My latest goof off project

Submitted to Community Chat

A friend of mine owns an antique shop specializing in antique sporting goods. He occasionally stops by with items that are either incomplete, or too damaged to resell, because he buys lots from estates, and basically has to take everything in that lot. He likes my creations, because I mix new and old items to come up with unique stuff that actually works. For example did you know that coleman lantern and stove tanks were solid brass until the late 1960's?
 
He bought a huge barnful of stuff about 6 months ago, and dropped off four boxes of junk. lol One of the boxes had bags and bags of broken air pistols that were disassembled.
 
I wish I had been on this site before I started working on this one, because then I would have thought to take a picture of the bag of parts. This is a Benjamin air pistol that is still being made by crosman, so I wasn't worried about having to make parts, because I could still order them. I had started on this before my surgery, and had it mostly done.
 
I know nothing about firearms, and I wouldn't try to work on a real one because that could get dangerous really quick. Airguns are a different story though. I have kids, but they are all grown and gone, so I'm not worried about children getting ahold of it anyway.
 
The grip was split badly, so I cut the old one away as much as I could. It's just cheap plastic, so a coping saw did it easily. The new grip is the thin birch laminated plywood that you can buy at craft stores and hobby shops. I laminated several sheets together to get a neat effect. I shaped it with my dremel tool, sanded it out smooth. I laminated the aluminum in with JB Weld, and the blue stripe is PVC scrap.
 
Like I said, I don't know anything about firearms, but I love watching the olympics, so I googled pictures of olympic pistols. I thought the grips looked cool, So I just started sanding away till I liked how it fit in my hand. Really scientific huh? lol
 
I tried several different stains, but no matter what I did, they looked drab and muddy. I decided to start experimenting, and that brilliant blue color is actually Dykem steel industrial layout fluid. I wish I could capture the effect on my camera. It actually has a mother-of-pearl effect. The shades of blue turn from indigo to neon depending on how the light hits it.
 
This changed the whole idea behind my redo. I decided to go Sci-fi. It's a combo of star wars, blade runner, and valerian.
 
I also included a picture of what the pistol looks like straight from crosman to show kind of what I started with. The beaver tail, at least thats what the website called it, is formed from Bondo body filler.
 
All the paints are rustoleum charcoal metallic, and black night metallic, and I used Zinsser spar poly for the grip. The red bracket holding the flashlight I anodized using the youtube video "How to color aluminum from WalMart supplies". It's actually super easy, but time consuming. And yes, everything for it came from walmart. It's also a lot safer than the old way, because it uses pool chemicals, instead of vicious acids.
All in all, this project took 5 months, with a few moments stolen here and there, but I love it. Pop cans are now cowering in fear!