Building An E-11 Stormtrooper Blaster
I was nine years old when Star Wars exploded on the screen and warped me for life. And like every other kid in the theater back then, I wanted some of that hardware. Over the years I’ve built or acquired some of the props, but I’ve never had a Stormtrooper blaster, until now. I set out in December 2019 just after Christmas to build my own, kicking off the first 3D prints while there were still lights on my house and A Wonderful Christmas Time stuck in my head (man I hate that song).
It all started with a trip to Thingiverse, where after a little hunting and vetting, I settled on a pair of models by TK14082. Yes, I said pair of models, because the designer thoughtfully crafted them to mimic the real life genesis of the blaster, a kit bashed real gun. Back in the 70’s the blasters were actually Sterling sub machine guns with parts attached to them. So I downloaded TK14082’s Sterling SMG model, and the E-11 Blaster Accessory set. The detail and accuracy of the models is stunning, obviously a labor of love. They’re a little data heavy, but worth every polygon. I’d like to give a huge shout out to TK14082, most impressive!
Then began the long haul of printing. I decided to split the printing between my Prusa i3 Mk3 FDM printer and my Elegoo Mars SLA printer. The parts that didn’t require a ton of detail, or needed to be a bit stronger I printed in black filament. Everything else was printed in black Elegoo ABS-like resin. I lost count of all the parts I printed, but it was somewhere around 50, which took weeks to do. I was also working on Lost in Space and Watchmen at the time, so it was a matter of kicking off a print in the morning, come back the next morning to process it and kick off another. I’m sure if I had been babysitting the printers I could have been done much quicker, but I wasn’t in any particular hurry.
In tandem with all the printing was the sanding, lots and lots of sanding. When I did have some time in the studio, or as life would have it, camping in my Airstream, I was sanding. I decided that even before I applied any primer I’d try to get the parts as smooth as possible, so I broke out the sanding sticks, twigs and paper and generated copious amounts of dust.
While this was all happening I was also bouncing back and forth between other projects like the Challenge Coins and I also decided to remodel my studio. It was originally set up as a LEGO stop motion animation studio and a place to make YouTube videos for my other company BrickNerd. Over the years more and more non-LEGO jobs kept coming in and those required a certain amount of fabrication, so I converted the lounge area into a makerspace. Then animation work pretty much dried up and I was spending all my time in the smallest room of the studio while the biggest was unused. It was getting pretty cramped so I decided to swap the spaces. I’m glad that I did, but it was days and days of hard work, and during the move the place was absolutely wrecked.
Now that the move was done, the parts were all printed and the sanding was done, it was time to start laying some paint. For the FDM parts I started with a coat of filler primer, followed by yet more sanding. Some parts necessitated multiple coats of primer to get them totally smooth. It’s not that I have anything against layer lines, I think of them as a natural consequence of the material they’re made of, like wood grain or machine marks. But when I’m attempting to replicate a finish, in this case a WWII surplus machine gun with parts stuck on it, I do what I need to get to the appearance of that finish.
I also took some time to fabricate a spring for the bolt return. The model included a spring, but I didn’t want to print it. Not only would it be prohibitively fragile, it would be next to impossible to smooth and finish. So I opted to fabricate my own by wrapping wire from a coat hanger around a dowel. It required a bit of muscle and persuasion, followed by a lot of tweaking, but eventually I got a spring that I thought worked pretty well.
After a few tests I determined I didn’t need to use a primer coat on the resin parts, the Rustoleum flat black I was using had really good adhesion without it. I also experimented with hammer coat paint for the scope. I noticed in my research the scope had a bit of a lumpy finish, like cast metal (I assume brass from the finish) so I masked the ends and laid down a couple coats of hammer finish. This was followed by a coat of matte black and dry brushed with Vallejo brass paint. I also cannibalized a pair of folding binoculars and stole the lenses and after a bit of sanding to get them the right size I glued them in place with UV adhesive. It was a lot of steps, but totally worth the effort, it turned out great.
The next few weeks were spent painting, weathering and finishing parts. Like I said, I was in no particular hurry. For the counter box I painted the numbers in Vallejo bone white and gave it a very light dry brush of brass. I cut a piece of clear plastic from a blister package for the window and glued it in with UV adhesive. All the pictures of magazines I found had a particular worn look that I wanted to replicate, so the mag got a special paint treatment of two coats of airbrushed Tamiya gun metal, followed by three coats of Alclad clear, followed by Rustoleum flat black. I then used some steel wool to carefully remove some of the flat black to reveal the gun metal underneath.
I knew that once it was all together it was going to be pretty light compared to a real prop so where I could I stashed some wheel weights inside. There’s a couple inside the bolt, the magazine is full of them and there’s one or two in the end cap. I also glued a piece of drill rod inside the barrel. Once I had a lot of the small subassemblies done it was time to bring it all together. Most of the parts were simply glued together with CA glue, but some parts were tapped and bolted together. I love using actual fasteners in props, it’s a subtle but effective way to sell authenticity. The weathering was intermittent during assembly, sometimes it made sense to do it before a part went on, sometimes after. The wires from the power cells to the counter were from a pair of vintage flight headphones I had in my garage.
Once it was all together it was time for an overall weather pass of black, burnt umber and burnt sienna oils as well as some gun metal paint and silver rub-n-buff. I should say that during the entire build process I was documenting with video. While this slowed the work a bit, it also allowed me to flex those creative muscles as well. And now that it was finished I wanted to get some beauty shots of it and needed a stand. So I whipped up some parts in Fusion 360, glued those to some salvaged aluminum arrow sections and put them in a base made from wood (cut on my new bandsaw!) it’s ok for what it is, but I’ll probably build a proper stand for it some day. I had been toying with the idea with doing the introduction with some borrowed armor, but by the time I was ready to shoot it, a certain virus came along to throw a wrench in everybody’s plans. So I shot it with my Black Series helmet and the shirt I happened to be wearing that day. Once all that was in the can, it was time for the edit. Three days later, it was done. I’m pretty happy with it, as well as the prop.