Talon Claw T4 Build

[Penatr8tor]

Welp, I've been looking for a fun project to build and while watching Steve Builds this past weekend... He mentioned that he was going to build a 3D printed Nerf Blaster for his Charlie's Angels stream this Saturday (05/27).

After a bit of research, I settled on the Talon Claw T4 designed by Captain Slug. I also ordered an insanely overpriced hardware kit. With shipping it totaled out to $75 USD, but hey... it's not about the price, it's about the build right? FWIW, I got my kit from Out of Darts, Talon Claw T4 kit. The printable files can be found on Thingiverse. 

Disclaimer: The picture below is not the color scheme I'm going with nor am I going to build an angled magwell version. But it is close enough to get an idea. And yes... there are full auto electric ones, etc, etc. and maybe the next one will be more complex, but this is going to be the one I cut my NERF teeth on. 

 

So stay tuned, because this build diary, while it uses 3D printed parts and off the shelf hardware just like a printer, it's not about building a printer...  it's about building a nerf gun. 

 

[Penatr8tor]

OK, So it's been a busy week for me and I didn't have a lot of time to post up my progress so... Here it goes... everything all in one shot.

I got my hardware kit for the Talon Claw 4 yesterday. Before that... I started printing parts. I'm going to give some credit to the designer Captain Slug... Every part lands in the correct orientation for printing and none of the parts require a brim or supports. Yay!

First up is the Talon Claw Configurator... I went with a mostly classic color scheme, and I had filament in these colors so there yeah, there ya have it LOL. I know my two buddies are going to want me to print them up some parts for their builds and having a good design helps with the printing.

Parts printing on the RatRig V-Minion

...and the RatRig V-Core

...and the Voron 2.4

 

Here are all of the printed parts.

 

...and the hardware kit

 

And Finally... the finished Nerf Blaster.

Super fun build overall.

Some thoughts on the build, printed parts and hardware... 

The basic parts were easy enough to find online, I still have to find some decent sights and a butt stock (I think these two items will be something I'll design myself).

Printed Parts:

The STL's are pretty low resolution. Anything cylindrical or rounded is faceted to the extent where the slicer treats the geometry as a polygon and not circular. The parts still worked though.

Hardware Kit:

The hardware kit contained enough fasteners, parts, etc to get through the build without something custom or missing until I got to the trigger assembly. It required a pin to be pressed into two parts. Well, the parts had a 2mm hole and I got 1mm dia pins in the kit. I can tell you... there was no press fit happening with those pins so... I had to pull out my pin assortment. No big deal really but hey... this kit cost me $75 US after shipping. I mean, I get it too. Niche market, not a lot of sales, etc, etc. But... if you're going to charge a premium, then ship quality parts at the very least. All the screws and nuts were zinc plated, The aluminum strips were all scratched and nicked and a few of them had marks where holes were started in the wrong spot and then aborted. Maybe I'm being hyper-critical but the strips are bearing surfaces for sliding components. In the end it all worked out but, the quality of components could have been better.

Instructions:

The instructions were adequate in my opinion and I've seen worse. So here are my main gripes... The manual was a PDF and the images were black and white and muddy looking. It was difficult to tell what goes where and in what order. Some parts, like the muzzle were left out completely. I found myself having to read forward to try and figure out if what I'm doing at one stage doesn't interfere with something coming afterwards. Apart from me crying about the manual... it worked. Below is a screen grab.

Again, It's was fun build. I will build more and I will play around with designing some fun stuff and in spite of my bitching... It's a worthwhile project and a lot of fun to build.