BDWC's Rubies E-11 mod WIP

[BDWC[TK]]

Like many others, I had started my Rubies E-11 mod while waiting on my ANOVOS ANH TK armor. Then once the BBB arrived the blaster got back-burnered.

Well, armor is in the final stages, so I figured that I need to post some of the trials and tribulations I ran into during my mos process.

Once I found out that the Hyperfirm basters have seams and are not cut-out under the scope rails, I decided that it would be easier and way cheaper to spead the time instead of the money to make the blaster the way I really wanted it set-up.

 

I actually had this ready to go, but after checking the threads, I found out the tip about adding an inner barrel.

So I dug out my patiently applied and sanded fillers in each of the screw holes to gain access to the fasteners.

Unfortunately I had already bondo-ed the seams and effectively solvent welded the two halves together. I could not get the shell halves separated, so I had undone my work for nothing.

Now here I am plugging and smoothing things back out to take another approach at this.

 

Plugging the hole and patching seams

[BDWC[TK]]

Here are some close-ups of how I cut out the parts under the rail

 

The start of the cutting:

 

 

And after breaking through....note that the top of the tube will have to be filled

 

 

and this is the tool I used for the job

[BDWC[TK]]

drilled out the lower set of vent holes

 

 

used a reamer for the final sizing and deburred and trimmed

 

[BDWC[TK]]

This is a picture of the "rebel" style fins in their original shape

 

 

And this is after trimming and flattening them out,

[BDWC[TK]]

Now for the inner barrel...

Since the sides are now one piece, the only way to do this is to cut off the front nose enough to insert the inner barrel

 

 

 

and now I have to use a coping saw blade to carefully cut out the cross brace

[humperdingle]

The Rubies is a great (and cheap!) way to experiment with modding. Looking forward to seeing the finished blaster

[BDWC[TK]]

The Rubies is a great (and cheap!) way to experiment with modding. Looking forward to seeing the finished blaster

Thanks, Actually I just put on a D-ring and the first coat of paint.

Just waiting for the next warm day to hit it with another coat of paint, then I'll be putting up a lot more photos

 

Thanks for the motivation!!!

[humperdingle]

Thanks, Actually I just put on a D-ring and the first coat of paint.

Just waiting for the next warm day to hit it with another coat of paint, then I'll be putting up a lot more photos

 

Thanks for the motivation!!!

Cool! How did you put the D ring on? And what did you use for the D ring?

I fashioned one out of some steel wire, but not really happy with the result. Also, sanded the moulded Rubies D ring off with drum sander attachment.

[BDWC[TK]]

On 4/24/2016 at 10:35 PM, humperdingle said:

Cool! How did you put the D ring on? And what did you use for the D ring?

I fashioned one out of some steel wire, but not really happy with the result. Also, sanded the moulded Rubies D ring off with drum sander attachment.

I think you can see in one of my posts that I also sanded off the molded d-ring, but left the lug. After a few rounds of Bondo and sanding, it looked "square enough" to move on.

I got some packaged D-rings from Jo-Ann's fabric store.

 

I measured the thickness of the wire and drilled a hole through the lug just a slightly larger diameter.

I used two sets of pliers to open up the D-ring, and cut off some of the ends with a Dremel, leaving just enough to hold it in place once bent back into shape into the lug holes

Here's how it turned out:

 

I'm not entirely happy with the "bump" that resulted from the bending ( this was some strong metal and hard to shape!!), but I do have 3 more chances since they came in a 4 pack.

 

I like these since they are true D-rings and not the oval elongated attachments I see so often on these that are more like rifle sling attachments and not the D-rings used for tactical weapons that use a single point catch,..... and not really a 'D'.

However I am pretty sure either shape are acceptable

[BDWC[TK]]

A couple of more items I updated:

The front screw hole is recessed and not only hard to fill in, but almost impossible to sand smooth without using a end mill, spotface, or other fancy precision cutting tool.

Soooo, having been an air-frame mechanic for some time age, I still had several sorted aluminum rivets laying around in my tool box.

It looked like a #20 ST-type rivet had the right size head to do the job

 

I used a coping saw to cut off the shank

 

 

Then I took the head and glued it into the recess using a dab of the trusty E6000

After a day or so of curing, here is what it looks like after a coat of paint

 

 

I think this is just the look it needed

[BDWC[TK]]

From some reference pictures of the Sterling that the E-11 is based on, it looked like it had a socket head cap screw on the barrel flash nozzle.

Does anyone know if this looks correct?

I am planning on cutting off the head of the cap screw shown below and gluing it in place on the barrel nose after I install the inner barrel

[BDWC[TK]]

Okay, got around to gluing in the inner barrel, re-attaching the nose piece, and cutting off the cap screw head and gluing that in place as well.

Here it is all put together and base coat painted.

I used gloss on the inner barrel to make it stand out against the satin body.

 

 

 

Sent from my Imperial communicator using Tapatalk

[BDWC[TK]]

My start on the weathering.

Scope done, now onto the rest of the blaster!

 

 

Sent from my Imperial communicator using Tapatalk

Edited May 30, 2016 by BDWC