DIY: DLT-19 Heavy Blaster Rifle Prop
Welcome fellow Imperials! Let’s take a closer look at one of the best looking weapons in the Star Wars universe: the BlasTech DLT-19 Heavy Blaster Rifle! This weapon was based off of the German MG34 machine gun used in the 1930’s and 40’s.
I am not the first person to scratch build a DLT-19, there have been many before me that have taken on the challenge…and have put out a much better prop. I did have trouble finding templates for this weapon. A member on whitearmor.net: WizardOfFlight did draw some blueprints of the MG34, which are spectacular. I took his drawing a step further and drew up my own templates that can be applied to wood, PVC, and plastic sheet. My objective was to build a somewhat accurate and simple DLT-19 using readily available parts and standard hand tools. I plan to “troop” with this prop at 501st events. Because I will be putting some mileage on this weapon, and hauling it around, I did not want parts that would snap off easily. I did not include a trigger or gunsights. I also did not include T-racks along the barrel. You may find other items that are missing/different. If you see areas that can be improved, don’t let my build/plans hinder you! Please make your own improvements and build a better blaster! 🙂
The instructional video weighs in at 30+ minutes…indicating that this is a fairly involved project, take your time and have fun with it. To get started, check out the video and parts list below:
TIP
Fellow prop builder: Luddite1967 had a great suggestion for making more accurate/circular holes in the barrel. Rather than using a dremel to carve out the circles, use a hand drill with a step bit. Thanks for the helpful tip!
Parts List
DLT-19 Templates FREE
1” x 10” x 6’ (actual: ¾” x 9-¾” x 6’ ) premium board $10
1-¼” PVC pipe (2 feet) $4
4 x 1-¼” PVC couplings (Home Depot couplings were more uniform on outside) $3
1” x ¾” PVC adapter $1 (Lowe’s has wrong pic on the site…product number in the link is correct)
⅞” wood dowel $4
Plastic sign $5
Shelving brackets $6
½” type LB conduit body $3
¾” corner braces (2 packs) $4
Mouthwash cap (large) local Grocery/Pharmacy ~3$
1-½” PVC conduit clamp $2
½” #8-32 flathead machine screws and nuts $1
2” #8 wood screws $1
2” #10-24 round machine screws and nuts $1
¾” #12 oval-head sheet metal screws $1
¾” #6 oval-head sheet metal screws $1
#6 finishing washers $1
½” mending plates $4
#10-24 rubber well nut $1
⅜” #6-32 round machine screws w/ washers & nuts $1
½” #4 pan head sheet metal screws http://thd.co/2h4Ikox $1
¾” chicago bolts x 4 $4
½” chicago bolt x 1 $1
⅝” or ½” #8 oval head sheet metal screws $1
1” #6 oval head sheet metal screws $1
½” #8 machine screws, nuts, and finishing washers used to fill the holes in the shelving brackets $1
Finishing Materials
Bondo
E6000 adhesive
Elmer’s Wood Glue
Sandpaper (60, 120, 220, 400 grit)
Friction tape
#0000 steel wool
Graphite powder
Rustoleum Painter’s Touch ray primer spray
Rustoleum Painter’s Touch Flat black spray
Krylon satin clear spray
Varathane polyurethane in satin finish
Tools
Jigsaw
Dremel
Drill
Drill bits
Hacksaw
Files & rasps
Screwdrivers
Lexan scissors
Star Wars pencils!
Airbrush (optional)
Fan Submissions
An Imperial brother from Ireland sent in a few pics of his DLT-19. Take a look at Sean McGrath’s DLT-19! Because Sean is in Ireland, not all of the building materials were available at his local home improvement store. He improvised on a few of the parts AND made some additions of his own. Check out the the gun sights, “T-Tracks” on the barrel, and the MG34 grips. I asked Sean about the T-tracks and grips, he said he was able to find them on eBay. Because he didn’t have shelving brackets at his local hardware store, he custom-built the bipod using 15mm plastic rods and used a heat gun to make flat ends. Instead of painting the inner barrel silver, he covered it with silver heat duct tape. This is the kind of build that I LOVE to see…improvisation and customization. Sean has the heart of a true prop maker. Thank you for sending these pics Sean, well done trooper! Hope I can join you for a stout one day in Ireland.
Fellow YouTuber: Sillyrunner, completed his DLT-19 and added a nice looking scope on top. Excellent job on your build, thank you for submitting your photo!
Dennis Moorman REALLY went all out with his DLT-19. He has implemented a trigger, complete with blaster sounds, AND LEDs in the barrel that can be set to red or blue. In addition, he has a working ammo counter that shows the ammo number decreasing as shots are fired. EXCELLENT job Dennis, very impressive. Glad to see you add your own personal modifications on there! The bipod in my video is stationary and not functional…for decoration only. Dennis put a working bipod on his DLT-19.
I like that you have done a heavy blaster but can you do a DL-18 blaster pistol.
Thank you for all the time and work you put together for the DLT 19 it was greatly appreciated.
Hello Dennis,
Thank you for watching and taking the time to leave a comment. Good luck on your build, have fun with it, and MTFBWY!
Hi HT
I am doing your Jawa blaster and there are a few the women in the 501st that asked me to make for them. I wold charge for my time. I’m not making them to resell I am doing the to help but would charge for my time. I was looking for you’re approval because I know you share but not to make profit.
I have been trying to print the templates for the dlt 19 heavy blaster. Is there another way to get them so I can add it to my mandalorian kit.
Perhaps you can try the Adobe Acrobat alternative called “FoxIt”. It is a free PDF viewer. When you open one of the oversized templates in Foxit, click Print. In the print dialogue box, select “Tile Large Pages”. This will print the larger templates in actual size across multiple sheets of paper, which will then need to be taped together after you trim them.
Thank you very much! This video along with a materials list has been a feat project while waiting for the BBB.
With you permission I hope to share this with many friends that are also wishing to join the 501st.
Thanks again
You rock
Asher
Soon to be of the MidSouth Garrison , MEPD (hopefully)
Hey Asher,
Thank you very much for writing in! I’m glad that you now have something to do while you wait for your armor. Share away, and if you have any finished pics of your BFG, I would love to see them. Good luck on your armor build and your approval.
See you soon in the sandbox!
-Damon
Watch your builds with my kids. Great stuff. I build props in my spare time just to see if I can make them with everyday items. Keep up the wonderful work!
Hello Nick,
Thank you for the kind words and taking the time to leave a comment. I’m glad that you can get your kids involved with these projects 🙂 Enjoy the builds…and your time with your kids! 🙂
thanks for the template and helpful tutorial i was wondering could you make a E-11D blaster
where is the download button?
Love your builds !!! Keep the videos coming.
On the 1 1/4″ PVC buttstock adapter, is it me or is your template really long? I reprinted it 3 times and made sure it was on actual size, but its long. Can you confirm the height of the adapter? On my MG34 its a buffer that inserts into the stock and connects to the receiver extension so I cant take the size from there. I’m building a couple of these for my local 501st chapter and want it to be right, they have a children’s hospital event next week.
Hello Darth Plagueis, I am honored by your presense. The PVC butt stock template is long, but you wrap it around the PVC pipe lenthwise. The purpose of the template is twofold: 1) to help you get a circular cut and 2) to get a piece of 1-1/4″ PVC pipe that is 2.7cm tall. If you don’t want to use the template, just cut off a piece of 1-1/4″ PVC that is 2.7cm tall. Hope this helps, let me know if you still have questions.
How can I print the 3 pages that require poster print when my printing options do not have poster print? Outside body, barrel template, and lower receiver. or what length/magnification should I use?
Hello,
Are you able to d/l and install that latest version of Adobe Reader to your PC or Mac? If you are printing from your mobile device, you most likely won’t see the poster option. You can get the latest version here: https://get.adobe.com/reader/
Hola. Donde puedo encontrar el pdf para descargar los planos?
Gracias.
Please click the “DLT-19 Templates” link. Or you can go here:
http://bit.ly/2kmaJmA
hello, I’ve seen the video and I liked it a lot, today I start construction, I hope to do something similar to yours, I’m stuck with star wars, I love it. Thank you very much for such valuable material. Greetings from Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico
hola, he visto el video y me gusto mucho, hoy empiezo la construcción, espero hacer algo parecido al suyo, estoy igual atrapado con star wars, me encanta. muchas gracias por tan valioso material. saludos desde Xalapa, Veracruz, México
Love this build. I just finished my own. I would love to share pictures.
Just downloaded all templates. I’m in the UK. Can anyone recommend bristiah alternatives to some of the American terminology please. Thanks.
I couldn’t source all the parts in the UK (probably bad suppliers). So I just bought a DLT 19 kit off stardust industries on facebook £95.00+p&p
Hello there !
I found your model of DLT-29 by searching guides to construct mine for my future costume of 4-LOM and I found the video absolutely brillant! The DLT is made from materials not very expensive and quite easy to find and the final props is really great! And to share the methods of building, that’s even better! Thank you very much for your job which will allow me, if I successfully build it, add a big plus to my costume!
I will have just one question, what was the necessary time to finish the DLT?
Thank you for all , dear Sandtrooper !
(And by the way, I’m from France ! )
Hello General Grievous,
Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment 🙂 The length of time that will take to construct the DLT-19 will vary depending on experience and how much time you have to devote to the project. It is difficult to put it into hours spent. As you know, life, work, etc, takes time. I think one could finish this blaster in about 2 weeks if you were working on it a few hours at a time. Thank you again for stopping by, MTFBWY.
HI, I want to thank you for the great video/build tutorial. Greta stuff
Just started my own build using(sort of)the download files, but i am wanting to say in regards the the barrel, if you use a “step bit” after drilling the 5/32 guide holes then its far easier than dremelling.
it took me 5 minutes to complete the barrel using this method not more than 10 minutes ago.
I can send pics if you can tell me how to post them
cheers
Hello Luddite,
Thank you for the tip. In hindsight, that is a MUCH better idea than using a Dremel. Great idea and thank you for sharing. Hit me up using the contact section on the front page of https://happytrooper.com and we can exchange email addresses. I’d love to see your finished product. I’ll see if I can put a popup on YouTube to recommend using a step up bit.
Thanks for that tip, that’s exactly what I did and it came out great!
These tutorials are awesome, thanks so much for all of the detail and the shopping list. I’ve started building my DLT-19 and making great progress thanks to all of your tips and tricks.
Hello HappyTrooper. I built you DLT19 and added sound to it and wanted to send you the pics and vid.
Dennis, thank you for submitting your photos. Your build is amazing. Love all of the electronics work that you put into it…taking it to the next level! Great job my friend!
Dennis,
Can you post details about how you added a trigger, where you got a sound board and where you installed it and lights in the build? Do you have a build thread on a forum somewhere? I’d like to do the same.
And to Happy Tropper, thanks for this and all your amazing posts and web site. It’s a marvel!
Best,
Jeff
hey happy trooper, having trouble with scaling in adobe, what do I need to set it to get the right scale
Hello Andrew, can you confirm that you are 1) printing from a PC or Mac and 2) printing from Adobe Reader (free)? I realize that one can print from a mobile device, however, the options needed to print may not be presented from your iPhone/Android. Let me know how it goes. This is a little difficult to troubleshoot. Using the templates in the blog post, and printing from a Mac/PC with Adobe Reader should allow you to print to the size needed for the templates.
I am printing from PC and using Adobe reader pro, but when I opened some of the files it has the prints at like 135%.
I reccently made a quite nice dlt-19 using your tutorial, and wanted to show you sone pics of it, my girlfriend made a shadowtrooper cosplay for a sw event that happen once a year called ” jedicon sao paulo” there are other jedicons like jedicon rio , jedicon rio grande do sul , and so on … Here in brazil i was unable to buy some of the parts,the local store didnt have all that i needed so i had to improvise and wanted to show you the final result, how do i send you the pics ?
Hello Fernando,
I am so sorry for the late response. I’ve had issues with the emails/comments on this server 🙁 I do apologize. I would love to see your finished DLT-19. I have a contact button on the front page of https://happytrooper.com/ and it should work now! Thank you 🙂
I reccently made a quite nice dlt-19 using your tutorial, and wanted to show you sone pics of it, my girlfriend made a shadowtrooper cosplay for a sw event that happen once a year called ” jedicon sao paulo” there are other jedicons like jedicon rio , jedicon rio grande do sul , and so on … Here in brazil i was unable to buy some of the parts,the local store didnt have all that a needed so i had to improvise, and wanted to show you the final result, how do i send you the pics ?
Hey I just wanted to start off by saying I love this build and will soon start work on my own DLT-19 blaster. I was having some confusion on the template prints. I printed some out but they dont look right to me I did run them through Adobe and set the ones that needed poster to be poster and the ones requiring actual size be actual size. Should I print them out on landscape or portrait also I’m using 8.5×11 paper so would this cause problems as well? Any advice would be greatly appreciated and needed. Thank you for this awesome plans and video. Soon to be another sandy in the desert.
Really awesome! Currently I’m trying your DL-44 tutorial, next will be this one. I really like the sniper edition of it in Battlefront. Do you think this one can be modified into this? BTW: If you should ever be bored … a tutorial for a scout pistol or a modular A-180 like in battlefront would be great 😉
The wooden buttstock for a DLT-19 blaster that I purchased from Martin Herodek has arrived, and now I need to figure out how to complete this project. If anyone has ever attempted this project, please let me know.
Hi happy trooper! Love your site and your videos. I’m trying to get the printable templates for the BLASTECH DLT-19 but the link you have for the printable templates is blocked by bit.ly. Any chance you could email them to me directly. May the force be with you my friend! Keep up the great work!!
Best Regards,
Stu
Hello Stu, thank you for your kind words. I hope that you are staying safe. Can you try this link for the DLT-19 templates? https://happytrooper.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/HappyTrooper-DLT-19.zip Thank you and MTFBWY.
Happy Trooper,
That works! thank you so much.
-Stu