Salindin Naz

Not too long ago I was contacted by a fellow modder and member of our Haven about a very disturbing dilemma that had befallen him. A trusted and beloved companion of his had recently fallen in battle, with no hope of re-iterating it's final shot. That's right, his faithful blaster had failed him, broken, beyond repair.
Not one to let such a tragedy, no, such a travesty go unanswered, I felt obliged to heed his request for my aid.
With no un-due haste, I began this undertaking, this resurrection if you will, of his battle-hardened side-arm bearing the designation of "Recon CS-6".

I was given a picture, and I got myself a canvas to work upon.
And she has risen from the ashes of her former self, to do battle once again.
These are the results.









She's ready.


Salindin

So I've had this Halo laser tag pistol for a while now, (it was my birthday present to myself last year), and have been wanting to convert it to foam ever since I first tried it out as a laser pistol. The rate of fire was a bit too low for my tastes, and the sounds it made were reminiscent of a sad Sci-Fi channel movie. It's taken so long, because I wasn't sure as to what gun to use for the firing duties. Then it hit me. That 2K in the corner should do the trick!! So, anyway on with the write-up.


Materials Needed:
1 Air Tech 2000
1 Jasman 2-Player Laser Pursuit Covenant Halo # Plasma Pistol Set (You've gotta get the 2 player one, the single pistol has much more internal components such as motors, and springs, and other stuff I don't know 'cause I've never opened one up)
1' Airline tubing ( 1/4")
1 Piece of 19/32 brass
1 Piece of 9/16 brass
Heavy Duty Fishing Line, or similar strong thin wire


Alright, so here you have your Plasma Pistol,


Crack 'er open and remove the internal components (you can either toss 'um, or save them for another project like I did, I couldn't find a way to fit them inside with my 2K). This is what you should get;



Now, take your 2k, take out the pump, and blast chamber. Get rid of that short yellow tubing (I used an X-acto knife and made a small slit in the tubing so I could grab it with my pliers to get it off), and all the rest of the gun, we only want the pump and chamber. Chop off the goo gauge, right where it connects to the orange/red disk shaped thingy. Just look at the picture.


Also, to get it to fit, just right, you'll need to trim the shell down a bit.


Now, we're going to need a place to put the pump. I figured the best spot would be in the bottom battery compartment. I had to cut about 2.3"-3" off of the pump housing to get it to fit inside the shell correctly, without cutting into any of the screw posts. You're also going to want to make a small + shaped open ing in the back of the battery compartment to allow the pump handle to be used. You don't want to make a big hole in the back, or else while you're feverishly pumping in the heat of battle you're going to pull too hard and yank the pump apart, and then have to fiddle with as you're being pelted with foam. Once again the picture should explain if I haven't.



Now on to the blast chamber and barrel area. Take this nifty green piece;

and cut it so that your 19/32 brass can fit through it, like so....



Ok... just to make it a little easier, in this picture I circled all the areas you'll need to trim in red.


Now, take your 19/32 brass and flair out one end a bit, so that it'll fit over the larger nub at the tip of your 2K tank. Once you know it'll fit all the way down, goop it up a bit (not too much) and jam it on. Attach the tank and the pump using you 1/4" airline tubing.
Next tie your fishing line ( I like to use the heavy stuff, 50lbs test) to the trigger pin on that 2K tank. Now take the little red re-load button and drill a very small hole in it like I did.

Now thread your line through.


Now put all that stuff in side the shell, make sure you've trimmed everything right and you've centered everything. A dab of hot glue here and there to make sure nothing going to move around too much, and this is what you should get.


That should be it for the insides, screw it back up, and grab your piece of 9/16, throw a few tightening rings on one end and there you have it, a dart firing Plasma Pistol.
Enjoy!!




Salindin

OK, so this is going to be a rather in depth look at battle damage, and it's going to involve a lot of work on your part. Read through this and give it some though, and if it sounds like too much work but you still want a damaged/weathered gun check this out Link . Spectre666 did this write-up a while back, and it follows the same basic principals as this write-up will, only his does not involve and hand painting.


Alright, lets get this thing moving. These are the tools/ bits that you're gonna need.

You're also going to want to grab some sandpaper, paint brushes, and a paper towel or two. Keep in mind while you're using the Dremel bits that none of them were designed for use on plastics, and you're going to want to take your time, using the lowest possible speed setting that you can, especially with the wire brush.

First off take your blaster apart, setting any internals aside. Once it's in peaces put the shell back together with out screws. This is so that you can make the transitions from one half to the other as even as possible.

If you want to make dents like these, use the conical shaped grinding bit.



Apply very light pressure, slowly digging your way into the plastic. You don't need to worry about the small burs and flak just yet, but if you get a lot of build up gently rub the bit over the excess plastic to get rid of it. Look at the dents in the flat part of this gun. To get this effect use the tip of your bit and dig into the plastic. To make you dents seam more realistic, and not like you just randomly slammed your Dremel into your gun, try and make any of these dent/chip as multi-faceted as possible. Come at it from a variety of angles, and use controlled walking of the bit.

If you want deeper dents or chips use the flat grinding bit in the picture.

Press it in slowly at an angle to make what you see in the picture. Use these sparingly, they add a great look, but if you have them all over the place, it'll tend to look a bit sloppy.

If you want a big slash grab that little wire brush.

You don't necaseraly need to use the brush, but I find that it's much easier to control than the grinding bits that will walk all over the place and are hard to make a straight line. If you didn't already put them on, you're going to want to grab your safety glasses for this part. Trust me, you'll have flak flying all over the place.

Alright, now your nice new gun should be looking like you tossed it out the window of a car going 70MPH, go ahead and grab an X-Acto knife and start cleaning it up a bit. Once you've got it mostly cleaned up, get the rest with your sandpaper. You may even want to leave a little still on just for looks.
Once you've finished cleaning the excess off, grab a can of vinyl dye and spray that sucker down. Proceed to finish any detailed work/ extra coloring and stand back and marvel and the beauty you're about to reek havoc upon.


Now, on to the fun part, dry-brushing. This is what's really going to make your blaster stand out from the crowd.
I use three different colors to get my weathering effect; Antique Gold (alternatively you could use a copper or rust color), Silver, and Platinum.
Start out with your Antique Gold. This will represent any rusting that happened due to the damage sustained in the heat of battle. Stop when it starts to look kind of like this.


Now I should explain a bit about what dry-brushing actually is. At it's core, dry-brushing is a technique used to paint the raised texture, leaving the underlieing places unpainted. To do this you must use a very light paint load on your brushes. Hence the name Dry-Brushing. Using a small, stiff bristled brush (preferably not your best brush, dry-brushing is hell on brushes) dip it in the paint, and blot nearly all of your paint off on a paper towel. By the time you're done it'll look like this.


Make sure that you get as much of the paint out, you can always add more later on, where-as it's not so easy to remove if you put too much on.
Once your brush is nearly out of paint, rapidly flick it over the edges and any chip/dents you've made. I like to go all in one direction when doing this, it seams to lend a greater realism. Think before choosing your direction, follow the movements of your faux damage. If it a part that has something sliding across it, go in the direction of this movement.

Ok, so now you've got your base of rust, move on to the silver. Again, use a little paint as possible, and follow the contours of your gun, paying attention to any edges and faux damage. You should end up with this.


Continue on to the platinum. While not haveing any more on your brush that the last two colors, put a bit more into this color. The platinum is very bright, and light in color, making an excellent choice for exposed metal. Now you're going to have something a bit like these pictures.



And that's it for the paints!! Keep in mind that I've been painting for some time now (I'm 25, and have been painting models since I was a wee one), and have a lot of practice. But don't worry, most of the time your dye-brushing will look very nice, but as with anything, practice makes perfect.

Right now you're probably thinking to yourself, "Wow this looks pretty cool, but there's just something missing."
Well, you're right! That final piece is the clear coat. This is what is really going to make all your metallic dry-brushing pop out. Use some really shiny stuff, I'd recommend Krylon Triple Thick. Give that sucker like 3-4 coats, waiting at least 20 minutes between them.


Wait till the next day ( I know waiting sucks, but fingerprints all over your work sucks even more), and put it back together. Now congratulate yourself, and marvel at your work!!


Hope this helps you guys with your weathering attempts, and if you've got any questions, or anything to add please post here of PM me. I'll be happy to help .



Salindin

Tools and Materials Required;

Two Vulcan Ammo Boxes.
One Longshot Breech door/cover.
A Dremel (with cutting wheel and sanding bit) or Hacksaw and Sandpaper.
Fast Set Fletching Glue or Fishin' Glue.


That's it! This one is pretty easy to make, and if someone already did this, sorry, I've not seen it.


**!!Please note that the tripod will not fit with this extra long box attached. But I'm going to try to figure that out next.!!**

The first thing you're going to want to do is cut the bottom and part of the side out of your top box.

On the bottom, I cut right up to the last screw post, stopping just before it, wanting to keep as much stability as possible. The same goes for the side, but this time, stop about a 1/4", 5mm from the screw post that begins the vertical wall. While this will most likely be trimmed off in the end, but, better safe than sorry. Once you've finished your cut and cleaned up all the burrs set this box back onto the Vulcan. Take you second box, pull the lid off and slide it over the first box on the Vulcan. See those two little areas on the second box touching the Vulcan and keeping the boxes from being flush?

Take your sanding bit and grind that shit down, till it looks like this. The back of the box requires the most sanding, but the front need only a very small amount. Just give it a slight bevel. Like so...

Once you have a clean tight fit, take some tape and tape the outsides of the two boxes together and remove from Vulcan. Now take the Longshot part, this one, and cut just past the last of those four little wall things (near the top in this pic). You are going to want it a just a little smaller that the opening it's going in to.

Now place it in the space between the two boxes from the inside so that it catches, and can't be pushed out. Like so....

This is why you've got to use tape before it's glued together. Keep trimming the top box until the Longshot piece fits in the dead space.
Now to cover those two gaping holes left on the front and back. Using the piece of the first box that was cut from the bottom, make two opposite little triangular pieces to fill in the dead space. I used the prat that star the upward slant.
Now turn your nearly completed 50 round box around and look a the side that attaches to the Vulcan. See that open area where the two join? Looks a bit like it'll catch the chain, huh? To fix this I took the rounded end of the second boxes lid and cut it off flush with the ends of the attachment points, basically just cut it straight across.

Flip it upside down to glue it in. I put it in last, after it was all glued together.
And now you're done!! All that's left is to sand off one of the N-Strike logos (or both if you want) and slap some paint on that bitch!!

**Edit** Forgot to mention that you sould cut off the second boxes conection point. Where it snaps into the Vulcan. You don't need it there anymore.


Here's a few more pictures.







As always happy modding,
Salindin

OK, this is my first attempt at a write-up, if this can be called a write-up, it's kinda more a tutorial, for it's a broad spectrum guide pertaining to no gun in specific, but all of them in general. That being said I'm posting this because I'm gotten several PMs asking me for tips and help and I felt that this would be a much better way to convey the steps and techniques that I employ in the paint jobs that I have done.

Alright, lets get down to business. To start yourself off you are obviously going to need paint. I suggest grabbing a can of Duplicolor vinyl dye, some Krylon Fusion, and some Formula P3 or Citadel acrylic hand paints. The former two can be found at some comic books stores but locating one that does deal in Warhammer type games can be difficult. http://www.miniaturemarket.com/ and http://www.games-wor...om/gws/home.jsp are where I get my paints from. Some paint brushes will of course help too. I recommend using synthetic brushes, the ones with the white bristles. Get a few of varying sizes and shapes. Most often I use a size 0 and a size 3 Round, a 3/8" Angle Shader, a size 6 Shader, and a size 0 and a 5/0 Liner. Alright time for some pictures and instructions.


What you will need:


I forgot to put sand paper in that picture, and while this is not absolutely necessary if you want your paint to last it will help.
OK so what you will start out with is this:

Remove all screws, electronics, moving parts, and any other thing that you will want to work when you put it all back together at the end.

And if you come across anything that resembles this remove promptly and dispose of accordingly.


OK, so at this point your gun should look like this:


Now grab that sand paper. If you want to get rid of the logos and the "Do not modify this blaster" crap start out with some #60 or #80. Just before the word are gone start moving to lighter and lighter grain paper. #100 to #150 to #220. Once it's all gone and your gun is all scratched to hell get the highest number grit you can find. #500-#600 is good #2000 is great. Go over the entirety of the surfaces to be painted with your fine grit paper. Once you are done with all this and your arm is about ready to fall off, rinse it off with water and and let it dry. You can expedite this with a towel or a hair dryer if you wish. Once dry take some paint thinner and rub the whole thing down. Let it dry, with patience this time. Now it's finally time to get some paint on that thing.
As it will tell you on your can of spray, use VERY light coats.
Like This:



I recommend using a base coat of vinyl dye, with those very light coats until it's totally covered. Like so:


I should tell you all now; I really suck at tapping a gun. I mean REALLY suck. I use only one color of spray paint and do the rest in hand paints, or may chose differently. Oh yeah, I hate the color selection of vinyl dye, so I always go over it with a spray of different color. At this point you probably can use any kind, but just to be safe I tend to still use the Krylon Fusion. Most of the time anyway.

OK so back to business, now your gun should look like this:


Now it's time for the fun part; the hand paints. I should tell you guys this to as a word of advice, find a hand paint that very closely matches the base color, or else you will be very disappointed if you need to do some touching up. Anyway, start off with one of you larger brushes and staying away from the edges fill in the majority of the area to be painted. Don't dip you brushes in the paint very much at all maybe 30% tops. Rinse OFTEN, maybe not ever time you go for more paint but at the very least every third time. Make sure to clean as much off as you can in these rinse breaks, and get all the water out with a paper towel. Once you've filled in the bigger areas grab a smaller brush and do the outsides. Be careful, touching up your mistakes is a great idea, but just remember: if it was hard to paint straight the first time, it will be the second, or the third, and so on.
This is not fun to fix:



Now once you're all done with the hand paints be sure to put a clear coat or sealer over everything. It's very disheartening to be out playing with your beautifuly painted gun and start to notice the paint chipping and scratching off.

Now reassemble that thing and here you go a finished paint job of excellent quality.


Now you're all done!! Congratulations!! Throw that sucker up on the mantel or just pelt some of the neighborhood kids with some foam. Hope I've help make you beautification easy and more enjoyable.

Until next time,
Salindin


**Edit** I forgot to mention that I also follow the colors around the edges of the shell to the inner parts( just the edge). I've found in the past that sometimes the two halves of the shell don't completely match up and you can sometimes get a lip where they join together, and it leaves the stock color exposed at the joint. This can ruin the look of your gun.