Beam Rifle Issues

So what exactly is the issue with my OYW RX-78-2 beam rifle? Well where to start?!

Initially it started off as a relatively minor problem. The peg that lets the beam rifle attach to the shield and back pack was stuck at an 80 degree angle instead of a 90 degree one so the beam rifle didn't fit in flush the way I wanted it to.

Why? Because of the way the paint dried on the peg. It was painted at that angle (didn't check properly I guess) and when the paint dried it got stuck in that position. I couldn't loosen it. The peg is supposed to fold up into the beam rifle when not in use. Like the bazooka. And after just checking it to see if it moves (as I'm writting this actually), I've come to realize that it doesn't.

More paint issues. Same problem. I'm just glad that I painted it with the peg out and not in other wise I'd have a more serious problem... hmm... what to do about that? I'll figure it out next time. Right now I'm just going to leave it alone. I don't want a repeat of what happened this time.

But what happened exactly? I used 'force' to try and push it back into place. Bad idea.

Sometimes it works but not this time. It broke. OK no problem. I can fix the peg.

I take apart the beam rifle and it breaks on me... ouch. Straight break. I can fix it with glue. OK moving along... got to get the peg out. It doesn't happen. The paint has totally wedged it in. By the time I get it out it's in 4 pieces.

At this point I'm considering just ordering another peg from BANDAI but then I said to myself "Why go through the hassle when you haven't even tried to fix it yet?"

I tried and it seemed to work.

Tried to put it back into place but silly me... again... I used a bit to much pressure on an already fragile piece and it broke... again.

Damn.

I decide I'm just going to put the salvageable part of the peg in and seal up the gap with some putty. Doing this won't allow the peg to fold into the rifle but at least I'll be able to attach it to the MS itself.

Working with putty is kind of a pain because it actually melts the plastic. The stabilizer handle joint of the rifle became loose and broke off. I don't really know how that happened but I remember it feeling really soft like it'd be burned off or something.

And then I moved. I lost that handle. After searching for a while I found it again and tried to attach it tonight. The pic below shows where I damaged the rifle during this whole process. The part below the sensor is where the rifle cracked when I was trying to disassemble it. The part in front of the trigger is where the putty melted the plastic.

Again because of the putty all the movement in the handle is going to be gone. That's OK though since it's not really an important joint. Decided I'm going to seal up the whole joint and sand it down later. Not going to be a conventional RX-78 beam rifle but whatever. Right now I'm just doing damage control. Quite literally.

However I did start to sand down the putty I put in earlier and put in a bit of design and it seemed to work out well... but I sanded down the peg a bit too much and found that the fit was quite loose when I tried to attach it to the MS's backpack. After painting that might not be a problem but I decided not to chance it and put a bit more putty on it to thicken it up a bit. I mean since I had it out and was doing work on that area.

When it's dry I'll do a bit of light sanding to get it symmetrical and then test the fit.
In the end... is a difference of 10 degrees really worth all of the trouble?

Well all I can say is 'Live and learn'. That's what this blog is all about.

I am a beginner after all.