Dreadnought’s Boba Fett EE-3 carbine rifle kit build

[Dreadnought]

Hi all. While the preparation of other parts of my costume go on in the background, I thought I’d do a thread of my carbine rifle kit build. This kit from April Storm Props has two advantages over many other similar Boba Fett blaster kits. Firstly, it is not unreasonably priced. Secondly, as it was produced in Australia, I was able to avoid the potential Customs headaches of importing it into the country.
So, to paraphrase the Rifleman’s Creed, this is my EE-3 blaster. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Here is the kit straight out of the box:

After quite a bit of sanding to remove most rough spots (although I did want to leave some texture as the original blaster is certainly not nice and smooth), print lines and excess plastic around the edges (including the 5 fins on the top of the barrel that support the printing process), the parts were washed and dried ready for gluing. The glue I used was PVC cement, usually used in plumbing. It slightly melts the ABS plastic to create a strong weld.

After a little bit of shaving of the edges of the handle to get it to fit into the slot, I glued the handle to the stock:

Next, gluing some of the smaller parts of the kit: the knobs to the scope, the end to the barrel and the ‘skull’ greeblies on both sides of the stock.



I filed and sanded the scope mounting block until it sat snugly in the divet on the top of the barrel. Then I lined up this mounting block with the one that was already part of the main section of the gun - this gave me the position for the barrel so it could be glued.

Gluing the trigger and the trigger guard was a big pain in the sarlacc but eventually I got there. With the scope also glued, it was time to leave it all overnight.

Next step will be the painting.