Can anyone ID this VM?

[DocsMachine]

Customer just sent this in for a rebuild. This is pretty much how I pulled it out of the box. (Other parts are included.)





It doesn't really look Carterish to me, but apart from that, I have no idea. Most likely it's a one-off garage-shop job, though the machining, near as I can tell from a quick inspection, was done neatly and cleanly. It was also never anodized after machining- but also wasn't chemically stripped. Note the interior is still anodized.

Apparently has some sentimental value, having been originally owned by a now-deceased relative of the current owner, so I'm going to clean and polish it up, but not further customize it. Just kind of curious if anyone's seen it before, or recognizes the style. (Former and current owner are from the Hawaiian Islands, if that helps.)

Doc.

[Painthappy]

Not sure, you're right about it not being Carter Machine, his indents were very 3D with curvatures and everything. But I like the machining on this one!

[Super Nova]

Don't know who done it but it looks good.

[Painthappy]

On a completely different side note but not completely there was a company called Tarantula Mfg that did a lot of milling back then on VMs and looked them up. It is like stepping back into time. The fact the site still works boggles the mind: http://tarantulamfg.com/index.html

[scottieb]

Holy cow! The site IS still up and running!

[Hobbes]

There's something comforting about a website with frames and a hit counter

[Ecapnation]

I've seen two that looked like this before....

Technical trouble shooting?

Chaos/Sean will remember, two were up at the old store big boys toys by Emr
edit...

Accurate air systems

[Chaos]

Accurate Air Systems

[Ecapnation]

Bingo!

[Chaos]

Could be Accurate Air Systems out of Canada....there were two markers as mentioned above at Big Boys Toys near EMR that had some similar milling.
(First two photos are the ones from there, sorry for the blurriness)

Milling looks very similar to a VM body I used to have that I haven't been able to ID 100% myself (Last two photos is the one that was mine)

[DocsMachine]

Yeah, I can see a vague kinship to the silver one (and that's a great use of an old Shocker frame!) but then, the middle tube milling is dictated by the existing body cuts. You almost have to use that same pattern.

It'd be nice to know, for curiosity's sake, who made it, but thankfully, that's not strictly necessary in order to clean it up and get it running again.

Doc.

[Chaos]

Actually that's an impulse frame but a Shocker frame will mount the same way basically....only real difference is the Shocker frame has a longer tail off the back of the frame that needs to be cut off..... It all mounts up like a Carter VM frame does (which is where I got the original idea from in the first place)

[DocsMachine]

To update this thread a bit, I've got the gun finished up, and heading back to the owner:

And he tells me that the milling was done by a fellow named Ken Kidd, and from the owner's location, presumably somewhere in the Hawaiian Islands.

Anybody know or heard of him? Just curious if he's got other interesting works to show.

Doc.

[Ecapnation]

Ken Kidd sounds familiar but I don't know why or where from

[Psycho91]

Idk who was more interested in watching this me or my 8month old niece, she seems to like paintball so far, likes to watch it and me work on guns, and loves all the shiney guns she can play with lol, might have a little baller in the making