Ho'kay! It's been a bit since I've updated but there's been a lot going on. Since I last worked on this blaster, winter hit like an angry wampa, and then the Marev family found a new homestead. Now that that's all settled and the workshop is pretty much in working order, it was time to get back to work.
Where to start...well, the previous hinge set up was pretty flimsy, relying on the body of the blaster to handle the stress of opening and closing when needed. That eventually failed so I went through several alternatives until I fell back on my old friend apoxie sculpt and a few spare parts from a broken cappuccino maker. with those set into the stock and using a Chicago screw, I now have a much sturdier hinge.
Next, I needed to get rid of the two telltale indicators that that stock belonged to a Slingfire: the faux wrap and the notch. Of course, Nerf in their infinite wisdom glued that "wrap" in place but a dremel and a screwdriver made short, messy work of that. Again, because I don't like the fumes off of bondo, I relied on apoxie sculpt. 24 hours and that stock feels a lot stronger. The other great thing is that even with 80 grit, the surface is fairly smooth. I hit the whole thing with primer to spot the areas that need work. There are a lot of them.
After cutting away a significant portion of the body, remember that I was left with a large dead area at the bottom of the main body. To fix this, I cut a piece of 6mm sintra to size, glued and clamped it into place. Then I measured that and cut a section of a large shop vac extension to fit. To make it more snug, I added to rails of 6mm and slid the new handguard in place and glued it in place with e6000.
The last thing I did was set a retaining screw to hold the barrel in place. Now if I need to transport the blaster, I can break it down into three pieces for easier transport. (It's not stripped, it's dirty)
So, there's a lot more sanding to do and a lot more pieces to add but it's starting to field a lot more cohesive. Stay tuned!
