Raygun XIV

My short bit of summer stock -- painting sets in the hot sun -- is done for now and it is back to the Raygun with a week and a half remaining before the deadline.

The Shapeways parts arrived earlier in the week and I'd started sanding them down. This weekend, I moved to the next step on that; painting them with Superglue to seal them, then spraying them with primer.

Experimented with a couple different paint treatments on the mockup.

The leading contenders now are rattle-can chrome (Krylon Premium Original) or Rub 'n Buff. The former is shinier but I'm not sure I want that, and the latter may have better wear characteristics (but also might stain). I also didn't like the OSH-brand black gloss, and am experimenting with an epoxy enamel now (for greater strength).


The other big task was making sure everything fit together correctly. The original design was for tapped holes, but the plastic print didn't stand up to that well. Some of the parts will be held in with sheet metal screws into the plastic, but both for ease in multiple assembly/disassembly, and for the look of the original bolts, I added threaded inserts.

And it turns out getting inside the grip to unhook the battery cable just wasn't working. So I spent a big chunk of today coming up with a revised approach. Because, after all, I'd gone through all the effort to make the e-cell removable, and it seemed a shame to lose that.

Tomorrow is the first machine reservation I've been able to make since I started summer stock. With luck I'll be able to CNC the guard, trigger, the strap that holds the potentiometer, and the sounding board the transducer presses against to make sound.

All the pieces are basically sanded and primed, and I'm already moving into electronics and functional parts. So I have pretty good hopes of finishing up this week. And I can start on the holster over the weekend.