to pick out the good parts with my weathering/highlighting and leave any joints that are left plain so they can be distracted from.  It's worked well enough in the past, but not on anything this big.

 

Finally, it's done enough that I was able to do an overall test fit.  Having carried it around (barrel not glued yet), I'm wishing I had filled the back a bit with some Sculpy as it feels front-heavy right now.  Still though, I'm fairly pleased with the overall silhouette:

[ComradeDave[TK]]

Looking sharp man keep it up!

[Ubernostrum[TK]]

As promised, here's a couple shots of how I mounted the bipod:

 

 

The last big thing to make was the t-track.  I took a big sheet of 1.5mm plastruct and cut it into 13mm wide strips, rounded off the corners, then used my dremel to put a groove into the back.  It took a surprisingly shallow groove to really improve the way it sits on the barrel.  Thankfully, there was plastruct that comes in the right size for the rib.  All I had to do was cut it to length and round off the top:

 

I realized after I attached it all to the barrel that I forgot to cut in the groove for setting the wire in, so I added that in with my knife instead of the dremel since it was a bit tight in places.  It really didn't take much of a groove, just enough to be visible.  The wire itself was recovered from an old charger.

 

Next up was spraypainting.  I started with two coats of Rustoleum pain+primer in flat gray, then two coats of flat black.  I started with the bipod off, then once it was dry attached it and cut off the excess from the bolt.  All that's left now is a couple more coats of black and then some weathering.

[Astyanax]

Looking really beautiful. Nice work!

[ComradeDave[TK]]

Awesome man!

[Astyanax]

I am absolutely using your Plastruct idea for the t-tracks. Can you tell us what lengths you used? Also, the rib's strip looks narrower than the base strip's 13mm, maybe it's 9mm or so?

 

Thank you!

 

Bill

[Ubernostrum[TK]]

Thanks guys.  The plastruct was .060 for the base and .080x.250 for the rib (inches).  I just came up with that based on estimating from the pictures in this thread and averaging the three:

 

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/29118-alternate-t-track-supplier/

[haui[TK]]

Cool work , but carving it out of wood is not so hard.

[ComradeDave[TK]]

Cool work , but carving it out of wood is not so hard.

 

Dude you are a god, It was your build I was talking about earlier, stunning.

[Ubernostrum[TK]]

Cool work , but carving it out of wood is not so hard.

You are indeed aa like god among us. That was always my plan for a second one, after I get myself my basic approval. I've never been all that good with wood and didn't want to ruin that work with a bad barrel or something else.

Edited October 2, 2015 by Ubernostrum

[Ubernostrum[TK]]

Ok guys, here it is, what I think is my end product.  I'm going to give it a few days and come back to it to see how I feel about the weathering, but overall I'm pretty pleased with my results.

 

Next up will be a set of upgraded Rubies E-11s.

[allan1313[TK]]

You have inspired me. I am finishing up my E-11 right now, but after that I am doing this!

[Ubernostrum[TK]]

You have inspired me. I am finishing up my E-11 right now, but after that I am doing this!

 

I am really glad to hear that Allan.  That's the best part about forums like these: we all drive each other to greater feats than we could ever accomplish on our own.