Sunday, November 8, 2020

Tutorial: Converting a laspistol

A converted naval officer with a better scaled laspistol.



Over the last few months, I have made a few tutorials, showing how to convert smaller, better-scaled firearms, including a Sister of Battle Boltgun, and a Space Marine plasma rifle. This month, I wanted to create a weapon scaled for human-sized individuals, and decided to convert a laspistol.


Using a razor saw, cut off the barrel and upper part of the laspistol housing.


Again, use a razor saw to cut down the powercell/magazine of the laspistol.


Using a pin vice, drill a 0.6mm hole in the pistol to slot in a piece of 0.6mm brass tubing for the barrel. Cut a small piece of 0.4mm and 0.8mm tubing to make the inner barrel and the barrel’s heat shroud, respectively.


Using small pieces of plastic card, fashion front and rear sights for the weapon.


Although this tutorial is a short one with only 4 major steps, due to the small size of the weapon, it can be finicky work. Therefore, I recommend that you approach it with care and patience. Furthermore, like with my other tutorials, it is really important to have quality tools, such as a pin vice with the proper size drill bits, and a hobby saw (like the JLC Libor Kopeček Universal Razor blade) designed for scale modeling. Good luck to anyone who tries to make a similar pistol! Any comment or questions are welcome!

- Adam Wier
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4 comments:

  1. Old_Man_JusticeNovember 10, 2020 at 9:06 AM

    Another very nicely done conversion. The smaller laspistol, especially for an officer, is a good look and the shotgun resizing is well done as well. I honestly think I miss the boxy casing on the shotgun barrel. I don't know if there is a good way to model that while still getting a more reasonably sized human-scale weapon. The body of the pistol looks great, but I don't really like the change made to the power cell. The power cell and barrel shape are the two features about Imperial las weapons that define their look. You nailed the smaller barrel but the altered power cell doesn't look Imperial to me any longer.

    Still a great conversion though. Very nicely done.

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    Replies
    1. Adam WierNovember 10, 2020 at 11:16 AM

      Thanks for the kind words! I did my best to retain as many of the iconic design elements of the laspistol. It my be a little hard to see in some of the pictures, but the power cell still has all of the detailing of the original, just at a smaller size. I resculpted the little plate on bottom of the power cell. In the future I might need to experiment a little more with the size ratios of the different aspects of the pistol.

      For the shotgun, I wanted to make an automatic one without the need for a pump. In the close quarter combat of a spaceship, the operator would not want to waste time loading in each new shell. In the future, I think I could pretty easily make a really boxy looking design more similar to the original. I would just need to make sure the overall rectangle housing covering the barrel is much thinner.

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  2. (Kym) + Warburton + (Classic40K) November 12, 2020 at 3:03 AM

    Great result; a massive improvement.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousNovember 22, 2023 at 5:01 PM

    This looks great. Thanks for the guide

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