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Just having some fun with the camera and making arrangements. Trying stuff out.
There's things that don't show, but I know they're there. Like removing the M7 bayonet and putting an FAL one in its place. Like putting an FN magazine pouch to replace the 1911's.
Heck, you can't hardly tell there's a Browning in that holster.
Plus that's a real grenade launching blank there.
Got my paint stencils for the Energa today!
Much better and easier than the other way I did it!
My buddy has cut a mask! That will look so much better on the "good" print.
I might even do some filling and redo the markings on the "bad" print.
This was done by painting the marking area yellow, applying some 1/4" Helvetica self-adhesive vinyl letters, spraying green over all that then peeling the letters back off.
It looks surprisingly authentic.
Method 2 is to have my buddy, Adam, make me a stencil mask to apply and then just spray the letters yellow.
On the real thing, they simply held a cardboard stencil with the correct markings up the grenade and sprayed. Lots of runs and overspray on the real deal. The South Africans were sloppy about this.
Update:
Did a bit of touching up. It's better.
You did know that FAL stands for Fusil Automatique Léger right? That's French for light automatic rifle, and something of a pun.
Léger and la guerre sound a bit alike, especially with a Belgian accent.
The Energas are looking durn good all painted up. I need to find my stencils!
I have decided that imperfections and voids are a good thing when you're making a rifle grenade marked like a live round.
I've yet to find my stencil set, so markings are still coming.
Got the Energa printed all out!
There's a couple of voids and imperfections (that's PerVECT!) that need filled and sanded, but it's looking damn good.
Then sickly gray green paint, then markings, then more pictures!
By the way, the grenade sights suddenly make intuitive sense when you've got a grenade (though it's hard to get everything aligned for the camera). The curve of the grenade body is supposed to match the curve of the sight with body filling in the u-notch.
100m:
75m:
50m (and the best alignment with the sights):
PS: It came to 562g assembled. Missed the target mass by 160g. I can add weight, I have a hollow spot.
Got a successful tail print!
It even fits over the muzzle like it should!
There's a mysterious void on one side, need to fill that, but it's definitely within the range of tolerance for a cosmetic toy.
Printing of the nose has begin:
We almost made it too!
The version with the butresses made it all the way to the fins, but had wobbled enough to put a dog-leg in the tail tube.
It would have been salvageable, but the inside diameter of the tube is an interference fit with the FAL flash-hider.
So we redesigned the butresses to allow a weight to be placed directly on them to stop the wobble and added a 1/4 mm to the ID.
Krusty IS coming!
We're hoping that the increase facet resolution and the support buttresses will let us get to the end this time! This is four hours of printing, much quicker than the first attempt too.
The fins are giving us agita!
The print got up to them and it started getting all wobbly on JT!
Revised srt with support buttresses and FACETRES set from 0.5 to 10.
We're getting there and learning as we go! Many of the comments have been helpful, I am not sure this is still the internet.
I also revised the fuse to make the angles look better.
About 1/3 the length done, I think.
We're getting there! This is from 8am.
I found the EOD manual on the M28 rifle grenade and it has enough drawings to make a detailed model of the fuse!
Even better, a decent image of the shipping cap.
Happily, the fuse is a teeny thing and a relatively quick print.
Thanks to relentless searching on the various engines...
I now know what is supposed to be painted on it.
Dark green overall.
Red stripe about where the nose cone meets the cylinder portion.
Yellow letters saying:
GRENADE RIFLE 75mm
HEAT R1M1
RDX/WAX 95/5
B21 A 3/72
The 95/5 is the percentages of RDX to wax. B21 and A are ordnance codes. 3/72 is the manufacturing date.
Prolly going to end up making two Energas, one with the South African ringed tail, the other with a six fins. I think I'll see if I can find the markings for an M28 HEAT round.
