postmortem01

Sorry for the delays. Hopefully everyone is happy with their blasters. There are still a few that are en route but I'm wrapping up this coming weekend.

I'm glad you are happy with it. Sorry for the delays.

You can use pretty much anything on these as far as paint goes. Krylon paints will work fine as well as Testers model paints. We generally use flexible bumper coaters but it's not necessary for detail work.

I still have two spots for the DLT-19 first run with weathering included. These will ship next Saturday. Let me know.

These will take 1 week to turn around and ship. I will be shipping on Saturdays so please allow me enough time to get your order built and shipped if you have an upcoming event. These are a lot more work than the old version I used to make back in the day. I'm probably going to throw in the "weathering" for free for the first 5 blasters.

Ok. So i've done some time and materials estimating and here's what I've come up with. DOMESTIC: Firm Rubber DLT-19 (black): $485 shipped in the continental US Charging handle will be shipped inside of the box but not assembled on the blaster Firm Rubber DLT-19 (weathered): $510 shipped in the continental US Charging handle will be shipped inside of the box but not assembled on the blaster INTERNATIONAL: As usual, I'm leery of shipping out of the continental US. I have done it on the E-11s but it's always sketchy. IF you are dead set on getting one of these blasters, I will ship to a US address and from there they can ship to you but I'm going to try NOT to ship outside of the continental US. The reason is that IF this gets stopped by customs it's just too expensive of an item to lose as well as replace / refund for the loss. We have had customers purchase and have them shipped to a friend / fellow 501st member and have them forwarded to them from there. That has worked well but please be advised, you will do this at your own risk. If a "loss" happens as a result, I will do my best to discount a replacement for you but no guarantees.

Yes. I'll be offering weathering for sure. Pricing to come shortly. Trying to figure that out as we speak.

Sorry for the quality-lacking photos. I was in a hurry. I'll shoot some new photos tomorrow. A few bits about this new set of molds and castings. Obviously, we are using the same rubber as we have for years. The muzzle cone is molded separately to provide a deeper, more realistic look. The bipod is molded separately, The receiver cover has been molded separately and the charging handle is molded separately. The charging handle is cast with a metal threaded insert. The gun is molded with a threaded post (10-32). This may be reversed in the future but I have to see if this will work or not. Normally, these will be painted black but this particular blaster has been painted a gun metal grey metallic to show better in photos.

Hey guys. I'm sorry for the delay. Work, play, family, moving, etc. has all been part of why we haven't been active on this project. We actually finished the molds this time last year but you know how it goes. Nathan and I discussed things briefly and I'm probably going to go this alone until work and things settle. I will keep you guys updated. I am currently working on the first casting right now. As far as availability, I'm probably going to just make an initial push on these and then will slow it down to about 4 to 6 of them per month. They are a ton of work and I'm already stretched thin. Pictures to follow shortly.

Hah. I'm excited to see this one. This big guy is like giving birth..... very painful. The way we are molding this one is going to look so good. It's a lot of parts to cast to make one blaster but in the end, it will look far better than anything we've ever made in the past. More accurate, less of a seam, more detail, more love, etc.

Hey Guys. Just an update. We're nearing completion on this new DLT-19 project. We've done a few things that we think will make you all proud. We've molded the receiver cover separately so you will get some detail and depth where is should be on the receiver. We've separated the barrel tip for venting to get rid of the loss of detail at the butt stock. The charging handle will be removable and will have a threaded steel insert in the blaster body. This will give you a metal anchor for the charging handle that won't strip out. Bipod comes glued in place and is not functional. The barrel tip detail is molded separately to give a deeper, more realistic business end to the blaster. These will come painted black as a standard. The fins will come wire wrapped as a standard option. We will offer weathering and butt stock woodgrain (although not canon). Just FYI... A bakelite stock that is painted black is canon for the film.

Hey guys. We are getting ready to close out this week for the weekend blaster build. These will ship on Monday. If you are trying have a blaster to ship on Monday, please let us know before out cutoff tonight. There's always next week... or is there? Mwahhahhahhahhahah!

Room for 3 more people on this weeks run list.

Hey guys. We can fit 4 more people into this weeks run. We are still doing the FREE t-shirt shirt thing for next week or two until we run out so let us know if you are intending on getting on this run or next. We can put aside a shirt for you. Here is the link for the interest list or you can PM Nathan (slave1pilot) or myself and we will manually put you on the list. http://praetorianblasters.com/interest/

These will be continuously available as long as there is a demand. We're working on a extremely elite version of the E-11 also. Just not sure how it will be received. MG-34 is our priority after this week.

Not sure on the pricing yet. We have to finish the molds and cast a set of parts first. These are being cast in multiple parts vs. the old way we used to do it (one piece). This will ensure that you will get better detail and a bit more accuracy. Our old MG-34 that we used was not overly accurate.

Good News Guys!!!! We got the free shirts in and are packaging them for shipment. Watch for the little black envelopes in the mail.

If you are looking for something under $100, there are some really great tutorials that people have done for modifying Kenner blasters or building from PVC tubing. There also used to be a pvc blaster builders club. Not sure if they are still out there or not but I'd give those a shot for sure. Some pretty cool stuff.

As with the E-11s, we will be shipping out free t-shirts with the DLT-19s. We'll give more info on this as we have it.

We're looking at being up and running with the first castings of the DLT-19 in two weeks or less.

No problem. Believe me. We would love to give you guys everything you ask for but unfortunately, we just have to settle for most of it.

You are correct. Could we make these two pieces and make them able to connect? Of course. Would we? No. The reason is above but I will continue to explain. These are considered by some to be "expensive" blasters. When you compare the cost of a rubber blaster (ie. Praetorian, HFX, etc) to a resin blaster, you will find that there is a obvious cost difference. The entire reason behind rubber blasters is structure and durability. Making pieces that separate will, guaranteed, eventually become loose and destroy the structure of the prop. The second reason which is probably more of a concern to everyone else...Cost. These are not held together with pvc tubing or anything like that where the plastic is made to press fit together. I'm not sure how the Doppy blaster is assembled and disassembled but in our case, the main armature that provides the lightweight structure is a length of fiberglass rod. The additional work and fasteners required to do this properly would make this blaster completely cost prohibitive for everyone except a very few. Structure, durability and quality...

This should be a lot of fun. I've wanted to do this blaster this way for over 10 years now. Really looking forward to seeing this one done right.

Couple more pictures...

PRAETORIAN BLASTERS - WHO WE ARE... We've been making blasters for the 501st and other costuming groups for over 10 years. We took a long break and reorganized. Nathan and I talked for a long time about having a different approach to making high-end rubber blasters for the 501st / costumers. What we wanted to focus on was quality. I know I've been saying that a lot lately but the reality is that we are going to great lengths to make these new blasters a much higher quality than what we'd produced in the past by creating molds that have splits designed to minimize the destruction of details. Separate molds for separate parts which not only creates an illusion of separate parts but actually produces separate parts with under cuts and higher detail. We're not interested in producing 20 blasters a week if they are not something we are proud of. The idea of Praetorian Blasters is brought about by the 501st Centurion status maintained on the FISD forum. Requirements have been set to reach "Centurion status". We wanted to make blasters that would excel beyond those requirements and set a new bar of quality. WHAT'S THE PLAN? Nathan and I have started work on the Praetorian DLT-19. We've taken two MG-34s that we have here at work and are combining the best components into one for molding. In the end, this hard rubber blaster will come complete with accurate fins including wire wrap, disc on the side of the grip and box on the feeder port. Things we will be doing that are standard for this blaster: Nozzle will be molded separately - This will allow for greater detail in the cone area where predecessors have had shallow details. This will also alleviate the need to vent expanding foam from the back of the blaster which has destroyed butt stock detail in the past. Receiver top will be molded separately - This will allow for visible "pass thru" area under the lid. When the box insert is in place, you won't actually be able to see through but the depth detail will be very nice. Bipod is molded separately - This bipod will have greater detail in the way we will be molding it. We will be increasing the stability of the connections as well. WHY CAN'T YOU MAKE THAT AREA HOLLOW? There are often questions about how we could go about making the barrels hollow and not clay in certain parts. We always put quality first. The fact is that, yes, we could make the barrel hollow. It would not be rubber at that point. It would need to be plastic or metal. That completely defeats the purpose of the rubber blaster. The entire reason for making blaster from rubber is durability. Secondary reasons are high quality detail and price. The level of detail that is possible with silicone molds and rubber cast parts is by far heads above other materials. We use EXACTLY the same processes and materials for all of the mainstream films and television shows. Aside from that, manufacturing hollow parts and pass thru areas severely drives the cost up. WHY ARE YOU BLASTERS SO EXPENSIVE? We are separating parts and making additional molds to bring you a high level of detail and trying to keep the cost down at an "affordable" level. I put affordable in quotation marks because there is always a discussion about why these blasters are so "expensive" (there they are again). They are not expensive. "Expensive" is relative as well as "affordable". Silicone, if you've ever purchased any for a project is about $100 per gallon. This is for tin-based silicones. With rubber parts, you are almost guaranteed that your molds will produce up to 20 parts before the silicone begins to break down. Many hobbyists and professionals will disagree with my "20" parts statement but it's the truth. You will still be able to pull parts from the mold beyond that number but the quality begins to drop. Higher quality and detail just costs more to maintain. As with our E-11 M38 and M19, we've made multiple molds out of the starting gate to ensure that we don't burn the molds out. We will most likely do the same for this blaster.