The Leia Leveller - A Mr. No-Stripes E11 Recreation - Warmachine/Blaster Factory & BlastFX

[revlimiter[Staff]]

The Organa Obliterator.

The Princess Punisher.

The Senator Silencer.

The Royalty Reducer.

and my personal favorite, The Leia Leveller.

 

My resin QuestDesign broke half of the sight guard randomly on a troop and I found myself on the blasterfactory website buying a metal one to fix the damage. It happened to be during their May 4th sale. They happened to have "ESB E11 kits" on sale with a VERY nice discount, so I ended up with one. I was having a bad day and had the extra cash. A 3rd E-11 became mine.

 

I didn't want another E-11. I'm happy with my Hyperfirm and my QD. But sometimes we just gotta take life as it comes and make space for a new build.

 

 

Here's the Warmachine after an initial assembly to see how everything fits together. It's just lovely.  And surprisingly not too heavy. Fully built, it's about the same weight as my resin QD with the original Stirling stock attached.

 

So anyways, I built this thing and was just smitten. It's such a lovely blaster. I had to build it into something fun, so I started researching and discovered that Mr No-Stripes had an E11 with an M19 scope. A plan formed.

 

The kit came with the M19 scope and T-tracks. I then placed another order for the stuff I was missing - the clip, Hengstler, and power cylinders. I've also got an original Hengstler 400 on the way from @T-Jay.  The original counter may get used in another project since I really don't wanna hack it up for the BlastFX, but it'll be really nice to have on hand.

 

And of course I bought the BlastFX kit. I came across a video of a Warmachine E-11 with the kit installed and went completely gaga. No way to not buy it as well. It should be in my hands in 12-16 weeks. So this is gonna be a loooonnnng build. The end is not in sight. Repeat, the end is not in sight.

 

Back to Mr No Stripes.

 

Just look at him. Isn't he heroic? Courageous? A fine figure of a trooper? 

 

You can see a lot of details in that above shot thanks to the 4K resolution. His bolt is weathered pretty dark. He's got the chip on top of the scope. There's a shiny rivet on the rear sight. And there are SCRAGGLY WIRES sticking out of his counter and going forward toward the power cylinder.

 

In this shot we can see a bit of key detail - wear on the front power cylinder edges. Very very shiny wear. And also just the bare hint of those scraggly wires.

 

And of course, the hero shot. If the TKs had just stunned Han, Luke, and Chewie in the hanger wouldn't the movie have basically ended right there? But I digress.

 

After sticking my toe into the research and feeling how nice the water was, I went a little deeper. Not much, but into the next scene where Leia is escorted to Vader. Paying careful attention, I was like "oh yes, there's our hero Mr No-Stripes standing behind her right shoulder with his M19 scope." only to be disappointed to see that the trooper in question DID indeed have stripes in about 3 frames of the film. You can just barely see it, but he's a different trooper.

 

Yet it's clearly the same gun. CLEARLY.

 

M19? Check

Chip on scope? Check

Wear on power cylinders? Check

Counter present? Check

SCRAGGLY WIRES?!?!?! Check!

 

I did an annotation.

 

The amount of detail that is clearly visible is just outstanding. Love the 4K res screenshots! It even shows that front folding stock greeblie that @justjoseph63 makes. The socket on top of the scope is also really interesting. It looks really tall and if you have a clear enough screen, you can see a bit of separation between the base and the top - I think a chip is actually installed in the socket.

 

So this is the foundation for my entire build - the theory that Mr No Stripes gun and The Escort gun are in fact the same gun. Our hero might not have been carrying it in this particular scene, but it reeeeeaaaaalllllllly looks like the same weapon.  It may not be a correct theory, but it sure charges up my imagination and it's the replica blaster that I want to build.

 

And there's a ton of good views of this particular E-11.

 

 

 

 

Combine these pix with the bolt-side view and front view in the hands of Mr No-Stripes and that's about the most complete showing of a prop that a fan can hope for. 

 

But that's not all! @PlayfulWolfCub actually created his own replica of this beautiful blaster during his power cylinder production and research. I've borrowed the photos from his PDF.

 

Having this reference from one of the TK Detail Masters is the icing on top. It's gonna be extremely valuable to have as a guide for those slightly blurry parts like the scraggly wires.

 

Anyways, that's my project. I'm excited about this build! 

(please don't burst my bubble and tell me they're not the same gun)

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

Wow! amazing details Adam, good luck with this project and looking forward for the advances ! 

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Some great research there, looking forward to seeing the progress 

[justjoseph63[Staff]]

Holy crow, Adam.. looking fantastic!  Always great to see a fellow detail freak, and I'm looking forward to watching this build!  I still have those "forgotten" greebs if you need them, btw.

 

One thing I noticed was that I'm not overly sure that the pic below is showing scraggly wires.  It may be me, but it looks like a flat strip of plastic (like a zip-tie).  Apparently they used those to re-attach some of the various pieces on that fell off during production.

 

  

 

I also wonder if the missing paint on the front of the power cylinders (as well as the scope greeb missing in a lot of pics) was due to holstering it repeatedly.  Hmmmm.

 

I gotta' say that the pic I got the most excited about was this one:

 

 

FINALLY another pic of that "mystery piece"!  Fantastic sleuthing!  

 

 

[revlimiter[Staff]]

Had no one else seen that front greeb on the stock in this scene? DID I FIND SOMETHING NEW? lol! I'm beaming.

 

For the wire situation on the blaster, this is my take. I am totally prepared to be wrong and get corrected, but I think this is what's going on. I've spent far too much mental resources on these wires.

 

The easy place to start is this one without a whole lot of detail. It looks like 2 wires to me coming from the Hengstler nose.

 

And then there's all of this.

 

The back view and bottom view match up nicely with the side view to give a good path for that wire (yellow) that seems to be holding the counter onto the rail. It's quite thin. I think it's just black electrical wire. It could be a mega-thin zip tie, but... I mean really really thin.

 

The replica pix from Playfulwolfcub show his wire path (green) and I think it's quite close. I believe the wires are a bit thicker than the ones on his blaster and dip down toward the power cylinders and kinda overlap the red power cyl wires. Maybe. That's my theory right now anyway.

 

And also I noticed that the Leia Leveller has no "OFF" text on the clip.

[Sly11[Admin]]

I recall some form of discussion about the wiring on of a counter as well as the wires from the power cylinders to the counter of a couple of blasters.

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

 

 

 

Mod F:   Coiled wires between the counter and the cylinders were not used on screen, only on promotional pictures.

There is also evidence of some counters being additionally supported by a wire, simply wrapped around the scope's feet (see ANH Leia's escort scene for reference).

 

RPF Link

[Daetrin[Admin]]

Wow, this is pretty cool.  I can't wait to see it completed. 

[revlimiter[Staff]]

I've been slowly working on the blaster. Initial painting and weathering.

 

I got a little bottle of Aluminum Black and started etching some items. The mag release button is chilling in there in this shot. It's just a tarnish that's pretty easy to wipe off, so it's not suited for something that will be actively trooped with. However, I think it's gonna be perfect for the bolt and some small screw type items.

 

I gave the bolt about 10 weatherings with this stuff, wiping it on and letting it sit, then dunking in water and drying, then repeating. I sanded in between several weatherings. The result is a lovely darkened bolt that shouldn't stick out quite as much as a non-weathered one.

 

It looks quite dark in this shot with the unpainted aluminum around it, but it reflects light nicely in person. I think the etching will be juuuust right. I sealed it in some wax to preserve the weathering.

 

I was really hoping this would be more like anodizing than dipping in ashes, but it's a lot more like ashes. Still, I got these small hardware pieces decently blackened. I'll apply some wax to help protect and then just use to let them age naturally should give a beautiful finish.

 

I hope. I mean, I can always paint these things if I need to.

 

I also sanded off casting flash on any metal parts that had it. The mag receiver (above) was pretty filthy with flash. It's now beautifully smooth. The scope and folding stock needed a bit of sanding as well.

 

And here's the real working Hengstler 400 from @T-Jay  It's glorious. No eagle, but it has everything else.

 

I gave the tan cover a little paint and thought some disassembled pix would be nice. Being a pleb who's never seen a real one, I was geeking out.

 

The little white bit at the bottom goes between the reset stalk side and the body keeping the reset stalk from pressing. Quite genius. I also really dig the zinc coated interior finish.

 

24 volt coil. Tino pre-set my TK number on it. Not sure how he did that... hopefully by rolling the digits by hand and not by letting it count 89400 little 24 volt pulses.

 

Here's the Fieldmarshal replica on the left vs the real 400 on the right. EXTREMELY similar.

 

I'll be honest, I wouldn't mind that open frame on the original... not sure if I could make it fit though and I haven't yet tried. I did mask off that original sticker from paint though.

 

And the number side. The Fieldmarshal is a lot more rough and ready looking. The original 400 looks more refined. I just have the replica numbers wedged into place for these pix. They'll come out later.

 

So what am I doing with both of these (very nice) counters? I plan to temporarily mount the real one to the Leveller with my best guess at the original wire fastener. Then, when my BlastFX arrives, I'll remove it and install the screen in the replica counter. It'll then be held on in the modern way, with screws on the scope rail. I'll keep the original on a shelf to fondle and ogle. It'll lie in wait till I have a new project for it to live with.

 

Thanks again for the counter Tino!!! It's such a beauty.

[revlimiter[Staff]]

I got some parts painted.

 

Preliminary assembly with some paint. It looks gooooood.

 

I used hammertone on the main body pieces. I sprayed some areas purposely thicker and some thinner. I didn't want fresh wrinkle finish on this blaster. Wrinkle paint takes a long time to wear down to a nice "used" looking level. Hammertone goes to that level almost out of the can.  It gives some of that variation in tone that the real guns have.

 

Thinner on the barrel and a bit thicker on the folding stock. No hammertone on the guard, inner barrel, scope, or various other pieces.

 

I also wanted to black out that center gold stripe on my vintage counter, but I didn't want to paint. It's also very very thin clearance inside, so a piece of electrical tape won't fit. However, a piece of clear scotch tape fits fine. I colored it with a black sharpie and that takes care of the gold inner counter problem.

 

Moving onto the power cylinders! I wanted a little bit of crustiness inside the main capacitors/insulators/whatever, so I gave them a bit of a white acrylic wash. Nothing really awesome, just something to show that it's not plain copper inside those little side slits.

 

Decently successful.

 

The one feature the Fieldmarshall cylinders is missing is these outer wings. I snipped some extra from the T-tracks and glued it in place. It's slightly blobby but a really tiny and hard to see detail. And it's really on there! This may survive a couple troops.

 

Inner capacitors! The nose holes needed drilling out slightly to allow clearance for the wires.

 

I angled the outer capacitor so that METALMITE would always be readable if you knew where to look.

 

Seriously, this kit is so very much the Easy Button. Almost nothing to change to make it perfect. It feels like cheating to build. I don't have much fabrication or alteration. Just smooth sailing.

 

The included red wire is a perfect size for those rear capacitor leads once you remove the inner copper. It pulls out with a needle nose easily and any left over comes out by itself when you shove the cap lead into the red.

 

And here's my first pass at a screen accurate power cylinder. Weathering is easy, but that red speck at the back required a bit of thought. The angle proves it isn't one of the center power wires. There seems to be an extra red power wire coming out the back rear of the outer insulator. You can also (barely) make out the presence of an extra flat feature on the outside edge from that rear view.

 

Here it is from behind. Pretty similar shape overall.  (Also, I'm happy with my wiring and resistors.)

 

More thought and comparison with my in-hand replica vs the screen grabs made me realize I had the wire angled backwards. It should arc down and back instead of back and then down. And it seems to have a segment of black painted wire or a resistor at the end.

 

It's rough and ready. It's used and abused. It might be old and tired, but it's my power cylinder. And I *think* it's decently accurate.

 

Rear view with painted wires. It was hard to make myself paint over the pretty capacitors and wires, but that's how the original was and that's how this one needs to be.

[T-Jay[TK]]

So glad to see you are using textured paint in this build. Everything else would just not make sense here. 

 

Don't forget to turn the LOCK/FREE screw in the grip into LOCK position later.

 

Oh, and great work done on the power cylinders, though we haven't seen any ones with a red wire to the outside.  

[revlimiter[Staff]]

On 6/3/2022 at 12:05 AM, T-Jay said:

Don't forget to turn the LOCK/FREE screw in the grip into LOCK position later.

 

Oh, and great work done on the power cylinders, though we haven't seen any ones with a red wire to the outside.  

 

That LOCK screw is so annoying. On this handle it tightens fully at FREE. Since I have to put electronics in it and wire stuff up later, I'm not gonna Loc-tite it on LOCK just yet.

 

As for that red wire... not sure if it's correct, but it sure looks right compared to the screenshots. Trying my best to make this screen accurate.

 

Onto an update!

 

I got the power cylinder JB Welded into place. No going back now! But I can change out various parts of it.

 

Next step was some T-tracks. I've never had to do these on any blaster before, so this was pretty fun for me.

 

I snipped to 5x 6.5 inches and 1x 7.25 inches. The measurements worked well for this Fieldmarshall build.

 

Work area. The snips help to re-angle the track cuts as necessary. They need a pretty sharp cut and most of mine were done too wide at first.

 

Low heat while spinning to evenly heat all three spars of the Tee. If only the bottom gets heated, it won't bend... and will lizard-skin the bottom side.

 

I used a small screwdriver to help shove the pliable plastic into the hole and it worked amazingly well. I was able to get a very sharp bend on all the tracks and most don't need glue.

 

The top one looks a little loose because that's how it is on the screen version. You can see a little light between the barrel and T-track behind Leia. I tried to replicate that here while still keeping it in place.

 

All starting to come together! The T-tracks and counter just add so much.

 

I've started some light weathering to match the screen version as closely as I can as well.

 

For the time being, I have the counter held in place with a screen-accurate wire. It's also supported by some strong double sided tape.  However, the wire attachment creates the perfect height, position, and angle by itself. So very awesome to not struggle at the counter positioning.

 

None of my other blasters have extremely sharp molds at the top of the scope. The accurate white crayon lettering is just chef's kiss.

 

I also got the chip installed on top of the scope. I tried the socket only version first and then compared it to the height with a chip installed in the socket. I think the chip + socket is most accurate.

 

Now I just have to figure out those wires running from the counter to the power cylinders...

[Harbinger[IPM]]

This is going to be epic.

[MaskedVengeance[Staff]]

On 5/26/2022 at 6:20 PM, revlimiter said:

The Organa Obliterator.

The Princess Punisher.

The Senator Silencer.

The Royalty Reducer.

and my personal favorite, The Leia Leveller.

These names are gold. Somebody needs to print these on those metal blaster plaques for display with our E-11s. I'll take a set. lol.

 

And fantastic job with this research and build; I can't believe I'm just now seeing it! If your project end is not in sight, then what does that make my armor build that I began in 2019...

[revlimiter[Staff]]

Okay. Here's my first attempt at figuring out what's going on with these scraggly wires. I don't think I quite have it right, but think I'm on the right track.

 

I tried a few things to get it even this far. I first thought it may be a braided wire. A roll of 1/8" braided wire was something like $30, so I braided up some of my own by hand and was instantly happy I didn't spend that money. The braiding was far too wide and large. The original blaster behind Leah definitely just had some fraying on the end, making it poof out.

 

The original blaster also has a wire helping secure the power cylinders around the clip receiver. I don't have that on mine and don't intend to replicate that detail, but it's pretty interesting and only something I noticed when mine was in hand and I noticed that a "step" was missing behind that receiver. Same thin wire they used to hold the counter in place.

 

Also also, the gun behind Leah is missing the right hand far bottom T-track. That's the only way that light would show through the bottom row from this angle - if that T-track wasn't there.

 

But I digress. Back to the wires.

 

Mine isn't quite right compared to the screen one. It's too long, making the wire go down and across in a rather square shape instead of down at a diagonal angle. But I think this is what was going on - black tape or something similar holding the wire in place on the counter.

 

My theory is that the wires got PAINTED black just like the rest of the blaster. I don't think it was insulated wire due to the fraying you can see in the screen capture. The foreground wire takes an immediate U turn coming out of the counter and the goes toward the power cylinder.

 

The wires seem to go straight underneath the power cylinder and connect near the resistors. Connecting wires to the backs of the power cylinder centers gave a different look than what was present in that original screen capture. Mine are just floating in place so I can move them all about and reposition as I notice new things.

 

 

The original was apparently a functional gun shooting blanks, so the clip release button would have needed to function. And in order to get to that clip release, the wires need to move out of the way.  In the act of pressing that clip release, moving the wires out of the way exactly as seen in the screen capture is the most natural way to do it. The one nearest the barrel gets a bit closer to the barrel and tends to go straight down. The other wire in the foreground gets shoved and does this U turn thing to give thumb room for the prop person to change the clip.

 

 

And here it is from behind. Not such a strange routing due to the need to press that release button downward.

 

I need to fiddle with this more and think about it more, but I feel like I'm nearly there.

[T-Jay[TK]]

It is great fun following this build and I really like how deep you dive into each detail. 

 

There is just one thing that stands out to me and I hope you don't get it wrong if I mention.

 

The scope rail: if you shorten the vertical part on the front and give the full length a 'banana bend' it would better match the screen used rail.

 

Again, I hope you get this as positive criticism. 

 

For the amazing level of accuracy you put into this blaster, I found it wrong to not mention this.

[revlimiter[Staff]]

Definitely positive criticism and something I'd noticed. I had the banana bend... hmm, at some point. And I don't think I took a photo of it. It was created naturally by putting those M19 bolts in the opposite order I have them now. The large/long bolt needed to move to the back, I think. That bolt placement sucked the front end down and gave it the rail a proper bow out.

[revlimiter[Staff]]

Whew, over a month passed. I guess I've been putting off this update since I didn't wanna be "done" and put the blaster on the wall until my BlastFX kit comes. But DONE comes for us all... so here's the Leia Leveller's most screen accurate form that I am willing to achieve.

 

 

 

 

I got the banana bend in the rail and totally reshaped the nose to fit nicely in the barrel. It didn't take a whole lot of effort, but a bit more than was expected. I also got the greebs from Joseph installed in their spots... though I suspect the rear one fell off for filming and was originally farther back.

 

Starboard side. I just love this thing. So pretty. So satisfying to hold. 

 

The port side beauty shot. I'm very satisfied with this. And I'll be even more satisfied taking it all apart again to put in the BlastFX guts.

 

and lastly...

 

My daughter put on my torso and arms and posed for me.  She's 10. The plastic was uncomfortable and the blaster was heavy. I didn't get the rubber gloves out. But having this shot fills my heart with happy little laser blasts.

[Sly11[Admin]]

This so truly amazing Adam, level of detail is exceptional.

[TK 17654[TK]]

Mind blown at how awesome it turned out 

[T-Jay[TK]]

Out of words.

[Daetrin[Admin]]

Utter rubbish.  You must ship it to me for proper disposal, lest others get the wrong idea of accuracy.

 

 

 

j/k - it's awesome!  Simply exquisite.

[revlimiter[Staff]]

Thank you all!   This was such a fun project. I hope I have the heart to install the BlastFX and reduce the accuracy...

[justjoseph63[Staff]]

Truly a work of art, Adam.  You have my interest piqued with the chip on top of the socket, though... I really think you may be on to something there.  Can I ask what it is and where you got it?  I would like to include it in the sets I sell (and add one to my own as well of course)!

[revlimiter[Staff]]

So... I took circuits I and II in college as well as machine language and a few other such classes... and the old me that took those is embarrassed by this me who built the blaster.  I could not find a really cheap chip. Nothing blank. No cheap ALU or anything. The best I could do was about $1 each from amazon.  Not the most expensive prop addition ever, but also nowhere near as cheap as it should have been.

 

They're 16 pin decoders. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CHTJZVM $10 for 10.

16 pin socket. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SWO3U1C $8 for 40. 

 

I'm sure somewhere else has 14 or 16 pin chips for much cheaper, but I just wanted the easy button lol. And all the 14 pin chips I found were much more than $1 each.