Halo Spartan Laser Metal & Fiberglass Airsoft Beast

Lots of pics here to finish up the pin-pull mechanism that will lock
down the mid shroud. It took a lot of brain work to get this solution.




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First, machining the solid blocks that go on the rear of the assembly.
They got quite hot at times. These are nice and thick, allowing me to
sink an attachment screw in later.



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All the components laid out.





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Here's the whole assembly together--shacked together, not yet screwed
together. You can see where the protruding edges of the backing plate
need cut back.




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Beauty shot #1 looking at everything along the side.



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Beauty shot #2 showing how the mid shroud will butt against it.



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Beauty shot #3 The whole shebang!

I still needed to finish the pin-pull latch, but was having a hard time
figuring out a flange on the pin shaft for a spring to engage. Then it
hit me, use a pop rivet! I also had trouble with my pin rotating and
looking sloppy. Here's the solution:



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I drilled a micro hole through the caps of my steel pull pins and bonded
in a section of a sewing pin. I also drilled a tiny pilot holes in the
half cylinders to match. No easy feat, but, presto, a pin that stays
aligned!



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I widened the hole in the tops of two rivets and tapped them to match the threads on my pins.



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Some JB Weld and steel wire down the center of the rivet for strength and, viola', my pull pins are ready for installation.



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I bonded in cross pieces into the backing plates and drilled alignment
holes for the pins. The cross pieces will help keep the tab from the
mid shroud aligned as it slides into place as well as further stabilize
the business end of the pull pin.



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Test assembled (with the wrong style screws). It took a couple of tries
adjusting the springs (length and tension) to get the right range of
motion and resistance, but eventually nailed it. Here you can see just
how little the pin protrudes to do it's job. A lot of work for 1/8 of
an inch of movement.

It's going to be a bit before I actually add the lock tabs to the
mid-shroud, but you'll see when I do. I'm working on the other exterior
details right now.

Thanks for looking,
Redshirt

Continuing with external details: This time it's the big round dials at
the rear of the Spartan Laser. Originally, these were going the be the
winding mechanism for the airsoft BB feeds, but I've decided to make a
motorized winder like a box magazine for an M60. So, these will be
non-functional, but removable.



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I started by trying to cut disks with a hole saw. Didn't work so I had
to cut these by clamping the metal to a spinning arbor on the drill
press and holding a metal cutting saw blade against it until it had
scored the metal enough to break it, leaving me with fairly symmetrical
pieces and a straightforward job of clean up. This project seems to
involve a lot of spinning metal.



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I glued on the backing disks with JB Weld. I couldn't risk warpage or
deforming by actually welding the parts as I would have liked.




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I cut interior and exterior grip surfaces and machined them for symmetry.




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I bonded the interior grips in place.




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And set about grooving in details into the outer grips before also gluing them on.




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Here's a test fit before grinding off the excess and adding a bevel to the edge of the outer grip.




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Here's a wider picture, including the completed pin latch. Getting there!




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All done and with the first coat of primer. I use a special high-build
primer that fills imperfections and softens details while leaving and
easy sand layer on top to aid block sanding.

Lots of work going on with the front shroud working toward the fitment
of airsoft barrels as well as the outer barrel familiar to fans of the
Splaser.

Redshirt

OK, more shiny metal bits tonight. This update covers the making of the
barrel from a big aluminum pipe. This will later get cut down to just
the exposed bits to facilitate fitting the three airsoft barrels and the
massive LED back light inside. In the meantime, it is a ginormous
piece of turned aluminum.

As is usual for this project, I didn't have the right tools for the job
so I had to improvise. The right tool would have been a lathe. Not in
my shop, but I do have a drill press. The questions you should be
asking are: How do you mount a giant pipe onto a drill press and how do
you keep it from being flung off into space?

I started with an arbor for a sanding drum--essentially a short cylinder
of rubber with a shaft through the middle that widens slightly when
the nut is tightened on it to hold a sanding drum. I mounted one up on
the drill dress, set it in motion and hit it with the belt sander
until it would fit inside my pipe. Presto! Now I have a pipe mounted
to the drill press. I can change the speed of the press by
reconfiguring the belt and pulleys up top, so I set it to spin slowly.
I then used saw blades and files to shape the grooves in the barrel
blank.


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Start with a very beat-up piece of pipe and cut out the front nozzle and main section with the band saw.



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Mount up the short piece and use the file to taper the spinning metal into a cone shape.



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mount up the main section and smooth and shape it.




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Metal saw blades cut the fine grooves.




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Quick test fit of the crude item.




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Using a milling table crudely mounted to the base of the drill press,
drill the divots between the grooves, them use the dial adjust feature
to cut progressively deeper grooves where required. Remember, the shaft
and bearings in a drill press are not designed for side loads, so the
press is not at all capable of substituting for a milling machine. To
avoid damaging the machine, I had to be very show and ginger in my cuts
to not cause the shaft to come unseated. I've done that before, it
inevitably destroys the workpiece--NOT GOOD!





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Fitted in place!




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After completing the machining, we used progressively finer grades of
sandpaper to transform the ugly secondhand pipe surface into this! Here
the nozzle is temporarily mounted. My sons and I looked at it and
said--lightsaber!!

After it is cut down to clear the other components, different segments
will get different finishes. Some will be gunmetal, others polished.
The two sections with the machined grooves will be electroplated copper.


Until next time,
Redshirt

Is anyone still out there?

This week I finally have some real airsoft content again as I work to
solve the chamber and hop-up crisis. Refresher: I have three Echo1 E90
mech boxes driving this beast. Two are mounted upside down and all are
mounted too close to each other causing the hop-up units to interfere
with each other. So, two hop-up/chamber units need to be split and have
the chambers rotated 180 degrees so that the hop-ups remain upright.
If I don't do this, the BBs from those units will curve downward
immediately upon leaving the barrel. I also need to narrow all three
hop-up/chamber setups so they don't interfere with each other. This
means that I will have to come up with my own means of exerting downward
pressure on the hop-up bucking. Most likely, this will be a set screw
incorporated into whatever mounting I add later to connect the feed tub
and hop-up tracer unit to each unit. The raw hop-up units are from [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]



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Here's my problem--two hop-ups are upside down and no room for the adjusting mechanism.




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For the two hop-ups that go on the upside down mech-boxes: With the
narrowest saw you can find, cut off the mounting for the mechbox. This
has to be a neat job.



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Done. Clean up the edges with a razor knife. You don't want any of
that stray plastic sticking into the chamber and impacting the spin of
the BBs.



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I used a surplus nozzle coated with mold release to make sure the pieces
are glued together straight and that the chamber is correctly shaped.





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Here's one in the process of being glued. I've already shaved off the sides of the hop-up adjusting mechanism here.



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Good test fit. I haven't trimmed the ears off the barrel lock yet in
this photo. I came up with O ring bands to retain the locks in place
that work pretty slick.

It will be a little bit before I come back to the feed tube connections
and hop-up adjust mechanism, but this job lets me figure out the barrel
mountings and how much room I have on either side to fit the lift
mechanism.

Redshirt

And now back to the fiberglass: With the upper receiver fixed in it's
position relative to the metal lower receiver, it's time to address
(hopefully for the last time) the fit of the shroud to the upper
receiver. Once this is cleaned up, I can finish and install the lift
mechanism. It's just amazing how one adjustment throws everything off.
When I started doing this fitting, the shroud wouldn't fit at the back
or bottom and seemed to have developed a twist. I ended up doing a lot
of cutting, especially on the inside, to get the inner dimensions wide
enough for the lift mechanism to clear the barrel.

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I taped it 18 different ways to get the best match up. I also cut the
notches for the side stabilizers. This will let me make the
corresponding cuts in the upper receiver and allow me to engineer the
attachment points. You can also see the purple coating of mold release
on the upper receiver. This will enable me to separate the parts after I
Bondo all the gaps.


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Wider shot from the other side showing the huge gap at the rear. I used
a piece of wood along the top to make sure the top of the shroud stayed
parallel to the top of the upper receiver.



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Not pretty--yet



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Final positioning. I also had to brace both sides. This was due to the
twist that had developed between the two pieces since they were last
fitted.



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Here's everything after filling with Bondo. This should give me something I can work with now.

Redshirt

In preparation for building the slide mechanism, I started to tackle on
of the last major external details, the sliding stabilizers that run
between the front shroud and the upper receiver. I'd once considered
using them as the avenue of lifting the shroud, but just couldn't make
it work. As they stand today, they will move and provide stability to
the front shroud by preventing it from being knocked side to side. In
the end, these guys ended up pretty robust. I needed them done, so I
could figure out how to attach them to both pieces and keep the
mountings out of the way of the actual lifting mechanism.



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I cut, folded, and Alumiwelded together aluminum channel into 90 degree elements.



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The long edges are the horizontal runs that will be cut to length later.



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I inset brass channel for the narrow section (lower) of the telescoping
fitting. You can't Alumiweld brass, but you can notch the brass and
then smother it with molten Alumiweld to hold it in place. I lacks
elegance as a solution, but it is solid.


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See the space around the brass, this provides a channel for the larger
aluminum channel of the upper piece to slide (retract) in along side the
brass.



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Here is one complete side. I have a smaller brass piece to go inside this brass piece to further strengthen it.

These will require further finishing with the finer details bonded on
with JB Weld. The length of the horizontal elements will be set by how
recessed the scissor lift framework is set inside the receiver and
shroud. I will use screws to attach these guides to the lift when it is
completed.

Redshirt

Now I'm setting up to build the front frame that will carry the inner
and outer barrels as well as serve as the attachment point for the front
shroud mechanism. before I could get too serious about that, I had
some cleanup and some mountings to build:



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Heavy-duty bench sanding to level out the sides where I'd made all of
the fit adjustments. This area won't get too much more attention until
final detailing.




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Inside at the front of the mech boxes, I welded in a horizontal plate as
the mounting point for the front frame. You can see some stray welds
behind it. I also attempted to make a mounting for the mech box frame
that, so far, is just wedged there. I decided to add the front mounts
under the frame and use external screws from the side as there are holes
in the correct spot on the game version of the Splaser.




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Here's the mounting at the back of the mech box frame. Nice and solid, this mounting will take lots of abuse.

Short update I know, but I'll get the frame pics up in a couple of days for some really big progress.

Redshirt

As promised, a bigger update of progress on the front frame. I need the
front frame to carry the airsoft barrels, hop-up chambers, massive
outer barrel, and the front shroud with slide mechanism. The biggest
issue is the slide mechanism because of all the space needed for the
above items plus the space already claimed by the trigger group and the
front grip assembly. I had to figure out exactly where and how the
shroud lift mechanism would go before I started the frame, even though
I'm still working on how the slide will attach to the frame. I needed
the frame to be removable so I can get to the trigger and grip
assemblies. Because of the space limitations, I quickly realized there
was only one place for the lift servo to go--under the frame, just above
the trigger.

You would not believe how tight this installation
is. I had to get precise welds because there are only a few millimeters
of clearance around the servo. The eventual actuator rod will poke up
between two of the airsoft barrels--barely! I also had to cut off some
corners of the servo mount to clear the trigger.


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Here's
the rough frame next to the outer barrel. You can see the square-cut
hole for the servo in the piece that sticks out the back. Both the main
frame piece and the servo mount are fairly thick metal so I can cut
threads into them.

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Here's
a better view that gives some idea of where the servo goes in relation
to the frame and airsoft barrels. By this shot, I'd welded on the first
of the airsoft barrel guides. You can also see the notching I had to
do to the servo frame for clearance.



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Here's how massive the cosmetic outer barrel is compared to the frame.



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Here's
the rear barrel guide assembly. This didn't end up as the final
iteration as I was not happy with the quality of the cuts. There was
too much play for my taste in the airsoft barrels, so I went back to the
drawing board. The thick horizontal piece up top provides the mounting
point for the outer barrel. Below the barrels on the main part of the frame are the holes to mount the frame to the lower receiver.



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Here's
the front mount, much cleaner and the barrels are snug and straight.
All cleaned up, it looks pretty well executed, so I'm still happy with
it.

I've got more going on with the back mount as well as
setting up the hop-up chambers and attaching the outer barrel. It's
actually starting to look like an airsoft gun now and not just a static
prop.

Redshirt

This is really looking awesome!

Che Chuy wrote:This is really looking awesome!

Thanks Chuy. Sometimes I swear you and Allout are the only ones following this. Lots of actual airsoft content here now and over the next few updates as I sort out the mechanics rather than the cosmetics.

Here's how the front frame assembly fits to the lower receiver and
inside the upper receiver. I also have made some refinements to my
barrel mountings and the fitting of the hop-up chambers. Its a very
tight space around the chambers because I still will need to fit a lift
mechanism between the chambers and the outer wall.

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An early test fit with the rear mount complete and the front being
adjusted so the barrels point straight as installed before I build the
securing bracket for the front. On the far side of the barrels you can
see part of the version 2.0 lift mechanism wedged in to see how much
room I have to work with.



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Straight-on view showing how tight everything is. In my design, the
barrels float loose, so I'm working out how to hold them firm to the
mech box nozzles. I have some springs on hand . . . .



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Looking back at the chambers. The chamber on the left has the barrel
lock modified to use an O-ring as the keeper. This worked slick and
saves space so the others will be modded the same way.




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Viewed from the inside. See the back of the securing bracket? I JB
Welded spacer onto the bracket to finness the fit of the barrels and to
create an even surface for a spring to engage. Springs around each
barrel between this mounting and the chamber will force the
barrel/chamber assemblies back against their mech box nozzles.


And now for something completely different . . . .

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I'd originally planned for the rumble motors from the XBOX controller to
be mounted to the trigger assembly, but discovered this was
impractical. While designing the forward mounting for the mech box cage
(the tabs on the left), I built a cage for the rumble motors. The
motors are wrapped in foam tape. The circular tabs will be bent tight
around the motors, compressing the foam and holding them in place. The
elaborate cage is to keep the tangle of wires that will run underneath
this assembly from fouling the motors. I later cleaned it up so the
tabs are sharper and the cage is straighter.

Working again on the metal outer barrel. I'll talk about it in a day or two.

Redshirt

I meant to get to this a day or two ago, but here's the play by play of
getting the final fitting of the inner airsoft barrels and the outer
barrel.



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I started out cutting off the bottom section that can't be seen from the
outside. This opening had to be big enough to clear the inner barrel
mountings and not interfere with the forward frame. This is really
thick aluminum and took forever to cut. I burned up a couple of cutting
wheels getting the rough cut. I spent a lot of time on the sander
after this photo to get this cleaned up.



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After getting the base cleaned up, I JB Welded the nozzle on. So shiny!



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A couple of photos of the assembly attached to the front frame. At this
point, I have not yet cut the barrels down to length. I needed to get
to this point to see how long I could leave the airsoft barrels without
them sticking too far forward as to be noticeable inside the outer
barrel.



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Here it is at last, what the business end is going to look like. Three
barrels set back a little with a massive LED automotive brake light bulb
to back light the BBs as they fly downrange as well as blind,
intimidate, illuminate the enemy targets. It will also tell the enemy
where I am--as if the stream of glowing tracer BBs leading back to my
position weren't adequate enough! When finished, this will all be matte
black inside to camouflage the airsoft mechanicals.

Next, I'll get the barrels cut and work the final fitment up against the
mech boxes. Then, theoretically, I'll only need to solve the feed and
hop-up problems before I can test fire it. Still a ways off.

Redshirt

Getting back into the airsoft side of this thing again, here's the final
fitment of the chambers and barrels. It turned out really well. I
don't expect any real problems with this setup when I get around to
testing as it's really similar to the spring-loaded mountings in a
commercial airsoft gun (times three!). I love the look of the three
systems siamesed together.



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Here's the overview shot. You can see the springs forcing the chambers
back against the mech box nozzles. You can also see the O-rings holding
the barrel locks in place.



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Here you can see the spacers bonded to the removable bracket, leaving a
flat surface for the springs to engage. This prevents twisting or
binding that would result in uneven pressure against the nozzles. I
found four identical springs in my mystery automotive parts bin. I
don't know where they came from or what their original purpose was. I
don't care. I was just glad to pick up one part that worked perfectly
without modification!



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A closer look shows the two modified chambers to accommodate the two inverted mech boxes.

Now that this is finished, I'm going to sort out the fit of some other
parts up front and the lift mechanism before I come back and design the
combination feed tube attachment, hop-up adjust, hop-up tracer unit
assembly. As usual, space is ridiculously tight inside a ginormous gun.
Did not see that coming.

Redshirt

Nobody expects a roomy girl to be tight inside.

Che Chuy wrote:Nobody expects a roomy girl to be tight inside.

Best post ever!! So funny.

Redshirt

With that major work done, I fit everything together to see just how much space I had for the lift mechanism and how everything aligned. The first thing I discovered was that the front attachment points for the upper receiver to the lower receiver interfered with the big outer barrel.



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I ended up redesigning and fabricating this new mount. This area will be partly visible when the Splaser is finished, so I'm happy with the cleaner look. I also gained one more attachment point for the front zombie smasher, so I gained some strength there.



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Here's the whole thing together. I used to have two big tabs sloppily welded in here, This is definitely an improvement.



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Here's the space available at the rear. I have to fit the lift mechanism, feed mechanism, and tracer units into this space! The abrupt end of the outer barrel will be hidden by the shroud and the metal blades that run along the bottom of the shroud.



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Here's the shroud resting on top, not quite straight, but validating that I'll have room to situate my sighting laser on top of the outer barrel and have it fire though the front opening of the shroud (not cut).



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The business end. The front shroud still bears scars from the last reshaping. There will likely be very little original material in this part the day it finally gets painted.

I also permanently fitted up the completed mid shroud latch and metal details. I don't yet have the latch tabs on the shroud.



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Now permanently placed.



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Another look at the shiny bits.



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The work so far.

Redshirt

mmmmmmmmdelicious

Happy Birthday?! Kind of a celebration, kind of a badge of shame, but
this project is a year old today and the Splaser is still not done.
Getting there.

This has not been an excessively productive couple
of weeks. That's just as well since the forums have been down and
navigation is still sketchy. I have got some work on the Splaser done,
but I have to admit that my vintage motorcycle project has stolen my
attention. Tomorrow is the big day for the bike. It will be complete and
ready to drive, letting me get back to the job at hand! Of course not
everything will work and I know that I'll be doing some electroplating
to get this thing ready for an April show. It is beautiful, but a time
thief.


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In progress.


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Almost done! Time Thief: 1967 BSA Lightning!


Now,
for the topic at hand, the Spartan Laser. This and the next few updates
are going to jump around a bit as I solve different parts of the front
shroud project. The main issues are the scissor lift, the motorizing of
the lift, and the external side supports that have to be both tough and
detailed.

First up, the hardened mounting on the side of the
outer barrel. I decided that the front shroud structure will bolt to the
outer barrel to give strength and allow easy removal. To get this, I
had to add a section of welded aluminum angle to each side to give me
thick enough material to drill screw holes into as well as vertical
surfaces to drive the alignment of the lifts. The trick here was welding
fairly thin material to the massive barrel. Typically this type of
welding ends up with the small component in a pool of molten metal
before the major piece gets up to temperature. To solve this, I
preheated the barrel on the grill up to 650 degrees, then hauled it to
the vice for localized welding.


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Preheat
setup for the outer barrel. Sharpie lines denote what can and can't be
seen when installed. This helped me plan to keep the weld job out of
sight. The Sharpie is a good indicator of aluminum's readiness to be
worked. A trick metalworkers use is to mark the aluminum with a Sharpie.
When the aluminum gets hot enough to work, the Sharpie marks disappear.



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Weld in progress. This angle welded in place will give a straight and stable mounting surface for the scissor lifts.


Next
up, the metal inserts for the fiberglass shrouds. Most of this is
hidden. Only the lower 3/4 inch will ever be seen. The rest provides
attachment points, stabilization, and the lift mechanism. Once again, I
wish a had a mill. At least I have a mill table to use on my drill
press. The drill press can't handle big side loads so I have to go slow
and use soft material.



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Milling the side plates for the upper shroud using stone knives and bear skins.



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A
little better view of the cutting. In order to cut a slot without the
tool binding, skipping, or gouging, I had to move very slowly and shave
down just a few thousandths at a time.

Thanks for joining on the anniversary post. We'll get there!

Redshirt

Update time!

Working on a different part of the lift mechanism here. These are the external supports. They won't perform any function as far as lift, but they will act to locate and stabilize the shroud in both the retracted and extended positions. Unfortunately, they are very exposed and will need to be extremely strong to deal with abuse in the field. This is yet one more way this thing HAS to be stronger than a regular replica prop for it to be viable as an airsoft skirmish weapon.



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I made these all again as the original pieces from a couple of months back wouldn't work with the revised mountings in the lift and front frame. This is one of the upper pieces, made entirely from aluminum channel.



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Welding complete. They will be cut down matching size later.




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Here are the two lower pieces on their initial test fit to the front frame. I had to use brass channel to get what I needed here. I can't weld to brass, so these pieces are actually just locked into place by the cooled metal. I will reach for the trusty JB Weld when I finalize these parts. I will also insert the next smaller sized brass channel inside for added strength.




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Perfect alignment! We are on our way folks.



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Here's a closeup with the front shroud in place. This helps me figure how short I will need to cut them for final fitting.




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The view down the right side. Later, I will bond on thin aluminum sheets with the details cut in. Right now I'm focused on strength and alignment.




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The front view--all square. The parts are intentionally not yet cut to the same length.



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Here's the whole thing from an angle you're likely to see it in the game.


Next time, I'll pick up where I left off on the scissor lift.

Redshirt

Such a beast. Probably need a tripod

Had this beast out to the field this weekend for show and tell. Thanks for all the positive comments. If you are one of the people snapped a picture of the players passing it around, please reply with the pic.

Alright
everyone, I'm back for a real update. The motorcycle finally runs
right as of today and the Spartan Laser is back as a priority. Took a
long test drive on it, then hopped in the car to go looking for the
parts that fell off. All in all, a pretty standard experience for
classic British motoring! Love it!

I cleaned up the parts and assembled the slide mechanisms.

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These pieces turned out really clean.

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All finished with the top pieces and starting the base pieces.

I had made good progress (I thought) on the lift mechanism until I tried it:


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Looks okay . . . .


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Nope, it's crooked as hell!

I thought I had everything symmetrical, but a postmortem showed unequal arm lengths and sloppy channels. Look at that junk, it drops a half inch at the front! Grrrr!

Here's more: Viewer discretion advised.

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I'm
ashamed to put my name on that. I only post it because this is an
educational site. The carpet is appalling too, but that's why it's cut
up for scrap in the garage.

So, I ended up starting over on the
arms and the base. The upper visible parts seem sharp, so I'll keep
them for now, otherwise it's a lot of work to remake them.


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It
turned out that I had a very small amount of the good stuff--the harder
aluminum alloy. Even in thinner strips, it's stronger than most of the
soft aluminum I have to use. I bonded together two pieces for the base
and stacked up four layers for the arms. Here are the new pieces
rough-cut.



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Here they are after machining last night. I will drill and machine everything together to ensure perfect symmetry this time.

I
should have the remade slides riveted together in a day or two. Once
that happens, it won't take long to fit them up to the gun and then
mount the shroud.

Redshirt

Cheers to all the diehards that are still following. Lots of pictures today as I build Gen 3 of the scissor lift
mechanism. I've just come in from the garage with the pics and this one
works!

I expect lots of wear and tear as this thing cycles and I
don't want it to get sloppy so I adapted some steel airsoft gearbox
bushings for the slides and the pivots.



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I drilled them out to accept 1/8 inch rivets.



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Where I needed them in fixed locations, I pressed them into the aluminum parts.



Using the original upper parts and reworked lower slides, I built my two mechanisms.



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You
can see how much of an improvement in alignment the Gen 3 (top)
assembly gives over the Gen 2 disaster on the bottom. The top setup has a
lot less play as well.

I completed the second Gen 3 lift next.



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These
two show show my check for symmetry. Spot on! If there was any
difference, the system would bind or twist in use once the two halves
are welded together.


Next I bolted the two assemblies to the hard points that I'd added to the lower edge of the cosmetic barrel assembly.



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Here's the whole thing in the retracted position.



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Shroud frame in the raised position.


Next was to make sure it would fit inside the gun and function.



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Nice and straight, but still a long ways to go.



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Very
tight back in there, but the slide mechanism fits all the way to the
side. Any room saved here helps because I still have to get the actuator
along with three hop-ups, three tracer units, and three eed tubes into
this area.


The system isn't without its problems. I will once
again have to rework the shroud's profile to fit around the mechanism
and seat properly against the lower receiver.



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Close, but needs some work.



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That's
ugly. I can't just use Bondo, because I need lots of strength. This
area will end up getting cut further back so I can let in structural
fiberglass that can withstand hard use and BB hits.



Was it worth it? Heck ya! Here's the assembly in place with the shroud next to a picture of the game model.



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I think this setup will nail it when I get everything cleaned up.

Next
is the welding up of cross pieces and setting up the mountings in the
fiberglass shroud itself. Until that is done, I can't solve the actuator
issue or the fit of the shroud to the lower receiver.

Thanks for looking.

Redshirt

Not giant progress today. It's been a week of other things and the fact that my first round of work on the Spartan laser didn't make the cut and had to be redone. My vintage bike came together and won at its first show yesterday. Now it can stay out of the way of the Spartan Laser for good. I'm going to stick with the Spartan Laser and get it finished before getting really seriously back into the engine rebuild for my sporty car.

I set out to join the two sides of the shroud frame together permanently. There will be a front and rear cross member. The front has to be arched to clear the sighting laser. The rear can be flat, but it must project backward for the actuating lever to engage.

I initially welded together an arch for the front from a piece of curved sheet and two side members to stabilize it.



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Looks OK here.



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Until I tried to weld it and it went all warped. I also discovered that my drill had wandered in making a pilot hole for one side of the scissor frame, placing the right side about 1/8 of an inch forward. This resulted in asymmetric lift, binding, and twisting.

I cut out the crooked arch and realigned the frames. I discovered that I still had some stock of the monster tubing I used to make the outer barrel, so I cut a one-inch section and hammered part of it into a badass arch.



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Waaay better--and I haven't even dressed up the welds.



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Both sides of the frame are perfectly aligned. Set screws from the outer fiberglass shroud (in embedded metal channels) will engage the flat tab on the side of the arch.



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Straight and tough!

I'll clean it up and work on the aft cross member before reattaching it all to the lower receiver and fitting the shroud once and for all. After that, I'll engineer the actuating rod and the stop switch.

Redshirt

Looking good

Keep it up man it's really coming along

So impressed.