Built by me, this is another one of those kits that has literally been "on the bench" for three or four years. I acquired the kit many years ago from a Canadian concern, and it went straight into a box. I had long entertained dreams of building a fully functional rifle kit, complete with lights, sounds, etc. Like so many other prop dreams, this one went unfullfilled.
I've recently had a great deal of success in building up props quickly, now that I've adopted my new prop making philosophy: Better to have a finished kit that isn't perfect than a perfect kit that isn't finished. This allowed me to be "ok" with some of the little flaws that pop up along the way. Ever time I've used this technique, the prop usually ends up looking pretty good, so I guess it's not such a bad deal after all.
This kit was painted using the incorrect color codes, but they are the closest matches to what should have been used. I believe the original rifles to be painted with 7173 and 7179. Since those colors have since been reformulated by Plasti-Kote, and are now much too dark, I substituted 1004 and 1006 respectively. The 1004 is very close to 7173, but has a bit of a blue tint to it. The 1006 is a bit too dark, and a little more splotchy, but it works in a pinch. I used kyrlon semi flat black for the black parts, and tamiya black for the striping on the side control panels.
At the time these pictures were taken, I had not quite finished the scope. There is a yellow piece that is missing from the top of it. This piece was lost by me during the initial cleaning of the rifle parts three weeks prior to this posting. I searched everywhere for the parts, and was even tempted to ask some of my friends if they had "accidentally" picked up the pieces while visiting. Luckily (or perhaps unluckily!) the pieces surfaced when I turned on the garbage disposal on my kitchen sink. The pieces were totall chewed up, but the mystery of their disappearance was solved. It looks like they slipped down the drain after I was done washing the kit parts prior to painting. I ended up scratch building a replacement part, which is currently awaiting payment. However, because the rifle is almost finished, I decided to post pictures on my website. I expect to have the scope complete by the end of the weekend.
Due to time constraints, and the fact that I just wanted to get the piece finished, I decided not to include the strap on the left hand side of the rifle. I can always add this in later if I really want to.
Special thanks to phasers.net for the priceless reference material. They have a full page dedicated to the history of the rifle at http://www.phasers.net/2370/type3abr.htm
