By tobycj
#4947336
Looking great! I've done the same with the inside of my mobo. I messed up and forgot about the wider right hand side, so had to sand that part back a bit so I didn't get a "step" in the paint 🙄
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By pchrisbosh1
#4947353
Looking awesome man! Great work...those speaker grills look A+ sharp brother.
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By JWils23
#4947935
Been a little bit of a lull since my last post, had a lot going on with work and taking a promotion to a new side of the business. But I'm back and putting some work in, so let's get going!

After letting the motherboard paint dry for about 2 weeks I had some time to get it back out and start putting it all back together. I needed to add the foam at the top of the mobo and then the big red danger sticker. I eyeballed a lot of screen shots on the placement of both the foam and danger label. It looked like all of the foam started about an inch(ish) in from the rivets on the power cell so that is where I started mine. I kept mine a little bit fatter (taller?) than it looks like the screen used packs had but that is because I have a "planet head" as my wife says so I need all the protection I can get. When it came to the danger label I didn't put too much stock into it being perfectly straight or in an exact spot as it seems all the labels from the reference shots are slightly different and/or slightly crooked. This is one of the labels from Arrons kit, and I can't say enough about how great they are. Side note, but I also feel like the lights in my garage are playing tricks on the paint. It looks very even and consistent under normal light but the flourescants seem to make it look almost blotchy. I also rivited on my charging plate, it's one of the crooked Venkman plates that Nathan sells. I just used two 3/16 rivets, I'm sure it isn't exactly screen accurate but it's consistent with all the rivets I used on my pack so I'm okay with it.
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Next was putting all the electronics back together and wiring it up. Because the LED kit that Doug sells has an extra converter that isn't with the normal LED kits I had to use a bigger slab of perf board than normal. This meant that one of the mounting holes would be directly behind the danger label and that would not be okay. Instead I drilled 3 holes to mount the standoffs and epoxied the final to the inside of the mobo. This should be more than enough to keep it secure and also keeps my danger label nice and flat.
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Mounting the GBfans soundboard, DC converter for the LED's, power cell lights and speakers.
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Once that was done I added the cyclotron perf board, made sure everything was level and wired it to the board/power cell. My battery is the only thing that is not permanently secured right now. I have some really good double sided adhesive that I will use to secure that in its place. I also need to swing by the hardware store and pick up a 1/2" rubber grommet for the hole bringing in the wiring from the charging plate, the hole is a bit sharp and I don't want the wiring to rub on it.
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And with that, the guts are almost all back together. I still need to do a little cable management and get them affixed to the mobo where I want them but I'll get there at some point. As a little bonus, I couldn't resist taking a quick video of the pack firing up. Of course since I'm into the little quirks of each pack, I had to make my cyclotron lights run counter clockwise like the Venkamn pack!
Last edited by Kingpin on April 9th, 2021, 3:39 am, edited 1 time in total.Reason: Added YouTube code
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By JWils23
#4947991
Thanks Red, on both fronts! Promotion kind of popped up out of nowhere but thankfully I was in a position to jump on it . What's that old saying, success occurs when opportunity meets preparation? I'm really happy with how the pack is coming together, especially when it came to putting all the lighting/electrical components together. I had the vision in my head but sometimes it doesn't always pan out how you thought. Thankfully this came out spot on to how I envisioned it!

Have a minor update, I was able to swing by my hardware store and pick up a grommet to run the wiring from the charging plate in to the pack. Had to slice it to fit the wiring inside as the blue brick kit from Nathan comes ready to go with everything attached, but other than that quick install. Adds a clean look to it and keeps the wiring from rubbing on the aluminum! I don't think I'll wire up the XLR plug, it's more for show but I have the components to do it should I change my mind. Still debating on whether or not I'm going to run the light to the N-filter, it's a fun feature to do the overheat sequence but also not screen accurate so I'm conflicted...
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By JWils23
#4948297
Fun update today! Had a little time to do some cable management and get all my electronics routed the way I wanted to keep things clean and got the battery mounted onto the mobo.
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Once that was done it was time to mount the alice frame on and put the shell back on, it looks like a real pack now!
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Will need to do a little touch up as I have a slight gap on the mobo paint, but I'll wait until I paint the thrower before I do that and some other minor touch up on the shell.
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And since this was the first time firing it up completely assembled, I felt I was obligated...


I'm going to speed up the lights to be closer to movie accurate but that's about the only tweak I have planned. Sooo now it's just waiting on my thrower to be finished...
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Last edited by Kingpin on April 17th, 2021, 2:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.Reason: Added YouTube code
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By JWils23
#4948539
Got something in the mail yesterday, box seems to be a very interesting size and shape, I wonder what it could be...
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Would you look at that :-D I know what I'll be toying with this weekend! All the other thrower goodies are in the box, with the exception of the rear cylinder which RJ is finishing up right now.
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By JWils23
#4948569
Got A LOT done on the thrower today, spent most of the day working on it as my other half was working overtime so I had the house/garage to myself! I started by enlarging some of the pilot holes to fit the arcolectric and hat lights, along with the holes for the switches. I also attached the heat sink, those are the only holes not pre-drilled just FYI for anyone who has a thrower coming from RJ.
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Once that was done by I re-drilled and tapped the Clippard holes, the thrower comes drilled and tapped from RJ but mine was just slightly off and I couldn't screw both screws in but nothing I couldn't fix!
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Next up was the bargraph, I have a kit from Doug and I picked up one of the new ones RJ started making figuring I'd decide which one to use once I had everything in hand. I ended up going with Dougs because it fits the GBfans bargraph better, but RJ's fits the thrower perfectly and no work would have been needed to make it fit. Dougs is slightly wider than the opening so I marked it and got out my trusty file and went to work. After about 15 mins and multiple checks it fit like a glove.
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After a quick run to my hardware store to get some extra socket caps and washers/nuts I started on mounting the female side of the V-hook to the gun track and then the track to bottom plate of the thrower. I'm still waiting on the discs but I added the socket caps as place holders for now.
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I then spent way more time than I'd care to admit tinkering with the pop mech, but I finally got it set and it works brilliantly.
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With that done I decided that was enough for today and put it all back togther and slung it up for the first time. I think I'm in love...
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This final part of the build should go much quicker as I have all the components in hand with the exception of the rear cylinder and gun track discs, but those won't hold things up. Next up will be mounting the flashbulb in the acryllic tube and doing an electronics check before it gets stripped down for paint!
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By JWils23
#4948656
tobycj wrote: April 25th, 2021, 12:37 am Looks gorgeous! Did you work out what thread the arcolectric bulbs are? I couldn't for the life of me find out anywhere.
Thanks! I did, it was 1/4-28 NF on my tap set. It took testing a few different taps on a piece of wood to find out. But I should note that in the end I didn’t tap mine since they had the little brass nut to hold them in place.
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By JWils23
#4948797
Todays task was getting the electronics squared away and installing the flashbulb in the acrylic tip. Thanks to Red and Toby I was able to get all my wand switched dialed in and get my bargraph scrolling! Really appreciate your help on that one guys! So then it was onto drilling the banjos so I could feed the wiring through them and then through the tubing. I marked mine just below the ear and trigger tip and drilled them out. Once I drilled them out I then drilled them again at a slight angle to help feeding the wired through, you can see it a little bit right here.
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I then wrapped my tube in tape to help keep it from cracking when I drilled the holes for the wiring and the set screw. I eyeballed the positioning off the reference pics and other builds on here. I also didn't want a ton of flashbulb sticking out of the tip so I set it so just the very end extends beyonds the tube.
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I then took a circular file I have for my chainsaw and filed a small groove in the side of the base of the flashbulb. The bulb base fits tightly in the arylic so and I wanted to be able to run my wiring back up beside it and out of the tube around the halfway point.
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I then fed the wires through the hole I'd drilled and set the base in the tube, here you can see where the wires feed back up in that channel.
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Next was the set screw, I would have liked this to be hidden under the trigger tip ring but to keep the end of the trigger tip lined up with the end of the barrel the set screw would have been too high and missed the base. So I did my best to hide it by placing it at the bottom of the barrel, and if it bugs me I could move the trigger tip down just a bit and cover most of it it but we'll see.
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I then ran the wiring through the first banjo, red tubing and into the second banjo. I eyeballed the length on the red tubing but does it look like it might be a little bit too much?
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Next up I need to drill the hole into the wand body for the ear/flashbulb wiring to run into. Then do my final work on mounting the handles and strip it all down for paint. Though it's in the 90's here for the next few days so probably no paint until next week.
l3w1sb159, RedSpecial, tobycj and 1 others liked this
By tobycj
#4948803
Brilliant stuff! You could see the set screw for the acrylic holder on the real ones, so you're all good on that front. Only feedback would be I'd try and shorten the length of the wiring hanging down in the clear tube, as you're going to disassemble before paint presumably that's simple to sort.
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By JWils23
#4948825
tobycj wrote: April 30th, 2021, 5:29 am Brilliant stuff! You could see the set screw for the acrylic holder on the real ones, so you're all good on that front. Only feedback would be I'd try and shorten the length of the wiring hanging down in the clear tube, as you're going to disassemble before paint presumably that's simple to sort.
Thank you! That’s good news, I had been looking at reference pics but I didn’t see any with the set screws. I must have missed them! Yea I’m going to pull a little more wiring through and try and clean that up when I break it down and put it back together. How does the length on the red tubing look? I feel like I might need to cut it down an inch or so.
By tobycj
#4948830
RedSpecial showed me this pic recently, it was a big help for making mine. With mine I've run the wiring back up through a small hole next to the larger hole for the ceramic socket, rather than a channel up the side of the acrylic. Seems to be how the screen used ones were done by the looks of it.

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Yep, I think I'd shorten the red tubing a little still.
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By JWils23
#4948840
Dangit! Wish I would have seen that before, I would have placed my set screw there. Oh well, the fact that they were visible means mine still works :lol:

Do you have any shots of the wiring? Just so I’m clear how it was done? Appreciate the feedback as always!
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By tobycj
#4948848
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RedSpecial shared these with me too. You can just about make it out that it's not coming up right at the edge of the acrylic. There's some more good ref shots here too.

https://imgur.com/a/zE6T4zv

You can just see the wiring being quite a tight loop at the very bottom of this pic too, it certainly doesn't go past the frosted section in any of the reference photos I've seen so far though.

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By JWils23
#4948854
Awesome thanks for sharing those! I’ve seen a number of those shots but there are a few I’d never seen before which really help. I’ll try and get things tightened up nicely when I put all back together after paint.
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By JWils23
#4949342
Been a bit slow on the thrower front, new spot at work has taken a lot of my time and attention but in a good way. That being said I always try to find time to tinker a little bit. I tore everything down and prepped it all for paint and began working on that process this week. Taking time to let the paint really dry between coats and then hitting all the alumunum components with the same enamel I used on the pack to help fight scuffs and scratches. The only exception being the grips because I want those to weather quickly and start showing the brown underneath. I'm not going to do any artificial weathering on this pack once it's done, I'm starting with that first call look and then I'm just going to let it weather as it's worn.

That being said I started with the tops of everything. This was after the first coating, I also only painted the top of the gun track as the bottom was left unpainted on the hero throwers as several people have pointed out.
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Then flipped everything around and gave it another coat.
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I opted to tape off the inside of the thrower to keep a little contrast, I thought it was a cool little touch to have it wrap around the bottom.
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Once everything was dried I went about riveting the rear handle like the originals, then hit it with a light coat of paint so they can weather with use.
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Time to start putting it all back together and wiring it up.
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You can see in the final picture that I need to resolder and heat shrink my flash bulb wiring. When I was feeding it through the acrylic tube they snapped, it's my own fault but I'll fix that tomorrow as well as hopefully finishing mounting switches and the trigger/instrument bar.
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By JWils23
#4949510
Been getting little bits done day by day but haven't had a chance to get on here and upload some progress. Things are really coming together and it's definitely feeling bittersweet that this project is almost done. Obviously I'm excited to finish everything and have a completed pack that I built piece by piece, but at the same time I've really enjoyed building this and learning new things. It's been that little escape from all the static going on in the world where I can just be in the zone.

First thing that needed to be addressed was re-soldering the leads from my flashbulb which snapped when I was threading them through the acrylic tube. This was definitely intimidating because I've never soldered before so this would be a first. But what better way to learn right?? It might not be the prettiest but I'll take it as a win for the first time trying.
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Add a little heat shrink and it almost looks professional! I ran a little bit longer heat shrink just to really try and encapsulate as much of the connection as I could and protect it through the tube and banjo.
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Thanks to Tobycj for the references regarding how much wire was in the acrylic, my original setup had way too much down the tube so I made sure to tighten that up.
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Now because my connections were redone and now closer to the base of the bulb socket and my excess wire was pulled tighter that I'd be contending with them either being right at the hole for the acrylic or at the beginning of the banjo. Turned out to be the banjo, but it was actually not as bad as I thought.
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I also took this time to shorten my red tubing just slightly as I felt it was too long before. I ended up taking about a 1/2" off and I like this look much better.
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Now it was on to installing the barrel lights, I'm using the double white strobe from CS props rather than the RGB LED that comes with the GBfans wand kit. The colors are fun and all but going for movie accuracy I wanted that white light in the barrel. At first I ran them into the acrylic and secured it behind the set screw for the pop catch. However I didn't like that you could see the top of the bulbs in the tube when extended so I pulled them back and have them right at the opening which hides them perfectly. I also used a little gaffers tape to hold the wire down along the catch to try and keep it from moving around in there.
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I wanted to try and close off those strobes to keep them in place and also keep as much light going out the barrel as possible. I took a page out of GohstTarp's build and dug up some of my wifes craft foam for the win! Cut out a little notch for the wiring and spray painted it black, fits like a glove!
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With all that done I put all the barrel components back together and started mocking up the wiring placement so I could heat shrink it and route it under the front grip.
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I'll end this update here for now, until next time!
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By l3w1sb159
#4949512
For a first attempt that some tidy soldering, great job!
I'm digging that clean look inside and out.
I get the same feeling with my build not wanting it to end, but you could always build another one.... I'm already planning a second pack; getting duplicate spare parts I can use on it when the time comes.
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By JWils23
#4949517
Thank you! I had my buddy who’s been soldering for 20+ years watch over FaceTime as I did it for the first time just to be safe haha! I’m really trying to keep things clean and organized inside, there’s already not much room to work so every little bit helps.
I do have another shell/mobo that I’m planning on building into a GB2 semi hero at some point but I this being my first one will always be near and dear to me. Plus I’m not sure I can go from one pack right into another, don’t want to burn myself out.

But I’ve run into my first electrical snag…
I wired everything up to test and make sure things are working before I start doing some cable management and my flash bulb isn’t flashing. I’ve troubleshot it as far as I could and nothing. I tested the rumble motor I also have which I soldered longer leads on to make sure it wasn’t the board (or my soldering) and it worked perfectly. I reached out to CS props to see if he had any ideas, but I’m stumped at this point.
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By pchrisbosh1
#4949603
Hey James your pack is looking awesome as usual. As for your problem with the flash bulb I might have a little bit of insight. A lot of those older photography flash bulbs especially the type used on the hero packs were one time use only. So basically it flashed once and they replaced it quickly for the next shot. I'm not sure if that is the case with your flash bulb as I don't know what type it is but just thought I would share in case that is the actual problem. Looking awesome so far brother!
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By JWils23
#4949677
pchrisbosh1 wrote: May 26th, 2021, 11:25 am Hey James your pack is looking awesome as usual. As for your problem with the flash bulb I might have a little bit of insight. A lot of those older photography flash bulbs especially the type used on the hero packs were one time use only. So basically it flashed once and they replaced it quickly for the next shot. I'm not sure if that is the case with your flash bulb as I don't know what type it is but just thought I would share in case that is the actual problem. Looking awesome so far brother!
Hey Chris, thanks for the kind words as always! This flashbulb has an LED epoxied into the base so it can be used over and over, but we think it might be a bad LED. Can't say enough about Cory from CS props as we spent a ton of time trying to trouble shoot this and we came to the conclusion that it's either a bad LED or theres a bad solder connection somewhere. I'm hoping it's just the LED so I don't have to re-wire everything but if I need to I will. He's sending me out a whole new setup at no charge, can't recommend him enough!
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By JWils23
#4949678
Hammered away at the thrower some more this week and I'm happy to say that other than the flashbulb issue (which Cory from CS props has been awesome) the thrower is pretty much put together. So let me pick up where I left off..

I started by installing Dougs bezel kit and getting it placed how I wanted it on the thrower. I've seen people leave these raised significantly and also completely flush with the gun body. I decided to model it after the super hero and have it raised just slightly. Ignore the dust on it, that's just on the outside and not in/on the actual internal bezel pieces.
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I next opted to run clear heat shrink tubing under the front grip, I saw this on Stuarts build and really like the little bit of color it adds. I set my wiring up with the tension/placement I wanted and then ran the heat shrink tubing over it so I could place it under the handle and then into the gun box. Little tip I read in Bishops build thread, you can easily pop the connector off the ear wiring so that the hole you drill into the gun body is the minimal size. This may be a total no brainer for some but as someone who is still very novice at electronics it was a great little hack for me. Just be sure to take a picture of the connection before you remove the wiring so you can reinstall it in the correct sequence. You simply take a small screwdriver and lightly pry up the white clips and the wires slide right out.
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With the clip removed and the heat shrink in place I route everything through the hole into the gun box. Fits nice and snug without having to drill the large hole to accomodate the plug. Once the wiring is in place you slide the three wires back into their slot and they lock in.
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Once the the wiring was set I installed my reflector for the vent light. I had an old halogen flashlight that I'd been saving for this as the cone fits the cut out perfectly and is the perfect depth to not get in the way of the pop mech or anything else. Took just a slight amount of filing to get a flat edge so that the reflector could butt right up to the gun body wall but that was it. Little super glue around the rim holds it in place nicely. And for the record, I have no idea what that smudge looking thing is in the upper right hand corner of the vent looking at the top of the gun. It has to be the reflection playing tricks on the camera because that's not there in reality.
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I also wanted to try and dampen the pop mech when it hits the wall of the gun body. I had plenty of foam left over from doing the motherboard so I cut a small square and placed it to catch the bolt of the pop mech.
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I'll stop this update here as I just realized I'm missing a few pictures of my electronics install that I'll need to get on my computer.
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By l3w1sb159
#4949704
Nice work, it's a buzz when the thrower starts coming together, probably the most complicated stage with all the moving parts and wires to have to keep track of in such a small space. I have to admit though; compared to my resin thrower your gun box is roomy AF.
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By JWils23
#4949710
Thanks man! Yea it really does come together quickly, especially when you have 99% of the parts and nothing is holding you up. That is one thing I noticed with this thrower versus my other TC one, a little more room to work. Even then though, if you’ve got big hands they are not fun to try and work with especially once the gun box starts filling up. I’ve dropped my fair share of frustrated F bombs when I can’t quite get my fingers somewhere to thread a nut or something! :lol:
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By JWils23
#4949731
Thanks Q-Man! I ordered my gun body in September of 2019 so it definitely took a long time. But RJ and his wife had a baby and then the pandemic happened in the meantime so I knew there would be delays. I’m still waiting on my rear cylinder and gun track discs so mine isn’t fully complete. I’ve ordered a lot of parts from RJ over the years and his quality is unmatched, so while the wait can be long (especially due to current circumstances) the product is worth it.
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By Q-man
#4949734
Ok wow that's good to know, I'll sit down and buckel up. It is definitely worth the wait. I also got the flash bulb from cs prop shop hope you got that sorted out.

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