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[Anansi]

Hey, vode.

So I'm beginning the long journey in building out my besbe, starting with my weapon. I had this Nerf Longstrike that I painted up for an old costume and I figure it'll make a nice base.


I know the stance on Nerf around here, so I'm slowly working on making some heavy modifications to this body.


After slicing away a few more sections(including the top rail) I'm planning on adding cooling fins and a beam focuser to the barrel, a side-loaded magazine, scope, and a few more greebles. I'm also going to fill in the stock either with wood or eva foam textured to look like wood.

[Anansi]

All right, this is moving along. Naturally, while looking it over and finding new pieces to add, I decided to make a few revisions:

I shortened the barrel and added this shroud. But I'm not sure if I want a longer barrel peeking out or not. I also decided to shorten the entire body of the rifle by cutting out the portion that held the magazine well and top ejection port. I'll reinforce the seam with the removed material on the inside. That ejection port screen can now be moved to the side, opposite of the new side-mounted magazine well (not pictured). I also flipped and trimmed the stock to make the entire weapon a bit more compact.


I'm glad I saved the internals because with a few cuts and some spacing, I was able to come up with a decent scope.


This weekend I'm going greeble hunting at the local thrift shop.

[Straka Zulu]

Another good place to look for greebs is Lowes or Home Depot, their plumbing section.

[Anansi]

Su'cuy! So, after my hunt for greebles, I came back with some good ones. Vor'e STRAKAZulu for the tip. I found many good things at Lowes. So here we go:

After measuring and remeasuring, it was time to cut the body down.


Thankfully, everything lined up pretty well.


In order to attach the two cut halves, I braced the inside with strips of heavy plastic from a Sterilite shoe box and my good friend contact cement.


I can look over my planned layout to make sure everything still fits where I want it to.


Now it's time to sand and prep for bondo.

[Anansi]

Ok, so one more update this weekend.

I used Bondo for the very first time. It's a bit intimidating and I'm sure I didn't apply it perfectly but the way I see it, those divots and clumps are actually battle damage and carbon scoring, especially if painted right.



Fast forward a bit and I got all of the greebles attached. On this side, we have that left over screen from the ejection port and half a mint tin behind it. Under the barrel is a tripod tilt handle and up front there's a space for a flashlight mount.


On the other side, we have the other half of the tin, a cabinet hinge up front and say...what's this orange rectangle?


This looks like it might fit.


That's right, it's the side mounted magazine well! I have magnets attached to hold the mag in place and it's easy to pull and lock in. I have a second mag to fix up and they'll go on the belt.


That's all for this weekend. Next week, I'll work on the shoulder stock. Until then, Ret'urcye mhi and good hunting.

[Straka Zulu]

I REALLY like the direction you are going with that, vod!

Hit it up with some primer, might help in finding things you want to fix once it's all a uniform color.

[Yolah Hyperion]

More please!!
You have given me ideas on how to go about modifying my Centurion into a sniper now 

[Anansi]

I'm back with another update.

Initially, my plan for the buttstock was to shave it down, pad out the middle and face them with wood panels. But I thought to myself, "Why take the easy route?"
So, on this week's trip to Lowes, I headed over to the wood cutting section and found a nice, thick piece of scrap wood and proceeded to recreate the original stock from wood...mostly. I started with the outline.


And I started carefully cutting to shape.


I almost left if flush with the top of the carbine but that's a lot of material and a lot of weight.


So I continued cutting and shaping.


And here's a comparison to the Nerf stock.


There's still a LOT more shaping and sanding to go but I think it'll enhance the look much more than a glued and bondo'ed plastic buttstock. Additionally, I ditched the cobbled together scope and replaced it with an inexpensive real rifle scope; ($7 at Wal-Mart). That's all I have for now. I'd have more but I was distracted by my new Slicer pad project. 'Til next time, vode.

[Yolah Hyperion]

You may send the discarded scope this way...I will ensure it is...properly disposed of 

It looks really really good though!!

Will you be staining the stock??

[Anansi]

I'll definitely stain it and I may carve or woodburn something into it as well. As for the scope, I'm sorry but that was repurposed for the datapad WIP. 

Anansi's Slicer Pad with Scomplink http://mandalorianmercs.org/forum/index.php?topic=124050.0

[Yolah Hyperion]

I'll definitely stain it and I may carve or woodburn something into it as well. As for the scope, I'm sorry but that was repurposed for the datapad WIP. 

Anansi's Slicer Pad with Scomplink http://mandalorianmercs.org/forum/index.php?topic=124050.0

  Just kidding about the scope, woodburning something would make it pretty unique. Just be sure it wasn't to much of an earthy design if you do.

[Anansi]

Back again. This update is a light on images because most of my work was on carving and shaping the buttstock a bit more. However, I did decide that the handgrip needed a little customization, so I cut out the main section, leaving the internal structure in place:



and then I cut out new grips to be fastened with Chicago screws. I also added a knob to one panel, cut off the tabbed portion of the accessory rail (while leaving the main section for the scope), and finally attached the aforementioned scope. Still need to figure out whether to attach a small flashlight or an even smaller blue led penlight.



Quick question: What would be a good Mandalorian quote to burn into the side of the stock?

[Anansi]

QUICK DETOUR:
I haven't had time of late to get back to my carbine but my riduur did give me a sneak preview for Christmas morning:



Twin Westar 35's! The vendor sanded and primed them but there's still a lot of work to be done on these, namely, the triggers are almost as thick as the trigger guards. I've got to figure out a way to thin them out cleanly. Any advice would be appreciated. Also, is anyone aware of a Westar company logo?

[Yolah Hyperion]

If you could get a file in the trigger area perhaps that would work, maybe a dremel.

No idea on a westar logo unfortunately 

[Bariikas Talgal]

I think those'll look great! I checked for you and there is no canon logo, or even Legends. Sorry to say!

[Anansi]

Vor'e for the research Bariikas. I'll come up with something else. In the meantime...

I sanded the handgrips and put a nice stain on them:


And I figured out what design I'll put on the stock. Before I do any woodburning, I wanted to make sure it fit and I'll test this image on a piece of scrap wood.


I bondoed the screw holes and a few other spots and then I hit it with this paint/primer. (Side note: people who switch the caps on primers at the store should be kicked in the knees. Hard)  I almost want to keep the main body this color after some more sanding. I'm not sure though. I might go with black and then use this as an accent.

[Anansi]

Today was my first day trying out woodburning. I did a quick test run on scrap wood and then dove right in.



Got the outline in place and then filled it in



and added a few hash marks on the other side



Since this was a piece of plank I grabbed from the scrap pile at Lowes, it wasn't the best medium for woodburning. The rings are crazy hard and don't burn quite as well so I'd put a little more pressure to keep it even, then I'd hit a soft part and dive in deeper. I imagine it will take practice and a better wood choice to get it right. Either way, it looks good enough to me. Next step: staining.

[Yolah Hyperion]

I mean for your first time woodburning it looks superb!!  8)

[Dar'manda]

Looks great bud! i think you are definitely on the right path, a bit more and I think you will have it. A couple of greeblies could really set it off.

[Ju'siik Kelborn]

Looking good there vod!

Looking forward to seeing this completed!

[Anansi]

It's 2017 and I'm still plugging away at this. Here's the updates:

I finally got around to staining the stock and I learned a few things. 1. Wood glue does indeed stain well. 2. Wood stain will even stain a woodburned area.

I stained and black-washed it and restored a little of the black to the burned portions.

This is the glued side (done to level out some of the wood imperfections). The glue really gives depth to the stain that makes me wish I'd glued both sides.

I also black-washed the grips and added a few greebles to the right side...


and to the left.



Once I have an opportunity to bondo and sand a few more spots, I think this will be ready for paint! In other news, Santa the Wookie brought me two Westar 35's on Life Day and I've started working on cleaning up the flashing and such. And then this happened:

Looks like I hit an air pocket. I assume bondo will fix that right up but any advice is greatly appreciated.

[Famine]

Bondo or spot filler will take care of that. Depending on how shallow it is, you can use baby powder mixed with superglue. Good luck!

[Anansi]

Su cuy! I finally have a few little updates. The weather grew too cold for bondo so I ordered a pound of Apoxie Sculpt. And now that I have some time on my hands, I can finally resume working.

I had to rid my carbine of some of those tell-tale Nerf designs, like the vented trigger and the notched trigger guard. (I'd already reshaped the trigger it but the holes still betrayed it. A few plugs of sculpt fixes that.


Then, I took aim at the triangle adorned handgrip. I dropped a layer over top and set up some lines. I'll give them a little more shape once the apoxie sets.


I also filled in the spot where the original stock met with the handgrip and filled in a few gaps that resulted from overgrinding when I made the new wooden grips.


Finally, I added a few little embellishments, smoothed the top of the accessory rail and filled in a few more holes. Then I finished the other two magazines.


Once everything sets and I do a little (or lot) more sanding, I think it'll finally be ready to paint.

UPDATE: Since I can't work on the blaster body until the apoxie cures, I decided to add a butt plate to the stock. I had some stylish bits laying around and once I measured them and heated them up so they'd contour and added a d-ring and...well I may have warped on end of the plate. Let's just call it damage from trying to loosen an overheated thermocoupling.

[Bariikas Talgal]

looking good anasi! can't wait to see it come together!

[Anansi]

All right, today the apoxie is pretty much set and it was time to clean it up. No pictures of that but I decided my Westar 35s needed a little personal touch. So, meet Bev Edee (Fang) and Kyr'am Mureyca (Death Kiss):


Once that was done, it's finally time to hit everything with paint, starting with metallic: