Building the Rebel Persona: 5.2 – Blaster rifle

Once I had made enough progress on the research front to begin crafting the ‘outer persona’ for a Rebel impression, and had made plans to debut ‘Citizen Olis’ at a summer camp presentation on wilderness survival, I knew I’d need some kind of blaster. While I talk with my hands and demonstrate a fair amount during workshops, it’s still nice to have a blaster at your hip or on a sling, etc., as it underlines the always-armed attitude of a partisan guerilla:

“…All Home Guardsmen should be sons of guns—their rifles should always be ready to hand…whether you go to a tea-party or to work on your allotment, or to your office, factory, shop or field, take your rifle with you. When you go upstairs to bed, take it with you…you can’t be too careful, but you certainly can be too careless.” —“Yank” Bert Levy, Guerrilla Warfare, 1942. p43.

At the beginning of this year, I had started slowly retooling the DL-44 which I had scratchbuilt way, way back in 2005 (from a blueprint I made by enlarging—by hand!—photos of a Mauser C96 in a magazine I found in a bookstore dumpster!). It was the first movie-prop I’d ever built, and it turned out decent for a block of oak:
However, I then went on to spend the next ten+ years honing my skills by crafting other dummy guns—Mk IV Webley, Mk II Sten gun, M1A1 Thompson, GSS-221 (AVTR), Model 47 (Firefly), MP40—plus sculptures, paintings, and plenty of functional gear. Naturally, a decade of personal improvement in a skillset will make items produced earlier look a little… unrefined. Like any hardcore Star Wars aficionado, I consider the DL-44 to be the coolest non-lightsabre weapon in science fiction (a belief due, no doubt, to the immutable fact that the Mauser C96 is the coolest handgun ever designed!), but as a blaster, it’s too recognizably linked with a certain scoundrel-turned-hero for me to feel right using it for a Rebel militiaman persona (that may change, but for now I needed something that immediately read as ‘Rebel’).

Now, when I started cleaning up the ’44, I also came across my interpretation of an Episode IV model DH-17 which I had scratchbuilt in the summer of 2006.
I always liked the DH-17 (otherwise why did I make one all those years ago?) but I’ve since found the Episode IV model to be a little…ray gun-ish, and the rebel troopers’ two-handed grips certainly contribute to the impression that the blaster is more of an wimpy pistol than a proper Blaster Rifle befitting a rebel soldier. However, I didn’t have a lot of other options—I definitely didn’t feel like putting together an E-11 (not that there would be anything wrong with a rebel guerilla packing a captured Stormtrooper’s blaster—maybe someday!), and the A-280 never appealed to me in a design sense (I think it’s the M16 parts plus the ugly triangle-buttstock that turn me off), so the DH-17 would have to do…but not in its current incarnation.

Back when I built this piece the first time (c. 2006), it was a relative dark age for the replica prop-building world (I’m not even sure if The Replica Prop Forum existed yet??), when the PVC Blaster Builder’s Club was the pinnacle of scratchbuilding know-how. Looking back with a modern eye, the tutorials I read there would today be fine for making close-enough Halloween blasters on a budget, but the exponential spread of the internet in the decade since has, I feel, helped to massively raise the collective bar for quality.
In other words, if I was going to use a DH-17 as a rebel militaman, I was going to have to revisit my old project and clean it up in light of what I knew now. Who knows, maybe in another ten years I’ll take it back apart and build it back again even better!

Since I knew I didn’t want to simply ‘accurate-ize’ my 2006 interpretation of the Episode IV model, I dug through my reference materials to see what other options I had. From what I can tell, every time this weapon appears it is slightly different, which is more than a little frustrating! Further digging showed that most subsequent print versions were based on the blaster produced for Episode VI (but never seen onscreen?), which included a magazine, a vented receiver tube, long top rail, and a ton of extra greeblies on the receiver:
As this prop was built on a different version of the Sterling SMG (one made by MGC instead of an actual original L2A3), I opted to replicate the Episode V version, which omitted the vent holes but retained the rear-shifted trigger group of the Episode IV one. The fact that the very little-seen Episode V props were all complete castings meant that the existing props (which show up in museum exhibits etc) look a little rough around the edges:
Since the blaster looks different every time it shows up, I decided to create an idealized, ‘happy medium’ interpretation of the full-size DH-17, including a magazine housing in the earlier forward position, removable magazine, functional D-ring, a small number of greeblies, fire selector buttons, and realistic weight that would feel appropriately heavy in my hand.
After months of piecemeal work, I am glad to finally show off the end result:

Here’s a overview of what went into it.
-solid-cast grip and trigger assembly from TK560 – $20)
-removed trigger (in the event of public ‘Imperial entanglements’, none of my prop weapons have triggers)
-added a nylon triggerguard.
-replaced PVC end cap with solid cast butt cap (TK560 – $8)
-installed metal D-ring (quick link) with fine hexhead screws (to approximate the look of rivets:
-added ¼” forward of top rail
-replaced phillips drywall screws on scope attachment rail with star-drive.
-replaced scratchbuilt rear sights with those from an old Hasbro E-11.
-Front cone shortened on lathe
-fire setting buttons (wood) (x5 @ 23¢ =$1.15)
-mag housing—Pepakura (plans from user ‘ZeroRoom1’)
-magazines—laminated scrap wood, with grease fittings for functional-looking greeblies (x4 @ $2.39? $9.56—by far the most expensive, smallest detail!)
-added a few pounds of lead (distributed throughout in round ball form) to bring the final weight to 4 pounds!

I made a pair of magazines (because how else am I gonna reload??) that fit in one side of my leather ammo pouch:

Based on details seen in Ep IV publicity shots of Han Solo’s belt gear, I went with grease fittings to approximate some kind of power cell ‘contacts’:
The museum exhibit prop above  shows a much shorter magazine than what is on the E-11, so I had to add a spacer block inside the ammo pouch to make the mags easy to reach.

ADDENDUM: Since finishing the initial build, I later went back and cast some V8 motor halves and added those to the sides of the receiver, which brings things much closer to finished. (Still need some knobs for the scope, and maybe that crankshaft greeblies as well.) The partisan-y sling is simply a web belt from the thriftstore with some Vietnam-era hardware. What do you think?

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