DIY

[jcheeseright]

it's not 100% DIY as I bought all the parts... but this afternoon with a bit of help from humbrol and my airbrush I turned this:


into this:



pretty pleased with it

 

[Monty]

I'm in love with it.

 

[airsoftwarrior147]

Jeez that's beautiful

 

[jcheeseright]

Easily done with about £20 of paint and velcro, can buy nearly everything you need from halfords.

Primed it with halfords auto primer (any old black spray paint will do), airbrushed on Tamiya Black Green (XF-27 is the exact paint) - though you could just as easily brushpaint it on if you're patient, gave it a quick blast of matt varnish to seal it all and then stuck on some heavy duty velcro.

Most expensive part was the velcro at £7.20 a roll.

 

[remus]

the secret is not to buy velcro, search hook and loop etc as velcro is the original copyrighted specific company one which is more expensive.... think i read that somewhere one here....

 

[jcheeseright]

Heavy duty branded Velcro is the only stuff I've managed to find that's strong enough to last. Either that or the 3M stuff but that's even more expensive!

For the sake of another couple of quid it was worth getting the genuine article for this

 

[Cheeky vimto]

Secret would of been to message me, I might of got you some from my work for next to nothing

Just checked, we've got reels of the good stuff!

 

[jcheeseright]

Ahh well, lessons learned eh!

 

[CaptainSwoop]

You need the good stuff, it's the only stuff that sticks tight.

 

[Mr Monkey Nuts]

well today I thought I would upgrade the wiring on my AEG from the standard G&G 0.5mm wiring to a nice 14g silicone wire from component shop, it looked really good and professional, until it wouldn't fit inside the bloody gearbox!

I had better order some 16g then.

 

[Cheeky vimto]

well today I thought I would upgrade the wiring on my AEG from the standard G&G 0.5mm wiring to a nice 14g silicone wire from component shop, it looked really good and professional, until it wouldn't fit inside the bloody gearbox!

I had better order some 16g then.

I had the same problem when wiring up a mosfet. I ended up soldering 0.75mm copper cable through the gearbox.

 

[Bottledtorment]

I'm thinking about possibly making a custom hard case for my rifle but I'm a bit stuck at where to begin.

 

[Samurai]

Decide between wood / aluminum. Get the gun's measurements. Find a place to get the foam from. Find some diy projects on the net with the chosen material, and start creating it.

 

[Ian_Gere]

So I finally got round to finishing my ergonomic grip for USP project. I actually finished making the grip addition yonks ago, but it wouldn't allow me to use a SERPA. Grinding a bit off the outside SERPA flap has sorted that...

When I 1st finished it I was majorly underwhelmed. During the sculpting process I had made it completely smooth and it had turned out looking very professional, but then I decided that it would function better with a textured surface. I tried a few options for scoring it, but couldn't get anything to look right. I went with using a posidrive to make rows of cross-dimples, thinking I would be able to make them very neat... well, as you can see, that didn't actually pan out so well. Trouble is by then, if I had wanted to change it, I'd have pretty much had to start over. TBH that is what I should have done :lol: I could have used rough sand paper to squeeze into a smooth surface for textured panels, leaving the bits which this could not do neatly, the ridge details, smooth. Ho hum...

I had been considering throwing it away and making another, but looking at it now I think it is sorta cool though. Pig ugly, but cool! Functionally it is excellent. It fits my hand exactly. It puts the pad of my trigger finger exactly on the trigger, so squeezing it pulls straight back, there is no under or over reach pushing or pulling L<=>R on my aim. Because it is shaped from my hand holding it arm extended aiming, it is not possible for me to hold it in any other way - as soon as I grip it and extend my arm, the sights are lined up to my right eye so it is only the elevation I need to correct before pulling the trigger.

The method is simple: wrap the pistol grip in no more than 2 layers of clingfilm; kneed the FIMO until it is uniformly warm and pliable; pack it in rough shapes onto the film; (using washed and talcum'd hands) squeeze; remove excess and bulk up the ridges which your grip naturally forms between your bones; squeeze again and aim; rinse and repeat until you have it. Bear in mind that it is the ridges digging in to the underside of your knuckles and the bit on the opposite side which the heel of your thumb presses against which form the perfect aim, but for comfort you need to use enough bulk that the bit in between, where the centre of your palm goes, makes solid contact. I did this by extending the ridges further back than just squeezing the FIMO produces - it looks waaay better like that when it is smooth too! Also note that the top (above that decorative circle/hole/majig) forms a ridge to keep your trigger finger exactly in place.

Once you have it sussed, leave it in the fridge for a few hours to take some of the pliability out of it, slice the cling film and carefully slide the lot off the pistol grip. If you have made it as 'wraparound' as i have here, it will not come off without a little bending, which obviously runs the risk of warping the whole thing; chilled FIMO does have a small amount of springiness to it however and you just have to be careful that you have the formed shape imprinted in your minds eye so that as you proceed you notice if it does bend beyond its elastic limit and by how much. You also need to find something ceramic, stone or metal to rest it on while you bake it. I used a stainless steel grill-pan handle resting on a piece of stone from the garden; this meant that the thumb-heel part rested lightly against the baking tray, but none of the FIMO's own weight had a tendency to bend it during the initial stage of the bake.

TBH I've forgotten what temp and for how long, but I do remember being worried that my gas fan oven might not be able to work cold enough! I did open the oven door a couple of times to let some warmth out, just in case. Anyway there are loads of tutorials online. My advice is to err on the side of caution. If it doesn't quite work 1st time you can always bake it again, but if you over do it, any thinner bits near the edges will go crispy, brittle, and come off in use (that happened to a couple of ridge ends when I did one for my SVD - although TBF the design for that wasn't as robust as this anyway). Don't forget to remove the clingfilm before baking :lol:

The final attachment was done with Evo Stik, but Araldite, UHU, Bostik or any decent impact adhesive which remains flexible would do the trick - you can see in the last pic how successful I was at baking this one so it kept the intended shape, ie very: there are no gaps where those ridge ends curl around the grip, which would be the most obvious place for a fuck up to manifest, but nevertheless it did not come out of the oven as perfect as when it was sculpted on the clingfilm - there are a couple of <0.5mm gaps above that circle/hole/majig decoration and where that part squidges inside the trigger guard, so flexible glue is the way forward.

 

[AirsoftTed]

Good to see you posting again Ian mate!

 

[PT247]

good tips Ian, thanks dude

 

[straffham]

Nice work Ian, did you have any issues with the Fimo shrinking during curing?

 

[Ian_Gere]

Nice work Ian, did you have any issues with the Fimo shrinking during curing?

No mate, it didn't shrink at all. I didn't know it can do that. Maybe different brands behave differently? I used actual FIMO brand.

 

[straffham]

No mate, it didn't shrink at all. I didn't know it can do that. Maybe different brands behave differently? I used actual FIMO brand.

That's good to know thanks mate, heard that some modelling clays and such like can shrink, got a modelling project in mind so will look at using Fimo then!

 

[Ian_Gere]

I'm not sure how good it would be for load bearing structures on its own, but it's solid enough to form surfaces that can handle outdoors stylee wear and tear. Something to bear in mind if you plan to make anything where it covers a metal substructure is that metal does expand when heated, so if you bake your item with soft FIMO formed over metal, the metal will stretch the FIMO and then contract when cooled, leaving a gap. You would have to figure out a way of making your item in pieces which could be removed from the metal and baked (i suggest using the clingfilm method), then glued back together.