Dan Efran
Active Member
A few months ago I grabbed a big handful of these toy ray-guns at the dollar store:
Pretty solidly built for a dollar. Trigger is wired to a red flashing light and an annoying noise. I figured these would be fun to mod, or even just paint.
For example, SamCremeens recently posted this cool thing he built from a toy just like this:
http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=258566
Very cool! I might do one kind of like that someday.
For a while I kept looking at these, trying to think what actual science fiction gun they reminded me of. It's kind of a cool design as it stands, and familiar....
Far too slowly I realized that this toy is likely based (unofficially) on the DH-17 blaster pistol from A New Hope. It's simpler and smaller, nothing like a real replica of the DH-17, but the resemblance is clear. So I decided to paint one up as a custom DH-17 variant. (I think it would be possible to cut one of these up and rebuild it into a proper DH-17, but that would be a pretty big project. This time I felt like doing an 80/20 project, seeing how far I could get with minimal effort.
First step was to open the thing up and cut one of the yellow wires to the speaker. Now the red light in the flash hider still flashes, but no more goofy siren noises. Yay.
(NOTE TO TOYMAKERS: toy guns should not cycle through a variety of spacey sounds. Pick one sound for each gun, and stick to it.)
Next up, the toy was very shiny. I was worried about paint gripping it, so I sanded the whole thing. I tried to vary the sanding direction and grit for different parts of the gun, which I hope will help make it seem subliminally like it's made of separate parts.
Then, gloss black spray paint. Half an hour later, silver spray paint on the front section.
Then (before the paint was even dry, because I'm impatient) I hot-glued on a few old model kit parts as greebles.
I made a vague approximation of the singlepoint sight's light-gathering red dot out of an old LED indicator housing and some model kit parts.
At the other end of the sight, I had a little round thing in my box of little round things that was a perfect press-fit onto the toy. No idea where I found that item originally.
The toy's original scope was a great starting point, with molded-in screws and such. But I like it better my way.
And that's about it.
Once the paint has dried for a few days, I'll probably come back and do some weathering. But it's pretty much done.
I picture this as a "pocket sized" cousin of the DH-17. Perhaps a "DH-7"? More suitable for concealment than the standard model. I can imagine assassins and spies preferring something like this over the usual Star Wars cowboy-blasters and rifles. Ya think?
Pretty solidly built for a dollar. Trigger is wired to a red flashing light and an annoying noise. I figured these would be fun to mod, or even just paint.
For example, SamCremeens recently posted this cool thing he built from a toy just like this:
http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=258566
Very cool! I might do one kind of like that someday.
For a while I kept looking at these, trying to think what actual science fiction gun they reminded me of. It's kind of a cool design as it stands, and familiar....
Far too slowly I realized that this toy is likely based (unofficially) on the DH-17 blaster pistol from A New Hope. It's simpler and smaller, nothing like a real replica of the DH-17, but the resemblance is clear. So I decided to paint one up as a custom DH-17 variant. (I think it would be possible to cut one of these up and rebuild it into a proper DH-17, but that would be a pretty big project. This time I felt like doing an 80/20 project, seeing how far I could get with minimal effort.
First step was to open the thing up and cut one of the yellow wires to the speaker. Now the red light in the flash hider still flashes, but no more goofy siren noises. Yay.
(NOTE TO TOYMAKERS: toy guns should not cycle through a variety of spacey sounds. Pick one sound for each gun, and stick to it.)
Next up, the toy was very shiny. I was worried about paint gripping it, so I sanded the whole thing. I tried to vary the sanding direction and grit for different parts of the gun, which I hope will help make it seem subliminally like it's made of separate parts.
Then, gloss black spray paint. Half an hour later, silver spray paint on the front section.
Then (before the paint was even dry, because I'm impatient) I hot-glued on a few old model kit parts as greebles.
I made a vague approximation of the singlepoint sight's light-gathering red dot out of an old LED indicator housing and some model kit parts.
At the other end of the sight, I had a little round thing in my box of little round things that was a perfect press-fit onto the toy. No idea where I found that item originally.
The toy's original scope was a great starting point, with molded-in screws and such. But I like it better my way.
And that's about it.
Once the paint has dried for a few days, I'll probably come back and do some weathering. But it's pretty much done.
I picture this as a "pocket sized" cousin of the DH-17. Perhaps a "DH-7"? More suitable for concealment than the standard model. I can imagine assassins and spies preferring something like this over the usual Star Wars cowboy-blasters and rifles. Ya think?
