The attachment is a rar'd .ma file from version 2010 of Maya. I have been able to open .ma files all the way back to version 8.5.

What version of Maya are you running? Silly question but you are unraring the attachment first correct?

The .ma file should be a readable ascii file. You may want to open it and be sure that it is not garbled. The latest version of the revolver file I uploaded shows 0 times downloaded.

Try that one first.

Sorry the video was confusing for you. I knocked it out (as with most of the videos I do) without much planning or editing so it does move along at a fairly quick pace. But the tools used are pretty straight forward, split polygon, edge loop tool, fill hole, append to polygon, bridge, and extrude face, and shift-d duplicate with translation.. I do go fairly quickly though and its easy to miss things since I use marking menus alot.

As for the process being more complicated then you thought. I believe that is one of the many reasons booleans get a bad rap. People think that they will do ALL the work for you. Booleans are there to get you to a form. Once you have the form it is still the modelers responsibility to make the form into a valid topology. I think it is not that difficult a task and certainly easier then starting with a blank screen and poly plane. You just have to stick with it, but its not everyones cup of tea.