Improve the looks of a SCAR

[Killbucket]

The guy who came to put gutters on my house fell in love with the black shorty. Time to build a new one. Since this gun is generating some questions, I'll photograph the process this time:
SCAR lovers, find a Xanax...
We're going to start with God's gift to the (formerly considered "ugly") AUG: The Special forces Combat Assault Rifle. This won the competition for M4 replacement in the future (right after we finish adapting the metric system), mostly because a better-looking rifle showed up without a blank firing attachment.
The fishy buttstock is the worst offender, now there's two in the parts box (in with the M4 spares, even though it's design makes it about impossible to put on an M4 with a forward assist).
Our victim is a JLS SCAR, from my friends at Kapowwe. This gun comes WITH metal bushings, and a decent piston and motor as well!
Remove the rails, the little bumpers on each side, remove the take-down pins. Carefully lift the rear of the upper away, like you would an M4 variant. Have BOTH take-down pins out, and the parts will play nice coming apart.

Remove all the inner parts from the uppers, put them in a nice box, bin, or bag. Then tape the upper halves back together.
We're going to make two saw cuts with a mitre box. One at 2.72 inches, and another at 5.72 inches, removing 3" from the overall length.
NOTE: We're only cutting the plastic uppers at this point, the rails will be addressed later.

We want to remove exactly three inches. to do this:

Cut on the FAR SIDE of the first line. Your saw cut will go through the "scrap", rather than material you want to keep. This next shot will depict this well:

Then we cut on the NEAR side of the 5.72" cut line.
This leaves a perfect 3" hole in the middle of the receiver parts.
Now de-burr the INSIDES of the cut edges only. Use 220 sandpaper to trim the outer edges/masking tape away, leaving nice clean edges, with the cut edge of the outer surface as pristine as possible.

Sand or trim if needed, you want the parts to align as well as possible. If you used a mitre box like I did, you won't have to tune anything either.

Once you have the parts aligned and taped together, you will notice that (invariably) one side or the other will align better.
This is the first side you glue up. Open the joint, and put glue here:

Now, walk away...just walk away...leave it alone long enough to write half a tutorial, eat a Payday bar (yummy), play with a photo editor.
About an hour will do.
Now carefully remove the front bit that isn't glued yet. Trim away any glue that may have migrated during the previous step.

Glue this into place as shown, make sure the outside surfaces match up exactly. The glue grabs quickly, so just hold the parts a moment, and then gently set them down.
Go to Starbuck's, it will kill some time that you may spend mucking with this (or build a 1919A4 while you wait for the glue to dry)...
The finished glue bonds:

Next, the inner frame.
Find some J-B Quick Weld for this step.

First, mark the hole locations for the rails.
Shop Tip:
Use a tiny drill to make pilot holes. If you are off the mark, it will be very, very little off! Then enlarge the holes to about 4mm with a bigger drill.
Then we saw the lower rail mount/inner frame apart, as shown below:


I would normally cut off the lower rail flush here:

But I think I might want to put a flashlight under this. I can always cut it off later...

The inner frame needs to sit inside of the front lips of the upper body.

Then the screws on the other side are put in, and we have our cut-off parts properly placed. Get some JB Weld, I wanted to try DevCon, so that's what you see here. Most important is to clean the surfaces with acetone or something similar to remove any oil from your fingers or the saw blade. Otherwise, the bonds won't hold.

SHOP TIP:
A Post-It pad and a box of tooth picks come in handy here. start with two toothpicks, and use one for each tube, to avoid any cross-contamination. Also, you can just pick up the amount you need without making any mess or wasting material. One post-it pad, one box of toothpicks, and a pair of epoxy tubes will last seemingly forever, using this method. I used to mix up at LEAST four times as much as I needed each time, just squeezing the tubes onto a piece of scrap. How about you? Look close at the two inset pics, you can just make out the bonds. this is just to hold things for the next step.

If everything is happily aligned when the epoxy sets, then build up the assembly with some more putty. I placed the inner barrel thru for a few moments to make sure the epoxy cleared it, then pulled it out and let the epoxy harden.

I seem to have about a hundred M14 rails here...may as well put them to use.

In painting the parts, there was some lifting over the flat black I had previously put into the upper vent slots. No problem, I'll just grab the Jasco....then the phone rang, and a lengthy bench-racing session ensued. It was over an hour before I thought about these parts again.
Needless to say, the plastic was softened about a sixteenth of an inch in, under the coating. I rinsed them thoroughly with water and detergent, and walked away for a few days (hence the gap in work on this project).
After the plastic had hardened back up, it was a bit bumpy, and the paint was staying on for good.
How to rescue these parts? Starting with 80grit, I sanded them smooth and used spackle to fill the low areas. At this point, all I have to do is hit them with new texture paint, and they're nice enough to use again. Skip that, I've covered them in carbon fiber. Pics to come...

So here's how the internals will pretty much lay out. A few things to look at here. Nine cells are used, nominal voltage is 10.2, but the old Beckman reads 11.64volts with no load. The Cap is for the burst fire function, and the relay got its housing carefully cut away to make it fit.
Yes, those contacts look tiny. This gun, and every gun you've seen me build, is powered by a STOCK motor (my beloved Marui Thompson is the only gun I have with an aftermarket motor), so there have been no issues with them. This is the 35th or so relay I've used in a gun, I haven't had to replace any yet.
There's two ribs in the front of the SCAR body upper. These hold the stock AK-style stick pack in place. Removing these allows this battery layout to be used. The green loop to the front is a safety, the idea is to yank this if the gun tries to melt down (call me nuts, I skip fusing). I'll rework this to just have one bullet plug at the front, so I won't need to tear into the gun or use a Buck-knife to save it in case of mishap.
The miniplug at the gearbox rear will allow a plug-in grip switch to control the AutoBurst circuit. With the cable unplugged, the gun reverts to normal operation. I may add an interrupt switch to the gearbox selector, so the AutoBurst only functions in single-shot mode (Using the AutoBurst button during Automatic fire mode makes the gun shoot those extra shots after you let go. You may not be planning this to happen, and pull your gun off-target while it is still firing. Friendly fire, anyone?).

And now here's the buttcap construction. This could be done with about any gun out there. Isn't epoxy putty great stuff? I gotta start buying this by the case, and build a mixing machine.

[pOkiE]

I must say..that is pretty awesome looking! where do you store the battery with no stock?

[Dynamo]

fantasy guns make me punk in my mouth *urg*

[Killbucket]

The battery will go in the stock location, inside the upper, above the gearbox. Once I modify the bolt slide/cover, up to ten mini cells will fit. The black gun at the start of the post had a 12v battery inside.

I build Replicas of Antique Browning 1917's, 1919's, and M2's for a living. When I build a "fantasy" gun, it's just to shed some "historic accuracy" usually. Please, just ignore my posts, you know they aren't for you now.

Just like there's a lesson in every failure, there may be some technique or method shown here that might make a more "sane" project easier for somebody.

While painting the uppers for the SCAR, I left some paint stripper a few minutes too long, and...disaster...how many folks have done this? The plastic was all softened, coming off with the paint in goopy hunks...what to do?

Wait till you see...and be sure some people will ask "WHY?"...

[Kokanee]

Well you can certainly be applauded for thinking outside the box on this one. Although I personally would be considered a "purist" when it comes to airsoft rifles/pistols, you've obviously got the talent and are putting in alot of effort on this project. It ain't my cup of tea, but I still have to say bloody good job, and I am interested to follow along and see the finished result.

Actually taking a second look, I can't think of any reason this shorty of yours couldn't be done in realsteel... Remove the stock and shorten the barrel/gas system, voila!

Would you mind posting some pics of your other work up in the Media section perhaps?

[Killbucket]

And now I have enough scrap to add 6" to another one, and make a "SCAR-Long".

[IRONSIGHT]

As long as your doing these mods to JLS SCARs' only! It definately looks better than the stock one as they they are a poor copy to begin with as the receiver's too tall, cocking handle slots not long enough etc. but those mistakes by JLS actually save you some work when doing the "shorty". Now all you need is a drop leg holster for it.LOL!

[Killbucket]

I only cut up "cheap" guns. Yes, this avoids offending people who revere the more expensive models. And allows me many more projects on the same money.
And a correction: The JLS SCAR comes with ball bearings on the input and output shafts, I had erroneously stated they were metal bushings.

[swatt13]

i really like that shorty. i would take it a step further and mod a g36 stock on the back or even an mp5a5 stock. the shortened front end is very nice.

[Killbucket]

More pics added.

[Killbucket]

More info and pics added.