Awesome job my man, its looking great. I love the chest add-on. Great job as always.
Thanks my friend, I appreciate that.
Well, it's time for an update!
I have been working on a way to attach the chest and back together for a little while now and I finally finished mocking it all up, just have to finish reinforcing some areas with good ole loctite putty. Here are some pics to show what I came up with.The two rods attached to the lower half of the chest slide into the two pieces of tubing attached to the lower half of the back.
I put two magnets (stacked) on the back side of each tubes. It pulls pretty good. You get a nice click as it draws them together. I bought these magnets at Walmart(they are located in the craft section,FYI) for around $4.00 a pack.
Now for the top half. I fabbed up a couple of brackets out of some thin steel plates we had laying around the shop and added small pieces of bar stock to center the chest once it's on, then glued two magnets per side to hold the chest up. It locks in nice and tight. I'm pretty happy with it.
Next up is something most of you have seen in my thread already, my CQB attachment.
Not much has changed on it since you la.......................wait a second?! What's that? Did that..............no......it couldn't have.....did it?! Oh yes it did!!!
I started on the knife by separating it from the sheath. Then, I was just going to clean up the inside of the sheath a little to accept the new blade.....wrongooo. This is what it looked like inside.....solid.
So I had to pep a new sheath, resin it, then put a thin coat of rondo on the inside. Made a new foam detail piece, weathered, dry brush, etc., call it done.
For the knife, I found a pep file named.....knife. I don't know who made the file or I would credit them for it. (if you do, please tell me) I just pepped the blade portion, then resined it.
Next I cut a piece of thin steel to length and notched the sides so the rondo would grip around it and lock it in place. I used steel in the blade so I could simply put a magnet in the sheath to hold it in place, which I still need to do.
Next, I filled the blade with a thin batch of rondo, and pushed the metal insert inside the blade and let it cure. Then I put a ton of "really" hot glue in the handle, pushed the insert in and let it cool, repeated this until the handle was full and the blade was secure. I finished around where the handle meets the blade with loctite putty, sanded and painted the blade and handle base matte aluminum metallic followed by two coats of flat black. The blade is surprisingly sharp considering it is paper.
I taped off the edge, sprayed more of the matte aluminum in a spray can lid, and hand brushed the edge to give it that sharpened look. Did a little more weathering on the handle and....
Well, that's about it for this week. My progress will slow down somewhat, We have a little work to do in the shop so, once that's complete, I'll hit it hard again. If anyone likes the the techniques I have used in this build....please, by all means, use them. I love figuring out different ways to do things and sharing them with you guys and gals. After all, that's why we're here, to share and learn together. I know if someone hadn't been here to show me the way when I got started, you wouldn't be looking at this thread right now. So keep it going 405th, "LET'S KEEP BUILDING TOGETHAAAAARRRRRRRR"!
