SW: Down the Blaster Rabbit Hole

This is pretty much precisely how these things go for me. I start a little project like this, but keep running into little things that delay the process. I knew I would be opening up the blaster in order to gut this firing mechanisms and I would be filling in the gap, because while one side of the thing looks fine, the other is the cylinder for loading darts, and that just doesn't fit. Open, remove mechanisms, file/sand down labels, fill in gaps...

And yet at every step of the way, there's something. Open it up? Well, gee, the only "jeweler's" screwdrivers that I had that would fit went missing years ago, so I need those. What to fill with? Bondo's a bit extreme, and I was down to my last bit from last year that wasn't mixing well. I sort of wanted to use Green Stuff, but went looking for it at the local game shop and they only had a liquid version, which isn't nearly what I was after. I started using wood filling prior to finding some other epoxy that probably would have worked. Ultimately, each of these is me hitting a little snag and probably having to go to the hardware store the following day in order to proceed. Then, of course, there's several rounds involved with filling and sanding before getting at least a reasonable job. I'm not quite patient enough for perfection.

As said previously, i think, I wanted a longer stock, so picked up one meant for airsoft guns to work with. That should help make it more unique as well, though requires some additional effort in making it fit.

This weekend, I finally got to several founds of painting, though of course that too is a matter of paint and wait and paint and wait before getting to the point of results.

And I wanted to stick with the tiger-stripe sort of theme, though it's a not remotely the same actual pattern as the armor.

Which finally got me to the point of being able to put things back together last night before bed. That, in turn, raised a couple new issues. Of course.

The added bulk of the paint makes fitting some pieces back together very difficult. Of particular note is the trigger, which does not move as easily after all this. That's a bit of an issue when the spring isn't strong enough to push it back out reliably. Hmm. I'd love to get a stronger spring there too, but that sounds like a needle-in-a-haystack hunt, so I'm probably going to settle for some careful filing of parts to make it move more easily...