Props Mendez's 3D Printed Halo Guns!

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CPO mendez

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Heyo 405th! so, i have a thread over in the 3D modeling section where i'm basically just systematically going through and bringing every single gun from every single halo game into the 3D printing realm! now, obviously, i'm gonna make some of em! i've actually been working on and off for a WHILE, but only just starting to get somewhere with em! now, i started with the halo 4 carbine on my personal printer, but thanks to my job as the sole technician in my university's fabrication lab, i have 24/7 access to a bank of 3 printers (two printrbots and an ultimaker2) that very rarely get used. so, after asking a bajillion times to make sure it was alright for me to basically 3D print a GUN, i started printing the halo 5 customizable AR over there!

So, let's start with the Carbine!
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So this is where it's at now, looking ENORMOUS, as most of the halo guns are.
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I attempted a long print over the weekend to knock out a huge portion of the pieces, but it ended up failing in the weirdest way. i'm used to a big spaghetti ball, but this was a semi-successful print that just came out... fuzzy. certainly weird. also a good lesson in not doing 80 hour prints and leaving it unattended!
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That's it for the initial post, next up is the AR!
 
Alright! next up: the Halo 5 AR, one that i'm REAL excited about! now, this one was done entirely in the fab lab at my Uni, since i ran out of filament for my home printer and couldn't get some for a while (which is why the carbine is so far behind)

So, let's get to it:
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Just when everything was going great, i got a bad case of butter fingers and dropped the assembled front half! smashed the barrel real bad and knocked the flashlight out of its hole. flashlight could be fixed, barrel needed to be replaced:
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It's coming along swimmingly!
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Aaaand that's the image limit. should be two more posts to cover all my progress. stay tuned!
 
ASSAULT RIFLE PART 2!

time for more pics! so, at this point most of the body was finished. however, i didn't take into account how much smaller the build plate is, so the hand guard and receiver block were both too big and had to be fixed.
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So, in the mean time, i printed some of the extra bits! started with the rail cover and recon sight

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Next problem was: how the hell do i get the sight onto the rail? this is a pretty standard piccitany rail, and the sight has a standard shoe. what it DOESN'T have, is a shoe that can be adjusted in width so it can actually fit into the rail!

so, my solution was to basically make it into a sort of puzzle piece attachment. i snipped off two of the rail pegs, and then filed down the rail shoe on the sight until it was juuust small enough to fit into the gap, then i was able to push it back so it locked in place, and the rest of the sight covered the gap in the rail.
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Now, back to the printing. the next thing to do was the mag well:
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With that done, the final pieces were the (fixed) handle and receiver block!
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that's it for the image limit! next up: FINISHING THE ASSEMBLY!
 

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Looks great so far! Are you giving it the standard paintjob or do you consider remaking one of the many multiplayer skins?
How much does it weigh?
 
Oh man this is fantastic. How much filament do you go through for a full prop like this?
 
Thanks again for the files you provided i`ll try to clean some of them up and modify them. I´m personally interested in making a plasma pistol with some of the internal parts seen in the idle animations....
 
Looks great so far! Are you giving it the standard paintjob or do you consider remaking one of the many multiplayer skins?
How much does it weigh?

It's getting the standard paintjob, but i'm definitely at least going to look into doing a wrap of some of the goofier skins (Last Slice is top of the list, baby!)

Oh man this is fantastic. How much filament do you go through for a full prop like this?

God, i don't even wanna think about that... i'd put it at around... 3 full 1kg reels, maybe? it was split between the ultimaker and the printrbot, which both use different filament thicknesses (which changes how far a reel will go) and i was bouncing between several different reels, so i don't have an exact number.

Thanks again for the files you provided i`ll try to clean some of them up and modify them. I´m personally interested in making a plasma pistol with some of the internal parts seen in the idle animations....

No problem man! good luck with the detailed plasma pistol.
 
Alright, time for the finished assembly! however, i've run into another problem. the mag well (hole that the magazine goes into) is only half the depth that it needs to be. this was because of the automated STL fixer that i use (windows azure, for those curious) just did away with the mag well on the top half of the cut up model. and, since its automated, i had NO say in how it fixed the model. I've since learned how to fix it with the rest of the UNSC guns, but since this AR was the first time i ran into the problem, i decided to deal with the problem after printing. Thankfully, its a fairly straightforward fix. all i gotta do is trace the shape from the bottom half of the mag well and carve it out!

I used a hand drill to start drilling out the perimeter, then started pulling out chunks with a pair of hand pliers:
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Finally, with the mag well done, i could fully assemble the rifle!
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First-person glamor shot!
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sliding the mag in:
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Now, with the assembly done, it was time to sand! now, the problem with all these different filament colors is that it becomes really hard to see where i've sanded and spots that i've missed. so, to start, i hit it with a thin layer of normal primer that'll make it easier to see what needs to be smoothed down, then after that i'll bondo the seams and other little holes/mistakes, sand some more, then a layer of automobile filler primer should have it ready for the actual paintjob.
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First round of sanding:
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Then i made the wonderful discovery that primer clogs the HELL out of my sanding pads! so i burned through the last few that i had in a matter of minutes. i'll be buying more this week and taking another crack at the sanding this weekend hopefully. stay tuned!
 

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I return with more updates! some great, some not so much...

So! we last left off with the first layer of primer that would let me see where i needed to sand down to get rid of all the print lines, but i blew through the last of my sanding pads before really getting anywhere. So! after a quick shopping spree, i stocked up on sanding pads, and also got automobile filler primer (to take care of any visible print lines that my sander couldn't get to, as well as just smoothing everything out) and all the colors i would need!
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Also, the recon scope i printed as a single piece on the printrbot didn't really come out all that good, so since it was small enough i cut it up and printed it again on the ultimaker at ultra-high quality!
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And attached it the same way i did the previous one:
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Alright! now back to the main event! with a buttload of sanding pads, i went to TOWN on the assault rifle!
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With everything as sanded as it was gonna get, i got the bondo ready, since there were QUITE a few gaps, seams, and other mistakes made by the printers:
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First pass of bondo:
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The barrel replacement, which had to be sanded down to fit the flash suppressor, and the newly printed Recon scope also needed some work:
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Then the flash suppressor chomped down on the replacement barrel and wouldn't let go. probably gonna need to reprint...
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Then we had ANOTHER little oopsie with some detail filing and an area where the shell was a little thinner than expected...
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But after those little hiccups, the first round of bondo was done!
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That's it for the image limit, END PART 1
 
BEGIN PART 2!

I was a bit in the zone and forgot to document the second round of bondo. once everything was sanded down and looking pretty, it was time for a layer of filler primer! after that, another layer of dark primer (this was to keep the final paintjob darker, since the shade of primer you use tends to REALLY influence the shade of the paint that goes over it) and finally the paintjob itself. not to spoil anything, but this is where things went south in a BAD way.

those with weak stomachs or faint of heart should turn away now...

Anyway! time for the first layer of filler primer!
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the light gray REALLY makes the details pop on camera!
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The sanding pad graveyard was starting to build in size...
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After tons of sanding, both with the mouse sander AND by hand, next was the final layer of primer!
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With the priming done, it was time to lay down the full paintjob! after looking at some reference pictures, it came down to three main colors:
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The dark, blue-ish brushed steel of the main body (it was actually made up of 5 or 6 different shades, but i'm not THAT much of a stickler for detail, so one color would be enough), the olive drab green of the stock, front grip, and bottom of the magazine, and finally the lighter gray of the barrel hood. (with the white stripe as detail)

So, i went for the main body color first!
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and this is the beginning of the disaster... i had Rustoleum "Dark steel" color, which, i was told by the clerk helping me at the hardware store, would come out smooth and dark, came out a nice sparkly chrome!
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The other thing that i wasn't told (and stupidly didn't see, since i was busy trying to figure our proper colors for this project) was their line of "furniture paint", which goes on REALLY thick, takes a few DAYS to fully cure (despite feeling dry after a few hours), and does not come off easily.

LET THIS BE A LESSON TO EVERYBODY: ALWAYS HAVE SOMETHING ON HAND TO USE AS A TEST PIECE FOR PAINT YOU HAVE NOT USED BEFORE!

Now to start on damage control. after waiting a few hours, i tried to start sanding it off so i could re-apply primer and start over. remember when i said that, even though you can tough it and handle it after a few hours, it takes a few DAYS to fully cure? yeah, when i went at it with the sanding pad, the paint turned into half dried, sticky GUNK that the sander then deposited all over the rifle as i sanded!

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This is what the sanding pad looked like when i finally realized what was going on:
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So now not only was the thick paint not coming off, it was actually gunking up even MORE details as i tried to take it off! so it was personal now...

I grabbed an old, worn out file and started manually PEELING the gunked paint off in big curls:
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after a few hours of switching between peeling and sanding (where i felt safe doing so) i reapplied the black primer:
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It came out... less than okay. many areas had started to "crackle" because the primer had been laid on still-curing silver paint. but after several rounds of sanding and re-applying primer, it was looking "not-terrible"
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So at this point, i pretty much just said "screw it". i had some rub-n-buff, which i could scrub onto the black primer to bring out the details in silver, and even though its a total cop-out in terms of personal quality standards, it would allow me to at least finish the rest of the paintjob and not have it look half bad while i try to figure out a way to not only fix the mess i'd gotten myself into, but also find the proper color. END PART 2
 

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Okay, so after spending an entire afternoon re-learning a very important lesson about testing paint colors before use, i soldiered on with the (semi-temporary) paintjob. like i said in the previous post, i had rub-n-buff as my "cop out" so i could finish painting the rifle.

For those of you who don't know, rub-n-buff is a waxy paint (in silver, gold, and other metallic colors) that you rub onto a rag, and then scrub onto a piece. The effect is similar to drybrushing, but is much more consistent and easier to use (especially over large surfaces). The result is a burnished, weathered metal look. It's a FANTASTIC way to quickly, easily, and very convincingly weather props and armor, and honestly looks fantastic no matter what (you'd have to try REALLY hard to mess up while using it). However, it highlights EVERYTHING. which means it'll make sharp lines and subtle textures super visible, but it will also make mistakes very visible as well.

This was the final pass of primer on the rifle body. for the most part it was back to normal, however the rear, around the magazine, was where i wasn't able to fix it very well:
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It was especially frustrating because i had been working on a couple fallout 3 props a couple months ago, and spent DAYS trying to get a grimy, flaky paint texture. A texture that i had now emulated perfectly on the assault rifle that DOESN'T HAVE THAT AESTHETIC!

...anyway, time for the rub-n-buff:
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Like i said, it makes things look GREAT on camera! However, holding it in person and being able to really look at the close-up details really shows the mistakes.
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Anyway! onto the other areas! next up was the olive drab green parts.
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It certainly brought back some much-needed encouragement to see the green come out identical to the in-game model!

Finally, the gray barrel hood!
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Aaaand the image limit. END PART 3
 
Part 4!

Time for the last main part of painting!
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This is a good lesson in how a paintjob can make or break a project. the main body was a pretty obvious "break" however, i'm SUPER happy with the rest of the paintjob, which "make" the prop!

Anyway, back to the detailing! the gray barrel hood looked a bit too flat once it was dry. so, i grabbed a file and weathered the HELL out of the edges and corners, along with random scuffs and scrapes. it looked great! (all things considered..)
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As a final touch, i taped off the white stripe:
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And that's that! at least for now.. However! i already have a game plan on what to do to fix the paint!

As soon as i got into class yesterday, i started asking a few professors about my problem (i go to an art school, so most professors have decades of expertise in tons of fields) and got an answer! i didn't think it was something that was done commercially, but apparently there are places that will mix a custom color into an aerosol spraypaint can for you! and the place that i was pointed to apparently sells them for ~$20 a can! so i'll be looking into that next. now, as for getting the paint off. since the other parts of the paintjob came out way better than expected, i'll be taping them up and doing a VERY careful acetone paint stripping. the reason this needs to be delicate is because, well, acetone MELTS PLA! so if i'm not careful, the entire prop will literally just start melting into a goopy mess of plastic. i talked with my manager in the Fab lab (whose a total guru when it comes to any sort of 3D printing) and he recommended watered down acetone instead of the full blown thing. so, i'm going to give nail polish remover a try. on top of all this, just last night the extruder on my home printer jammed for the third (and final) time in a week. i'll be taking apart the entire tool head and seeing if i can unclog the extruder, but if not it may mean ordering an entire new one, which will delay the carbine by a few weeks. so, expect SOME sort of update in the coming weeks!
 
would you mind making a list of all the pretty paints you used? :D
I have a printed AR (of my design) which needs to be painted, could you make a list of the paint colors, brands, and where you got them? Assuming you live in the US anyway.

And....Acetone doesn't melt PLA, Nor is it that destructive on ABS...
 
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the olive green does match quite well indeed. cool prop. Looks like it`s ready for action!
yepp, acetone is nasty......
 
would you mind making a list of all the pretty paints you used? :D
I have a printed AR (of my design) which needs to be painted, could you make a list of the paint colors, brands, and where you got them? Assuming you live in the US anyway.

And....Acetone doesn't melt PLA, Nor is it that destructive on ABS...

the paints are sitting on my workbench at home, and i'm in my dorm, so i'll take pictures and do a post this weekend when i get back. and as for the acetone thing, that's what i thought too! but my manager knows his stuff, and he cautioned me against it pretty hard, so i'll be trying it out on a test piece to see how it reacts before cleaning the rifle itself.
 
that is super cool! i really want to make a needler 1 day but i want from halo 4. the crystals actually look like crystals and needles.
 
Alright, time for some good news! i started the stripping process, making sure to be VERY cautious, with a test piece on hand to make sure that whatever stripper i use won't melt the PLA underneath the paint. I haven't been able to go home and get access to my workbench thanks to finals, so i've ventured down into my dorm's basement studio space, so prepare for a lot of pictures that look like they're in a serial killer's underground butcher shop! Anyway, While the stripping was going on, i started reprinting the small detail pieces that got destroyed by the sanding process, along with the barrel replacement replacement:

(BTW, thanks to my job in the fabrication lab, i get to use the Ultimaker 2. lemme tell you guys, that $2500 price tag is well worth it. yu get what you pay for and more)
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Testing out the flash suppressor with the new barrel
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Dry run to see how it fit
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Alright, now to prepare for stripping. i took some REAL ugly close up shots:
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I pilfered the flammables cabinet to look for any leftovers, and found some paint thinner (which is weaker and less "dissolve everything it touches" compared to acetone) and gave it a try!
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Checking it on the test piece, it takes a LOT of elbow grease but the paint does come off (slowly)
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This was after about 20 minutes of scrubbing. obviously not enough oomph
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So, i grabbed some acetone on my way home:
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Que FOUR HOURS of careful scrubbing:
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grabbed some primer, and laid down the first coat of fresh paint!
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After that, a little sanding
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Alright, that's the image limit, END PART 1
 

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Alrighty! so it's time to paint! i went into the scummiest, dirtiest industrial district of Oakland to go to a custom powdercoat paint shop to get a can of custom touch-up paint! now, normal powdercoating would have destroyed my piece just in the preparation process alone (for reference, powdercoating is the type of paint that goes on car exteriors. real thick stuff) HOWEVER they do custom-mixed cans of spraypaint to touch up a powdercoat paintjob that might have gotten scratched. either way, this meant that i could custom order a full can of spraypaint! i picked from a catalogue so i could get it there, and i'll try to track down the color for those of you asking for the colors i used.

Anyway, TIME TO PAINT!
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I made sure to go slow and use thin coats, just in case (even though i already did a test piece) the previous disaster has left me SUPER paranoid!
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It looks so. damn. good!

Time to pull off the tape!
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you have no idea how good it feels to see this with a good paintjob!
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Not done yet though! next up was a few dials and little detail bits that were black

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Finally, the barrel!
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And one more, exhausted glamor shot!
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That's it for this update. there's still work to do to get it perfect though! one of the things i need is the ammo counter screen. if any of the 3D modelers happen to have it laying around in a texture folder, I NEED IT!
stay tuned!
 

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Alright! time to finish of this Assault rifle paintjob!

First of all, for mblackwell and everyone else that was asking for a paint list, here ya go!
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However, i really don't want to reccomend the custom color i ended up getting, even though its a great color. as it turns out, it's a lead based paint. and not only that, but it was rubbing off VERY easily! i don't know about you guys, but i don't really want legionnaires disease! my fix was to do a couple layers of clear satin protective enamel.

Anyway! onto the detailing! first up, i cranked up the detail on the ultimaker to print the little bits that had to be removed thanks to sanding:
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And time for paint:
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while that was drying, i taped up the rifle to touch up parts that had been sanded down too much, and were showing filament. some of this was from detailing, while other parts (like the handle around the trigger) was simply rubbing off, like i mentioned earlier (which is NOT GOOD when its lead-based paint!)
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After that, the tape came off and the final details got glued in:
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Finally, the stripe is the last thing to be painted:
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Start of the weathering, while its half-dried, so it comes off a little more clean:
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After that, since i'm so anal about detail, i went in with an airbrush to make the scratches and stuff more visible:
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...and turned myself into a leopard in the process...
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That's it! all painting is done! the only thing left is the protective varnish!
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PART 2!

i keep saying its done and adding more details, don't I? well, either way, before the protective coat went on, i did some light detailing with the rub-n-buff:
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And JUST before i took it out to seal i remembered the little green details on the back!
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Finally, the last step:
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IT'S DONE! so, i took it to my college to use their cameras/light tables to take some (semi) professional glamor shots!
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Next up: a big update on the carbine, and my 3D printing woes! stay tuned.
 
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