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[Piece of Threes]

Hey guys, first post.

Anyway, straight into it. A while back I overhauled my Supermaxx 1500 (new style) as per the various mod guides here, and was enjoying it.
One of the problems I found with it was that instead of the rubber washer recommended for the turret seal, I'd used craft foam (it was the only suitable material I had), and it wasn't sealing very well. Besides that, I'd used hot glue to fill in the space in the back of the turret, and for whatever reason, the hot glue was extremely rough when sanded making for a pretty bad seal. I'd definitely recommend epoxy putty for filling in the back since it's a lot harder and easier to sand smoothly, but I didn't have any so yeah.
Additionally, as a number you you will know, the piece that holds the spring for the rotation mech cannot be removed too much, otherwise it loses grip and will not stay on the turret rod, meaning the turret rotation mech is pretty much totally ruined.
In case that description isn't sufficient, here is a fantastically beautiful drawing totally not done in MS paint indicating the piece to which I am referring to.

For the rest of the post I'll be referring to it as the 'spring rest' because I don't know what else to call it.

So this writeup will cover two things.
Firstly, a way to make the back of the turret much, much smoother (and thus hopefully help in sealing the turret properly).
Secondly, ways of fixing/replacing the spring rest in the turret rotation mech.

NOTE: If your modded SM1500 is sealing and rotating well, these mods do not have to be performed. As stated in the topic name, these are fixes rather than outright improvements. Additionally, if your SM1500 is not rear loading you do not have to perform the first mod.

Smoothening the back of the turret
This one is pretty simple, and doesn't take very long to complete.
Additionally, this can help the turret seal if you've sanded off too much from the turret and it isn't touching whatever you used for the seal.
What the epoxy does is act as the surface on which the sealing material makes contact with. When cured on a flat surface, the epoxy will be almost perfectly flat, which makes it fantastic for sealing against things like rubber washers and what not.

Materials required:

• Epoxy (of any strength)
• Flat piece of plastic (or other flat object, but must be extremely smooth) - around 7cmx7cm square

Tools required:

• Hobby knife or other suitable blade
• Pipe cutter with reaming edge
• Dremel (optional)

1) Ensure that the back of the turret is flat. If necessary, sand it lightly so the epoxy will adhere well to it.
2) Apply epoxy to the back of the turret, all over the back surface. It is crucial that there is a full ring of epoxy around each barrel, so if you're low on epoxy then just put epoxy around the barrels.

Another fantastically beautiful drawing totally not done in MS Paint.
Red is where you MUST have epoxy, as those are the barrels. Green striping indicates where you can put epoxy if desired. I did it as I believe it will make the turret rotate smoother than if you just had epoxy on the red circles.
Blue crosses indicate where you don't want epoxy. Obviously the four outer crosses are the barrels, and the middle cross is the rotation mech gear. Of course you can let a little epoxy get in those areas, so long as you clean them out afterwards.
3) Place the flat piece of plastic down onto the epoxy. Push hard, and make sure that all epoxy is covered by the plastic. You can see the plastic sheet I used in the above picture.
4) Wait for the epoxy to cure.

Now once the epoxy had cured properly, my original intention was to use the plastic itself as the sealing surface. Naturally, because it was so smooth the epoxy did not adhere well to the plastic. When I went to cut the sheet into the correct shape, it can clean off the epoxy. At first I was kicking myself, but then when I looked at the epoxy I noted that it was extremely smooth, and decided just to use that as the sealing surface.

5) Remove the plastic sheet. If it's smooth, it should come clean off because the epoxy can't adhere properly to it. Having the plastic sheet come clean off is key, because that is what preserves the epoxy's smooth surface.
6) Use your blade and pipe cutter reaming blade to open up the barrels cleanly for rear loading. This is pretty simple, just make sure that the holes in the epoxy are the same size as the barrel material you used. Also, if necessary clean out the middle rotation gear piece to allow smooth rotating.

7) (optional) As you can see from the above picture, some of the epoxy leaked to the side of the turret. These have no effect on the seal, but if you want you can cut and sand them down with a dremel to make it cleaner and better looking.

And you're finished!
Before:

After:

This should be the end result, a back surface which is smooth and clean.

The back surface should be almost perfectly flat.

And one more pic to show how shiny and flat the rear surface is.

If there's gaps in the epoxy, it's a simple matter of putting epoxy in those gaps, placing the plastic sheet back on it, pushing hard to evenly distribute the epoxy, rinse and repeat.

Compared to what it was before, my SM1500 is sealing much better, considering that before this mod the back of the turret wasn't very flat.


Rotation Mech Spring Rest Fix/Replacement
There are a number of methods for this, and pretty much all of they require a bit of trial and error.
This mod is only needed when the rotation mech spring rest becomes stripped and cannot hold itself onto the turret rod.

Method 1:


Materials:

• Suitable pipe/tube material (I used Aussie 16mm UPVC, has OD slightly larger than that of the spring rest inner tube)

Tools:

• Everything you'd expect to manipulate tubing, e.g. saw, sandpaper, hobby knife

In this method you'll be propping up the spring rest using the pipe/tube material. The pipe/tube should be a few millimetres shorter than the spring rest. Like so:

The pipe/tube material is rested against the protrusion which normally holds the spring rest in place. Because of the strength of the spring, this method tends to bend that protrusion outwards.
Additionally, this method is ridiculously difficult to put together because of how strong the spring is. You have to hold the upgraded spring rest against the turret base right up until it is in place in the shell, then hold it closed right up until you close the shell on it. I tried using this method but wasn't strong enough to reassemble it. If you are strong enough, then by all means use this method and enjoy your fixed up SM1500.


Method 2:
Materials and Tools:

• Same as Method 1

In this method you flip around the spring rest like so:

And using the tube/pipe piece from Method 1, you pre-compress the spring like so:

Though similar, this is not quite identical to Method 1. This potentially works because while one end of the spring rest may have been stripped from being removed too much, the other side may be (not guaranteed) unstripped enough to be used.
If this works, then good for you! My spring rest was too stripped to work with this, and as with Method 1 was far too difficult to reassemble.


Method 3:
This is probably the method that would come more easily to you, simply replace the spring rest.

Materials:

• Wooden dowel (12-15mm in diameter) (other solid rods are suitable as well, provided they are strong enough)
• E-tape

Tools:

• Drill & 4.5mm drill bit
• Scissors (for e-tape)

1) Cut your rod to roughly the same length as the original spring rest, approx 17mm long.

2) Drill a 4.5mm hole in the centre of the rod.


If you try placing the spring on the dowel I used, you'll find it slips on quite tightly.
At this point I slipped a sliver of 13mm polypipe over the dowel for the lip of the spring rest. As it turns out, this was unnecessary as e-tape worked fantastically well. Additionally, because of how thick my airflow pipe was, the 13mm polypipe lipped dowel would not fit properly. I later removed the polypipe.



3) Wrap one end of your rod in e-tape until the spring can no longer slip down the dowel. The e-tape is what the spring actually rests on.

4) Reassemble the turret. Ram the rod onto where the spring rest should go. With the 4.5mm hole it took a fair amount of persuasion and brute force, which is ideal.
5) Cut down the rod so it fits properly in the shell. The protrusion which holds the stock spring rest in place is what the spring rest should be resting on, but not pushing outwards.


Assuming you've done everything right, the new spring rest should work fine! The turret should be rotating as it would with the stock spring rest.


Again, neither of these mods are actually needed if you don't screw up your modding, but since I'm not experienced with rebarreling revolvers or making rear loading blasters seal properly, I messed it up pretty bad. Like a fool, I also removed the spring rest many times which is what stripped it beyond repair.
I apologise for the horrid pics, but my iPod Touch was the only camera I had on me at the time. The pictures should be clear enough for you to understand them anyway.

So yeah, that's the end of my first writeup. Comments, criticisms, etc welcomed.