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Here are a few shots of David's unfinished gun before completion. Here's what Dave says about these great shots:
"These are a couple of shots I took during various stages of building the gun. I made the gun just as the original movie guns were made, all outer and inner dimensions and internal workings are the same. Let me point out a couple of minor changes I made :
"A) My gun is all metal (T-6 Aluminum and Brass) with exception of the grips which are Bass wood instead of Bondo filler. The originals used Aluminum, Brass , Phenolic, and Bondo.
"B) Both grips are removable and are attached as the series guns were, with two small 2-56 screws. On the movie gun only the left side was removable and held on by two sided tape.
" C) On the right side panel there are four screws, the two extra smaller 4-40 screws were used to keep the sub tank housing attached and aligned to the right side removable panel. I chose this method because it's a much stronger method than the originals used. The originals used small Brass pins for this job that could loosen up after some use. If you study the series guns you will see they used this same method as part of the heavy modifications that were done to make them more durable for filming during the series.
"D) The last modification I did was for safety. I rotated the Hawker Cyclone Battery (originally called Gates) 90 degrees inward, putting both battery terminals inside the gun. The main reason for this was my gun being all metal. The originals had the Negative lead exposed on the left side with a terminal connection also visible. That was fine with Phenolic side plates as they used, however metal side plates make it different. The gun uses the mainframe as the Positive in the glow plug circuit, so having a Negative lead exposed within 1/4 inch of the Positive metal side plate is not a good idea; let's say you complete the circuit with your Gold ring. I don't think anybody would like the aftermath of that, especially with the Hawker being a 2 volt 10 amp Hour Battery."
