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M1 Garand Rifle
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Egner II Design

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E-11 Blastech Imperial Blaster
The favorite sidearm of the Stormtrooper, and sometimes used by rebel infiltraitors.

Scratch-built PVC Version

When I join'ed up with the 501st, I needed a duty weapon. At first, the idea of building a L2A3 British Army Sterling Machine Pistol was considered, but the cost and availability of deactivated Sterlings made it a second choice. Also, I wanted to "scratch" build one from hardware store parts. There are several good online instructions for building these PVC blasters, and thats when I built up my first E-11. Most of the build up pics were lost when a hard drive crashed, but I still have some of the parts. I'll post a mock-up build later. For now, enjoy the following pics. Remember, all parts were hand made by me from common hardware store parts. No special order anything. The plans can be found here. Last Halloween, the blaster was almost finished, and was a big hit at all the parties. I added a penlight in the barrel, and rigged a switch, so the police would know its not a real one. They loved it.

PDFs for blasters | PDF for scope | L2A3 reconstruction

Click on each image to see a close-up.

PVC Blaster Replica:

If I do another one, I'll make some changes, I'll use better styrene for the grip, and use a M42 scope instead of the M19. Also, the front fold under stock needs to be made of stiffer material. It has been noted, the pistol grip is too far forward, as is the scope. Oh, well. I have since rebuilt a BATF approved deactivated Sterling, L2A3, a Helsinger counter Box, and a WWII vintage M42 scope with proper grip materials.

 

Real Deactivated L2A3 Sterling

Here is the rebuild of the L2A3 Serling from IMA. One might call it lumpy.
You can see from this picture, the rewelded receiver tube is poorly finished. Lots of gunk slag, cosmoline and grit on all over the gun. Cleaning will require a lot of detergent! This is what IMA did to comply with federal laws. the orange plug look like a Crayola.
Another view of the poor welds. and another view. Finally a view of the ginder marks.
Here is what you get when you open the box from IMA. And disassembled. Here is the broken down magazine.
I used a Dremel with an abrasive drum to remove the poor paint job. A closer view. You can clearly see the dimples.
I masked off the areas I did not want to get the bondo on. Before applying the bondo, I used "gun scrub" gun action cleaner/degreaser. This does a good job removing the grummy paint, grease, dirt etc. After the first of several layers of bondo. This stuff is called "spot putty". After the bondo has dired, and sanded, more bondo is appled.
Another view after final sanding. A view after primer. Here is a shot of the scope rail.
Test fitting the scope & mount. This is a hammered metal finish paint. Another view. Original Sterlings have a baked on Crackle finish.
Another view of the cleaned up Sterling. A flat black top coat is applied. Finished.


Side-by-side Comparison

Real L2A3 PVC version

This image shows a real L2A3 Sterling blaster conversion using an IMA dummy Sterling as the basis. This thing needed a rework, as the tube section was not very well made.

This image shows the PVC replica from roughly the same angle.

 

Here again, the real L2A3 business end.

And the scratch built one.

Here is Luke Warmwater's and Obey Wann's DH17 Rebel Soldier blaster. I need to get my version going, these things are cool!

 

LINKS:

www.imperial-fleet.com - Blaster Builder's squad list several PVC tutorials.

www.IMA-USA.com - source for real deactivated L2A3 Sterlings

Grip Materials source - source for grip material

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