Props Spartan Laser Metal & Fiberglass Airsoft Prop (Fully Functioning Electronic Replica)

I've been busy getting the fiberglass parts finished. One thing that I noticed when I tried to line everything up was the overbite on the front shroud. The Pep file I used ended up with the front shroud overhanging the upper receiver by just over 1/2 inch. Not too bad looking in the open position, but I'm building this to open and close. It looked goofy closed, so I set upon it with an air saw.

I received some great news this week in the form of sponsorship to help offset the cost of the build. Echo 1 USA, thought it was cool to see me using their components and offered to help with some parts and spares to ease the cost of getting this built. This week I got barrels, chambers, and hop-ups to keep me moving forward. I've been very happy with the quality and reliability of their guns and parts, so I'm happy to subtly (and not so subtly) sprinkle their logo across my build pics. Thanks Brian!





Here you can see the extent of the overbite.





Marked for cutting. The green material is the fiberglass reinforced Bondo. I used it exclusively on the outside of the parts because it is much tougher than ordinary filler. You can see the other parts coming together in the background.




Chop, cut, rebuild. I glued the parts together with thick superglue and then fiberglassed it from the inside.




Finished! Also, a NASCAR-style subliminal nod to my sponsor!

If you carefully compare it to the game model or the pep/original piece, you'll see that a lot of edges and angles are re-profiled on this finished piece. This is because the game model is never closed. The parts don't actually mate up as rendered. This took a lot off filler and fiberglass to make right. The front grip is another problem. If you look at the game model, there is no way it can rotate closed from the depicted pivot point. That will be another day's problem.

This, and all pieces, will take more finishing at the end of the project. My push right now is to get all the major surface details right, but now dwell on edges or attachment points. These will get worked when the lower receiver is done.

My next update has the fiberglass done and me ready to move on to the metal work.

Redshirt

Congrats on getting Echo 1 behind your build! alot of the stuffy airsofters like to hate on echo 1 but there is really nothing wrong with them. As a budget consciencious player, i love their products! I just think the elitists with 1,200$ PTW's don't like it when they get tagged by someone running a 200$ Echo. Anyways nicely done on the sponsorship!

awesome you got a sponsorship! idk how much more you need to do for this to go to the elite forum! great job on the chop! it looks so freaking good! you got skills! keep it up man!!!

Tenebrus said:

Congrats on getting Echo 1 behind your build! alot of the stuffy airsofters like to hate on echo 1 but there is really nothing wrong with them. As a budget consciencious player, i love their products! I just think the elitists with 1,200$ PTW's don't like it when they get tagged by someone running a 200$ Echo. Anyways nicely done on the sponsorship!

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Darthoblivious said:

awesome you got a sponsorship! idk how much more you need to do for this to go to the elite forum! great job on the chop! it looks so freaking good! you got skills! keep it up man!!!

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Thank you both. I would be nice to just get located to 'Weapons & Props'. I've been a Tokyo Marui only guy for years and years until my local retailer put me on to Echo 1. I added an E90 to fight beside my Marui P90 and was really impressed by the better out of the box performance as well as the parts and mechanical quality. It just made sense to use the same mechbox (times three!) in this project.

In addition to shortening the front shroud, I spent a ton of time cutting the detail grooves into it. It was just an insane amount of work with a Dremel, air file, and needle files to get those damn things straight! The other fiberglass parts are coming out pretty sweet too. They aren't as hard because it is easier to build up details than cut them in accurately.

Redshirt

Looks awesome.

This thread is EPIC nice job i'll be watching this one

Fiberglass Work--DONE!

The fiberglass parts are finally finished. Sort of. I've got them all shaped to fit well together and added all of the surface details to get then ready to mate up with the lower receiver when it is finished. What I haven't finished are the bottom edges where they butt against the lower receiver or the attachment points. The final makeover will have to wait until the lower receiver and all of the mechanical bits are complete. So, in the meantime, here are the upper parts in all their glory with all the tiny details cut in.



All the edges crisp and straight! You wouldn't believe how much time I spent with the air file, Bondo, and the needle file set to get those stepped edges straight and sharp.





Here's how everything fits together.





Finally, just for a reminder of how big this is, I rounded up the sad remains of my Pepped lower receiver and fitted it up.

This was a long crawl from mid-April's posting of finished blanks being prepped for the disastrous mold making process.

The Pep patterns for the lower receiver will serve as the templates for cutting aluminum to build the lower receiver. As there are few curved or sculpted surfaces in the metal portion, I will build up the sides from layers of aluminum, welded together.


Next up, Metal Health

Redshirt

Very nice so far, such nice clean lines... now to spend $300 on a couple of AEGs

Psquiddy said:

Very nice so far, such nice clean lines... now to spend $300 on a couple of AEGs

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I have all the mechboxes on hand, so most of the big money is spent. I still need to pick up a few bits of batteries, feed mechanisms, and tracer pieces.

Redshirt

Don't believe you answered my question before, and if you did, thanks for that, but how are you planning on fueling this beast with Ammo? Are you just going to do a huge bucket or repeated hi-cap magazines lol

Dude, this build is madcore. I can't see half the photos since Firefox is playing silly buggers at the moment, but still, what I have seen is INSANE. When you finish this (notice 'when', not 'if'), it's going to be crazy! Definitely going to need some mid-game movies as to how well it works. Keep it up man, you'll nail this!

Psquiddy said:

Don't believe you answered my question before, and if you did, thanks for that, but how are you planning on fueling this beast with Ammo? Are you just going to do a huge bucket or repeated hi-cap magazines lol

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The answer is Yes--to both questions. I'll have a hopper at the rear with a fill hole accessed by removing the mid shroud. At the bottom of the hopper will be just the mechanical components of three M-4 hi-caps. They will feed into three of the McMaster-Carr-sourced springs commonly used by M-60 / M-249 owners to replace the crappy feed tubes on their box mags. These spring tubes will lock into collets at the hop up chambers. My biggest remaining engineering challenge in this arena isn't at the feed mechanism, but at the collet and hop-up. I have yet to design the collets. Two of the mech boxes are mounted upside down. As you know, the hop ups will not work upside down. I also need to retain the top feed layout. So, I will have to cut two of my chambers just ahead of the mounting points and rotate the hop ups and feeds 180 degrees. This will preserve the top feed of the E-90 layout and right the hop up, but allow the mech box to be shoehorned in upside down.

Big challenge to do that and rejoin the parts without losing strength in the parts.

Redshirt

I'm not sure how I've missed this thread until now. You've gone through a lot and overcome a lot in the past few months to produce something that looks like it will turn out to be an incredible piece! I can't wait to see how this one turns out!

Metal Health

Thanks Carpatiahv99, it's good to draw attention from the Mods for positive reasons!

This update is a huge turning point for the project as I switch gears from resins and epoxies to metal and welding.

The plan for the lower receiver is simply the weld it from aluminum. Unfortunately, I don't have a mill or lathe, so I will have to hand machine my parts. Once I've welded together the sides and welded them to the components of the spine, I'll add in mountings and the major mechanical fittings before bonding on the exterior cosmetic details.

The key phrase in the above plan was, "Hand machine." The only way to get a perfectly symmetrical receiver is to make perfectly symmetrical parts, no easy feat without a mill. My method is to bond two sheets of metal with hot melt glue and cut the parts in pairs on the band saw. The pairs remain bonded as they get machined with the table sander, air sander, air file and router table.

That's right, I said router table. Using a router table to machine metal is risky. You need to wear welding gloves, heavy clothing, eye/face protection, and hearing protection. Even so, there is still risk. A mill turns at hundreds of RPM, a router turns at thousands. If the bit grabs the metal hard, it will try to slice the metal through your hands before throwing it at your face, stomach, or the nice car on the other side of the garage. This technique is not for the inexperienced. For this reason, I really don't want to get into the how-to here in the forums. PM me if you have metalworking experience and want to discuss it.

In short, this takes the building technique of 'slicing' a 3D model and runs with it. My parts are based on Nugget's Pep file and uses Martyn Lee Ball/Hunter's 3D model as detailing reference.





A look at the pieces forming the front of the lower receiver after cutting on the band saw and squaring with the table sander.





All the pieces laid out together to check fit, and because they look so cool in shiny metal. Each of these pieces is actually two pieces bonded together for identical machining.





Here's a step cut made using the router table






Another view of all the parts. Note the bevel on the rear of the receiver. The router makes a fairly rough initial cut. I'll need to dress it with the sander before welding.





Here are several router cuts, including the cut out for the grip. The bevel along the rear of the main piece as well as the step cut on the bottom are router work as well.





This is a staged photo! I don't make router cuts without heavy welding gloves and all the other safety gear. This show how I made the cut out for the grip.





Here's the setup for cutting the bevel in the grip cut out.



Well, there it is, the start of the metal work. Should be awesome when it comes together.


Redshirt

Metal Details

I was surprised the shift to the metal work didn't generate a flurry of, "You'll shoot your eye out responses." Anyway, the devil IS in the details, so here are first round of metal detail parts in the making.



OK, starting with the worst image first. These are paired-up pieces about to undergo a second round of filing sanding and routing. You can see on the detail parts for the zombie killer (what I call the melee handle that sticks out of the front of the Splaser) that I haven't finished the router cuts to hollow it out. The cutouts in the other pieces are fully roughed out.





Here are the other detail parts about to be heated and bonded so they can be machined as a unit for symmetry.





The zombie killer! All machined. I was particularly happy with the cutout results on the router. You can see that I still retain at least five fingers!





Zombie killer and fore grip. If you compare the fore grip to the game model you can see the design mods I needed to make it functional.

Once the detail parts are all machined, I'll lay them out with the fiberglass parts to get a taste of what the final configuration will be.

Redshirt

Man this is just to awesome

You have put an insane amount of work into this and it is definitely paying off. Tremendous job so far!

this build is just beast, i hope you don't run in to much trouble anymore

vshore100 said:

You have put an insane amount of work into this and it is definitely paying off. Tremendous job so far!

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Thanks Vshore, MSTRUVMGC and Spartanx360. I think this project is turning a corner toward the home stretch.

Redshirt

Metal Details Finished

Not really actual progress here, just me playing with the completed detail pieces for inspiration. Here is everything laid out to see how it will go together. After this, the detail pieces will go into storage until the very end of the project as they will be bonded with adhesive that won't withstand the heat of welding.












This just represents one side of the metal receiver stacked up to see how it will look and mate up to the fiberglass upper receiver. Next I will weld together the individual sides as I begin the assembly of the receiver.

Redshirt