Club Obi Wan

New to the forum, so I'm happy to share my first post - my "con friendly" Indy revolver. I have the metal Denix Webley, which while nice (if a bit too small and obviously not SA) is not very con safe. Since I'm upgrading my Indy costume I figured I needed a good revolver to carry. However, being on a budget I needed to work on the cheap, so decided to try modding a UHC .357 spring airsoft I had lying around:

Clearly, the barrel and grips are the most immediate issue, and the hammer is incorrect as well. So, I started with removing the barrel, then the grips. I also took out all the internal workings and glued the hammer and trigger in place so they wouldn't move making it more con safe. There was a plunger mechanism to power the airsoft so the grips were hollow plastic. I took the plunger out of the housing, filled it with pennies glued together and replaced it. This game some heft to the gun. I sanded and reshaped the grips the best I could without having to do too much filling and sanding. I still may go back and redo them at some point or if I can get cheap replicas of more accurate grips I'll replace them entirely. I added a 4" barrel from pvc overtop of a dowel. The cylinder still opens and I have some inert rounds in there (which I will remove at shows). I was torn between the ramp sight of the Bapty and the blade sight of the Stembridge, but decided to go with the blade site. I made the blade from styrene with a small "tail" that fit into a plastic base, then the whole thing on the barrel. This added a lot of stability to the sight. I sculpted the barrel lug from epoxy putty and glued it to the underside of the barrel. The whole thing got a good sanding, and painted with flat black. I gave the grips a wood grain look with layered paint, and went over the trigger and hammer with graphite powder. I sealed it all with Future, and gave the grips a matte varnish. I still need to add more graphite to the body and add some weathering to the edges, but at this point it was mostly done. Added a lanyard ring and made a removable bright orange barrel plug. Not 100% SA and still have a few flaws but it will do as a costume piece and was a practice to make a much more SA version with much better grips.
The end result:




Feedback/comments always welcome!!

UPDATE: A few more pics in better light with my Todd's Costumes holster:

Holy cow! Outstanding! That's really impressive work.


Regards,

Indiana Jeff

Looks fantastic!

Thanks!! Still hoping to redo the grips at some point but this will work for now.

That looks awesome but sad to say after what happened recently they probably won't let any gun in cons anymore. Hope they do though 'cause that looks awesome!

Well done!

Great transformation!

Thanks guys. I was actually able to score one of the HFC HG-131 airsoft revolvers which will need some modding as well so this has helped as a practice run.

chenricy - Yes, that was really too bad that all that happened, but (so far at least) the next Con I'm attending (Anime Expo here in LA) is still allowing replica firearms as long as they meet the requirements (which is why I have will add a bright orange barrel plug and made the hammer and trigger non working). Hopefully that won't change.

I've since added more graphite from a 6B pencil and a layer of matte varnish which has improved the overall look. I still need to do some drybrushing to weather a few edges and I want to lighten the hammer and trigger colors.
I'm also not 100% happy with the grips as they are still just a bit too wide. After I get through the upcoming Cons I will try shaping the grips down more to get a more accurate look. And an actual lanyard ring instead of just a small D ring.

Then I can move on to the HG-131 conversion which I will do as the Bapty and have both options!

Nice work, thanks for sharing.