Star Wars Han Solo's Blaster DL-44

[Mike]

My pal printed this out for me on his whizz-bang super-duper 3D printer, but I'll leave his name a mystery so he doesn't get bombarded with similar requests.  This wasn't a cheap item to print, but it was worth it just to test the capabilities of the printer!  Although it was printed before Christmas, I didn't receive it until a week or two ago, and have only now gotten round to doing a little work on it today.

 

 

It's a phone pic, and the main upper receiver part was missing at this stage, due to it having to be printed separately.  you can see the resin is still damp from clean-up, but what you can't see too well is the level of detail that's been achieved with a relatively "cheap" printer.  A couple of years back this would probably have cost a quarter of a mill, but now it's a few tens of thousands.  We're a long way from being able to print a squadron of Spitfires overnight, but we're getting there.  They do need to reduce the cost of consumables though, as it's shocking how much a kilo of the stuff costs - it's almost as expensive as a gallon of inkjet printer ink!

 

The grips on the handle of what was once a Broom-Handled Mauser were first to see the sanding sticks & primer, as tonight I just don't seem to be able to focus on anything meaningful, as I'm dog-tired and more than a little bit sore.  I've been sat there staring into space with a sanding stick in hand, and a grip in the other, idly buffing at it to see how quickly the parts can be made ready for paint.  These parts are curved, so as you can imagine, with them being made of thousands of tiny flat layers, there is some texture to them and a bit of sanding and filling was/is necessary.  Comparing this print to the previous printer I've had dealings with though, the difference is chalk and cheese.  The layers are far less obtrusive, and that means a lot less clean-up to get a smooth finish.  hell, if I wasn't picky, I could just prime it with a high-build primer, slap a coat of paint on it and go "Pew, pew, pew" to my heart's content I'd like to do a bang-up job of it though, to do justice to the super job that Mister X did of the print.

 

 

I thought I'd start with the grips because there are two of them, so it'll be easy to gauge the difference that a few coats of primer have made.  As you can see, two coats of primer and some fairly idle sanding have improved it a lot, and with an extra session, plus paying a little more detail to the grooves, it should be ready for paint in no time.  These are wooden on the real thing, so a little roughness is to be expected, but I'm going to go for a sleek, worn look when I finally get around to painting them.  How I'll achieve wood grain effect though, I have no idea.  We shall see.  There are some replacement wooden grips available on eBay at the moment, which come with all the necessary bolts to hold the grips firmly to the frame, but comparing my Airsoft Mauser to this one, there are some subtle shape differences that might end up with a poorly fitting part.  They're also £20, which is a fair wedge for something that might be useless really.

 

I'll be updating this as-and-when I have time to make any progress, and I might also add the progress pics of my Son's Nerf version of this gun when it arrives, as I intend to paint it in proper colours, leaving the tip that blaze red colour, just in case.  It's not as accurate as this one in terms of look (they've had to shoe-horn the Nerf mechanism into an elongated receiver), but it might reduce his clamour for this one.  The flash-suppressor is a tad delicate IMO, and might not react well to being accidentally smacked against a door frame, swing, dog or my head

[Mike]

Forgot to mention - I'm going to need a couple of clear lenses to insert in the 'scope to give it a semblance of realism, and was wondering if anyone has any bright ideas on where to obtain some 23.4mm and 15mm clear parts, preferably domed to imply an optical lens of some sort   I'm also wondering where to get the hardware to "bolt" the handle together, and attach the 'scope to the receiver.

[Pete in Lincs]

Nice one. Mike.

Wood effect, see the recent WIP of the flapjack.

His props were beautiful.

Lenses, pound shop kids telescope/binoculars?

[Hunter Rose]

Oh cool! One thing I've done before for large curved clear bits (though it was a bit of a fiddly pain!) Is to grab some big clear spheres and use an olfa circle cutter to remove circular pieces.

 

Thinking about it i guess you could do the same with the curved plastic of a drinks bottle  (as its thinner and easier to cut) then build up strength with a bit of clear varnish?

 

Just my two penny's worth Mike, I'll be following with interest

[Richard E]

11 hours ago, Mike said:

Forgot to mention - I'm going to need a couple of clear lenses to insert in the 'scope to give it a semblance of realism, and was wondering if anyone has any bright ideas on where to obtain some 23.4mm and 15mm clear parts, preferably domed to imply an optical lens of some sort   I'm also wondering where to get the hardware to "bolt" the handle together, and attach the 'scope to the receiver.

 

If you've got some slight "wriggle room" on the sizes would these be a solution for the lenses: Cabochons and could you get some suitable nuts and bolts from your local hardware shop/ironmongers ?

[Mike]

Thanks for the tips fellas   Clear spheres... good plan.  I do actually have one lens already that came with the 1:3 scale M4 SR25 I built a few years back here.

 

 

As I put lens caps over the scope, and there were quite a lot of lens sizes spare anyway.  Will have to have a rummage, and might be able to at least find the small end.  I doubt there's one big enough for the front though, but ya never know

 

5 minutes ago, Richard E said:

If you've got some slight "wriggle room" on the sizes would these be a solution for the lenses: Cabochons

 

Very useful, thanks Richard

[Mike]

My brain has been in another dimension for the last couple of days, so when I've had any workshop time I've just sat there idly sanding away at the parts for Han's blaster, which doesn't require much in the way of processing power.  The end result of two layers of high-build primer followed by a good hard sanding has got me to the state of having a rough blaster to work with.  The majority of the rough texturing has now been beaten into submission, as has the faceting on some of the curved parts.  The designer must have underestimated the number of surfaces to give a good smooth finish, or been limited by the 3D printing technology of the day perhaps.

 

Also, I've reamed out the front and rear of the sight to accept a pair of cabochons to simulate lenses, as suggested by @Richard E.  Thanks Richard!

 

Here are a couple of shots of the parts as they look now:

 

 

 

 

The roughest parts at this stage are the clamps for the sight, as they were highly faceted, and their edges were rough as a bag of spanners.  The tops have been sanded off the vertices now, so the next coat of primer should look a lot better.  I'm planning on cutting off the Allen bolts on the top clamps and replacing them with real bolts epoxied in place, as they're just a bit "hairy" and almost impossible to clean up unless you can shrink your sanding sticks with a shrink-ray.

 

I'm quite pleased with how it's looking now, but there is a lot more to do to get it just right, and now that you can buy an Airsoft version of the thing, I'm sad.  Mainly because I don't have £270 spare to blow on one, and it needs a UKARA license to purchase one because it's considered a Realistic Imitation Firearm by our beloved government.

[Beefy]

That is looking good so far, if you don't mind I shall follow your build with interest. Good luck with the rest of the build, I'm positive it's going to turn out great. May the force be with you.

[Mike]

Absolutely don't mind - just don't nod off when I'm not working on it

 

With me, it's more like the Farce than the Force