The creation of the E-11 blaster rifle
Page 03
Page 03
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The tools actually worked too, and the screws were also inserted to show you that the tools did work, and they did, really.
The holes for the 3 and 6 millimeter thick screws were drilled into the bottom of the scope.
And there you have the holes, all six of them, two large and four small ones that were made with the machine you saw in the photo above.
Just scroll up if you don't believe me.
Just scroll up if you don't believe me.
The mounting brackets were screwed into place and adjusted to the proper height.
Some fiberglass bondo was applied between the scope and the mounting brackets to make it all stronger.
After sanding the fiberglass bondo smooth, I applied regular bondo over it to fill in all the holes and cracks that were on it, but unfortunately the only bondo I had left was somewhat old and didn't tack too well to the surface, so I couldn't do any more work with it until I got some new bondo.
Using a cutting disc on a Dremel tool, I cut away the heads of the four screws that were used to attach the mounting brackets to the scope.
After that was done, I had to wait until I got some new bondo to smooth out the mounting brackets.
The awesome Converse All Star shoe box that I had all my E-11 parts in can also be seen in the background.
The awesome Converse All Star shoe box that I had all my E-11 parts in can also be seen in the background.
And then there was bondo, 1.5 kilograms of the stinky gunk to use on anything and more.
The gas-mask you see to the right might make you look weird when wearing it, but if you don't wear one when working with bondo for a long time, you will become weird, just like me :D
The gas-mask you see to the right might make you look weird when wearing it, but if you don't wear one when working with bondo for a long time, you will become weird, just like me :D
Magic goop known as bondo was applied to the mounting brackets and the back of the scope.
The bondoed areas were sanded nice and smooth.
Some more bondo was applied around the front edge of the scope and also in the grooves that were on the front lens tube.
The small wiener part that is located on the middle of the scope was also made out of bondo.
The small wiener part that is located on the middle of the scope was also made out of bondo.
Some sanding later, and the scope looked like this.
The final thing that had to be done to this scope was to add some real lenses and a cool reticle that I got printed out.
To avoid the scope mounting bolt hitting the reticle once screwed into place, the reticle was glued onto a metal disc with another part underneath it that has a slot where the scope mounting bolt will slide into.
After gluing the reticle onto the metal disc, I glued it to the inside of the scope and painted the inside black.
The black paint you see covering the edges of the reticle won't be visible once the lens is in place.
The black paint you see covering the edges of the reticle won't be visible once the lens is in place.
I told you so.
The white gunk you see around the lens is bondo that was applied to fill in the opening around the lens.
The white gunk you see around the lens is bondo that was applied to fill in the opening around the lens.
For the inside of the front lens, I just used a small washer that I covered the hole of with a circle of paper and painted the whole inside black.
The original scope had two more screws in between the three screws you can see in front of the scope, but these were further back inside the scope, but as I've seen some other scopes that had only two imprints there, I made the two imprints instead.
Here is a composite photo of the finished scope, apart from painted, that is.
Finally I required a metal tube for the gun body after a while of dumpster diving, and damn what a long tube it was.
After having used the templates for the gun body to see where I should cut the tube, I then probably cut the tube using a hack-saw.
The gun body of the blaster was a lot longer than what I thought it was going to be, but longer is probably better, at least bigger is.
After finishing the holes, I used a cutting wheel on a Dremel tool to cut away the rest of the excess metal.
Do I appear to do everything on top of my own pants?
Do I appear to do everything on top of my own pants?
Here the gun body templates for all the holes and openings are being glued on.
Here you can see the gun body of the blaster in all it's glory of 18-3/8"
Before drilling the pilot holes where ever they are required, I made a mark at the center of each template hole drawing by hammering a small rod of sorts into the metal of the gun body.
The pilot holes were made with a small drill bit.
After the pilot holes were done, a larger drill bit was used to make the holes even bigger, along with making some holes for the ejection port as well.
To make the holes even bigger, I had to use a power-drill because the drill bit that I had to use next didn't fit inside the other drilling machine.
Having drilled through all the holes yet again to make them bigger, I now didn't have any other drill bits to make the holes even bigger than that again, so I had to grind the holes bigger instead.
The paper was removed from the inside of each template hole so that I could better see where I was grinding, otherwise the paper would have folded back over the hole lines, making it impossible to see where one is grinding.
The paper was removed from the inside of each template hole so that I could better see where I was grinding, otherwise the paper would have folded back over the hole lines, making it impossible to see where one is grinding.
To remove the paper from inside the template hole circles, I had to cut them all out with a small sharp blade.
That was one of the most boring things I have ever had to do.
That was one of the most boring things I have ever had to do.
Now the grinding could begin.
Work like this causes a lot of bad words to arrive.
Work like this causes a lot of bad words to arrive.
Three years later, and the holes were finally finished.
Even though most of these holes will be covered by T-tracks later, the cool look of a shiny metal tube full of holes is totally worth it, also I believe since there are some rows that will not be covered by T-tracks, you will actually see if there are holes or not on the inside of the gun body.
Nevertheless, I like them a lot.
Even though most of these holes will be covered by T-tracks later, the cool look of a shiny metal tube full of holes is totally worth it, also I believe since there are some rows that will not be covered by T-tracks, you will actually see if there are holes or not on the inside of the gun body.
Nevertheless, I like them a lot.
After the front template was removed, all the paint at the front of the gun body was sanded off, and it looked really cool.
Using a cone shaped grinding bit, I rounded off all the holes of the gun body without making them any bigger.
All the paper was cut away from the inside of the template lines to prevent that paper curling effect as mentioned earlier in this tutorial.
Using the cone shaped grinding bit again, I made a bigger hole inside of the ejection port template.
Most of the excess metal was removed, but it still needed some more grinding to get the shape right.
Pilot holes were drilled where ever they were needed on the back part of the gun body.
On the top of the gun body templates, a hole was marked for the mounting of the grip, but since I know that the grip is meant to be underneath the gun body, I drew a circle under it and drilled a 6 millimeter wide hole that I later put a bolt through to screw the handle onto the gun body.
The top hole was also made to let through the bold to the bottom hole for when the grip was screwed on.
The top hole was also made to let through the bold to the bottom hole for when the grip was screwed on.
When the holes got big enough, I used the cone shaped grinding bit to grind the holes bigger to the right size.
After finishing all the holes, I started cutting away all the excess metal from the inside of the cocking-handle track with a cutting wheel on a Dremel tool.
30 broken cutting wheels later, and all the excess metal from inside of the cocking-handle track had been removed.
In this photo, you can see that I used a cutting wheel to cut two slots for where the clip housing was to be mounted.
After all the holes had been drilled, all openings had been grinded open, slots had been cut, and the template had been taken off, you might say that the gun body was finished.
After the entire gun body was sanded, it looked awesome.
Too bad it's supposed to be painted black and that most of the holes will be covered by T-tracks, but it still looks awesome then as well.
Too bad it's supposed to be painted black and that most of the holes will be covered by T-tracks, but it still looks awesome then as well.
As I wrote earlier, I wanted to finish the clip housing after I got it on the gun body as finishing it before that might result in it not fitting at all or looking wrong or, so after getting it on there, I cut off all the metal plates that were on the inside of the clip housing's opening and replaced them with thinner metal sheets that covers more of the cracks than the old ones did.
Some bondo was applied around the edges of the clip housing and on some of the thin metal sheets that was added to the inside of the opening.
These were later completely covered in bondo as well to keep it all flush and tidy.
These were later completely covered in bondo as well to keep it all flush and tidy.
I decided not to add any more bondo onto the clip housing until I got all the holes for the parts drilled and the triangle part for the back of the clip housing in place.
Instead of having four photos showing the clip housing from every angle, here's a convenient composite photo.
Instead of having four photos showing the clip housing from every angle, here's a convenient composite photo.
