Converting a Rubies Blaster

The build was pretty easy – thanks Sean, for posting up the pictures, and Brian, for helping me last night with a couple questions. This is what I did:

Materials needed: Rubies Clonetrooper blaster, 2 ft long piece of PVC, PVC connector for said pipe, 5′ piece of 3/4 flat rod, thick cardboard tube, metal clothes hanger, glue, spray paint.
Tools needed: Hacksaw, clippers, sandpaper, clamps, screwdriver (small)

I took the gun and cut the bottom rail off with a saw, about halfway down – completely seperate this from the main body of the gun. At the same time, I also cut off the wires on the barrel, although Brian noted that they can be snapped out somehow. I just tossed the pieces. I also removed the greebles on the side with a small screw driver.
Taking the metal rod, I cut it into four pieces – 2 15″ pieces that make up the side rails, a smaller, 13″ piece for the bottom, and the last piece, about 6″, went on the handgrip. From there, I used Goop to attach the two rails to the seperated piece, lengthening that bottom part. I used clamps to hold the pieces on, then glued on the bottom piece and clamped it down. Once that glue was well on it’s way to being set, I put on the handgrip piece.

While that glue was setting, I cut the PVC pipe down from 24 inches to 14 or so. I took a cardboard tube (the kind used to mail posters and things) and cut it in half, then stuffed the two halves down the barrel, to give the entire setup some stability. (It might be prudent to put some glue on them.) Put on the connector (essentially a PVC ring – It was a snug fit, I didn’t glue it), then glue the greebles on the pipe in the same postition as on the original barrel.
After that is set, I took a coat hanger, and cut off the corners. They’re about the same position and shape as the original wires. Taking a sharpie, I marked out where they should be postitioned on the end of the barrel (use the original for reference) and with a small dremel bit, I drilled two guide holes. Cover the ends in glue, and stick them in, and they should hold – make sure the holes are a little angled and that there’s no undo tension that will pop out the wires before the glue sets. Mine are a little delicate, so next time, I’m going to drill a little deeper.

Once the bottom rails have finished setting, I slathered the original barrel with Gorilla Glue and put the new barrel over it. There’s a stub on the guide/handgrip, and I used some goop on the top of that – that connects to the barrel, and will hold that assembly together by connecting the handgrip to the barrel. Make sure it’s on straight and let set. Gorilla Glue expands a bit, and I’ve found that this helps when in an enclosed space – I don’t think that’ll be going anywhere. Allow this to dry.
Next step, paint. I only had time to give it one or two coats, but flat black should do the trick. There’s a lot of little edges that you should keep an eye on – I missed a couple my first go around and had to repaint a couple parts.

Done!

This was a pretty easy thing to do, and around $40 all told. I really enjoyed putting this together. Knowing that there’s a bunch of clones out there in the test tube, so to speak, I’d be willing to make more of these, provided they’re okay to be approved with.

Clone Modifications

 

The night before the Woburn Parade, I worked on improving my Clone Trooper. As I’ve noted before, troops take a toll on a set of armor, and there is generally a bit of maintainence that’s required before using it again. In this case, my Clone required a bit more work, as I’ve lapsed on the fixing up parts. Over the last couple of troops, I’ve had to replace the straps at the knees and elbows, knee pads, belt boxes and shoes.

The knees were the big thing that I needed to get fixed – previously, they’ve slipped down over my shins, which looks weird. To fix this, I took some industrial velcro and simply velcroed them to the knee pads. Now, the straps in back simply hold the knee pads straight, rather than in place. It did push my shins down on my ankles a bit, which wasn’t fun, but it’s a work in progress.

The belt was the bigger improvement. Previously, I’ve had issues keeping the boxes on – they frequently fell off, so I decided to affix them on to the belt permenantly, using an expanding foam. I need to do a little cleanup and paint it at some point, but other than that, it worked wonderfully at the parade – nothing fell off!

Shoes required a little glue here and there, but other than that, they’re good to go.

Meet Trilo!

Not 501st related, but close, my Clone Trooper has been accepted into the Rebel Legion. Clones are accepted, like they are in the 501st, and I submitted mine along with the 501st a little while ago. Instead of numbers, the RL seems to assign people names.

I chose Trilo, which fits with my TKID, TK-3220 (The three in there) and my common username online, JediTrilobite. I also think that I’m the first Rebel Legion member in the state of Vermont. Interesting.

TC-3220

So, it’s finally come to pass. My clone trooper is now, officially done. Earlier today, I found that the suit is 501st approved, almost a full year in the making.

This has been a far more troublesome, difficult and rewarding project over the past 12 months. A year ago next week, I decided to purchase an armor kit, with the intent to finish up a workable Clone Trooper by the time that the movie came out. Obviously, the project has been far more time consuming than I thought, and over the build period, I’ve gained a far different appreciation for armor and the 501st.

Armor making is hard stuff. I didn’t even make the armor, I just got a rough kit. But even there, there was a lot of things that went into this. The armor needed to be trimmed. A helmet was built, then rejected and replaced. There was much gluing, then painting. Deadlines were pushed back, and I’ve shaved years off of my life, no doubt, because of the paint, glue and bondo fumes. Then the approval process, where numerous tweaks were needed, and the regular maintainence and improvements will undoubtably continue for some time.

Still, it was a worthwhile project. It kept my mind off of things when I had a rough year, and I’m ultimately very proud of the thing that I’ve put together, and I’m grateful at the praise that I’ve recieved for it at troops from other troopers, but also from the people who see me in the street with it on. The next step will most likely be converting the entire guy over to Commander Bly, but I don’t know when that will happen.

See the entire progress here.

New Clone Pics

*Dusts off Blog*

It’s been a little while since I’ve updated as I’ve been incredibly busy lately. The Clone is almost done, and I’ve got some pictures to prove it:

(Pictures offline for now, hopefully they’ll be back up soon…)

Many, many thanks to Bill Hicks at Alter Ego portraits!

Clone Updates

Did a little work on the clone last night. I need to finish up the paint job for the thighs, which I’ll do tonight once I pick up more paint.

And, I fixed my gun, which had broken. For those of you who didn’t see, I snapped the butt completely off of the main body. I’d planned to pick up a pipe or something to put inside, then glue everything together, but while looking around my apartment last night, I found a stiff poster from the Military History conference that I went to last year. Rolled up tightly, it filled in the hole entirely, and didn’t give at all. I covered that in Gorilla Glue, which expands, and put everything together. There was still a significant gap where the plastic broke, but I found that GOOP spread out over the entire area sealed it nicely. I just need to cover it up with a couple coats of paint and it’ll be troopable again.

Bly

So, I’ve been working on the Clone Trooper for a while when time permits (school and work have been plenty busy lately, and I haven’t been able to keep up with this blog as much as I’d like)

I debuted the Clone earlier this year at the Boston St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which went over really well, with a couple additional things to do to it – seamless legs, a little helmet work, etc. While I’ve been doing this, I’ve been thinking more and more that it would be cool to convert the Clone over to a Commander Bly character, based off of the Cartoon series that’s currently on. He made an appearance in episodes 13 and 14, and there are some subtle differences between Episode 2 accurate and Episode 3 accurate.

This is what I need to do:

Arms need a Stripe – Bells, upper arms, forearms and handplates, yellow, down the middle, but not the elbow.
Chest plate needs a center stripe, as does the Helmet, knee pads and shoes.
I’ll also need a pauldron, kama, holsters, pistols and mountable binoculars. Might also need to get a pair of lights for the helmet as well.

I’m really excited for this.

More Video from St. Pat’s

I’m in there quite a bit, which is funny. Good little clip from the parade!

New Clone Pictures

Last night, I did some more work on my Clone Trooper, getting a set of pictures together with my friend Seth from Seth Bebee photo. Here’s some of the really good ones:

More pictures here.

Clone Process

More repainting and other things this weekend. I’m almost done!

I went up to Walmart and bought several more cans of spray paint, and a tube of caulk and some more sandpaper.

Thighs, forearms and upper arms have been recaulked and sealed so that they look more seamless. It’s not smooth, but I’ll essentially cover it with weathering once the paint is completely dry.

The abovementioned pieces have also been repainted, along with the knees, elbows and hand pieces, which have been appropriately weathered.

So now, all that I need to get finished is the shin pieces, lower back and abs plate and the belt.

The abs / lower back pieces have also been extended by about an inch – I cut both in half and reinforced the gap with extra bits of HIPS, and I’ve attached velcro so the belt covers the gap. Looks a bit weird, but the front doesn’t have the gap any more, unless I bend backwards. The back is pretty flush with back piece, but it’ll work.