Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Set Phasers to RAD!

So I'm sitting here and I says to myself, I says "it's time for a new post." So here it is guys. It's the one and only TNG Phaser mod by yours truly. Now I know what you're thinking. You're wondering how you got to this site and also why I'm making a post featuring a mod and not some awesome new Raygun of my own. Well it's hard to find new materials in my neck of the woods so this is what you get!

Here's the setup. It's Halloween. I like William T. Riker. My wife likes William T. Riker. So I decided to take a shot at it. It's not too hard since you can buy the TNG officer shirt at any costume shop and they wore plain slacks with loafers on the show. But I wanted to put some zazz into the whole situation somehow so I decided to mod the phaser.

I got this bad boy at a costume shop online for about 10 bucks. It was actually pretty decent for a crappy plastic cast prop. It has sounds and everything!


The first step was to take it apart. Oh me oh my!

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That orange thing is the worst. I can understand putting those on toys that actually look like guns but this is a TNG phaser. It looks like a dead cobra on a good day. Not to say that I don't like it. Either way I had a silver that was pretty close to the original paint so I threw some on to make it match.

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I decided that the paint job sortof looked a lot like crap. So I masked off the silver parts to get an even coat of black in all the right places. This took a while but I learned a lot about masking by doing it.

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Then I pulled off the cheap little sticker and cut out a window for the LED's with my dremel. I think it turned out pretty good.

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Next up was actually getting those LED's up and running. I started this by cutting out 6 slots in some styrene plastic to set them in.

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I glued the whole rig up with hot glue to get it set and soldered the leads together.

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Here is is after I got everything hooked up.

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BTW I used a 9 volt to power these. Don't forget to use resistors!!!

In the end it turned out pretttyyyy good. I put a little switch on the bottom to turn the lights on and off and made it look grimy with some paint.  Looks like I just came back from a dirty, sexy away mission.

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Dannnng giiiiiiirl them lights look good.

I made a last minute holster out of some styrene and fleece. I started by making a pattern that made no sense than then proceeded to wing it.

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After getting the right shape I glued the pieces together to see what I had. It was a box. Sortof.

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While making the belt clip I looked down and saw this little guy. I ended up not using it but it still made me laugh.  Looks like a shocked whale.

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Here it is with the felt glued on and fit to the phaser.

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I'll leave you with this rare video footage. A shuttlecraft has been seen in the neutral zone. Shaking it's shit in order to get back home. So moving.


Until next time...

lol Skywut?


Okay so I got derailed recently by a certain game that I won't mention. Either way I've decided to get back on the wagon (not in the game I previously refused to mention) and put up a post. I'll be putting one up for the phaser I modded recently for a Halloween costume.

Magically there are actually like three people that check this site every day. Fear not friends! New content is on it's way. <3

Friday, August 19, 2011

The Buffaloafer

Hello again guys. I recently finished my submission for a competition that The Replica Prop Forum and Weta put together.

Here was the deal. We pay half price for one of Weta's awesome unpainted Rayguns and beef it up. The Raygun in question was The Righteous Bison. This is one of their least expensive Rayguns and I was going to buy it for fifty bucks contest or not.

Before I go on I really have to thank the guys at the RPF and Weta for doing this. Weta is the peak of prop making. The fact that they took the time to make this contest happen through the RPF shows they are are also pretty cool people to boot. If you want to follow the thread with everyone's ideas, concepts, and comments you can check it out right here.

Onward!

You can only guess how excited I felt when I got this thing in the mail. If you guys haven't ever seen the N64 kid, take a sec to watch this video.


It was EXACTLY like that. I was so anxious to open it that I took it to work with me.

Bison!

It did take me a little bit to work up the nerve to take this apart. It feels weird paying 50 bucks for something and then taking it home to tear it apart. If I remember correctly, I drank a few beers and decided it was time.

Pieces

I also have to thank my wife. Thank you for not punching me in the face for having shit strewn all around the house. Here are all of the parts layed out on our coffee table.

I took it apart very slowly with varying sizes of flathead screwdrivers and popsicle sticks. Some people boiled them, used heat guns, or forms of voodoo to remove the glued-in pieces but I just watched some TV and pried at it until it gave up. Took an hour or so to get everything apart.

I decided that I wanted this gun to looks like something that was thrown together really quickly, maybe in the middle of a fight. I really like the look of the Dr. Grordbort's Shock Trooper's gun so I thought it would be neat if they mixed and matched pieces to make a more powerful gun.

Cutting out the slot for the barrel was another hairy situation that I was nervous about. Im happy with the way it came out. I measured everything out and placed painters tape for my lines since the thing was black and I didn't have anything that would write on it and still be visible lol.

Ready for surgery

I then used my Dremel with a cutting wheel to get it cut out.

Cut up!

I used a piece of Red Oak that I picked up from Lowes for the barrel. I then used a router on the sides to get a nice look and cut out some big ole holes in the middle. After that I drilled another hole right down the center for a threaded rod. I didn't have a drill bit long enough to get through the whole thing so I picked one up, and after I almost started a friction fire (something I was never able to do in cub scouts) it was ready for paint.

Holy bit!

After a lot of primer and spot putty and primer and paint and spot putty and sanding and whatever else, I worked the wood grain out. I didn't take pictures of that process because it's boring. But here is the final product with some paint.

Metal?

Time for the emitter, otherwise known as that thing at the end of a Raygun that the death comes out of. Here I used 2 PVC elbows. I cut them so their angles would be a little sharper and glued them back together with hot glue just to keep them in place.

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I got some old Vacuum Tubes off of EBay to stick in these when they are done. :D

Elbows

After that came the Apoxie Sculpt. That stuff is awesome. After it dried I was left with this.

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Sortof looks like Sputnik right? Not really? Whatever! I used some spot putty to smooth things out and got a little piece of modern art.

Emitter front

I made the wood handle out of a pepper mill that I found at good will. It smells great!

Handle

More Apoxie Sculpt was used here once I joined the barrel and the body of the gun. I used my finger nail to squish it around once it was in place to simulate a big fat weld. I mean if you were in a hurry and had to weld some crap together to save your life it wouldn't look pretty.



Now that everything was together I took a step back and decided it was missing a few things. It did indeed look like someone slapped together stuff from other guns but it didn't really have any oomph! How does adding a barrel from another gun make the gun more powerful? It doesn't really. I needed an outside power source and some damn brass knuckles for some man (or alien) handling power.

Using some MDF, I cut out what I thought was a neat and mean looking set of knuckles to bolt to the front of the hand guard. After some primer and sanding it started to look like it wasn't made out of MDF anymore. I drilled holes through each knuckle and put cut down bolts through. This made it sturdy and awesome looking.

"Brass" knuckles

Now we're cookin' with accelerated particles!!! Strange fact: I have a drawer full of Nos energy drink caps because I think they look cool but I've never used one in a project. This is no longer the case! I put one of them on this side to cover up a hole and to make it look a little more interesting.

Ready for paint

Now to my favorite part, the wrist mounted battery pack. I have a friend that is a genuine leather worker. So I go up to Blue (my friend) and I says, "Hey blue can you make me something awesome for really cheap?!". Blue being a great guy and all says he'll do it for free. Since he's such a nice guy I think you should check out his website http://bluemoon-leather.com.

Anyways, here we go. Blue made the wrist strap to which I mounted the external battery pack.

Pack off

It started it's life out as a mints container. I applied 2 coats of primer and then 2 coats of silver paint to the whole thing. I then painted the top black and the main body yellow. Once dry I used a sanding sponge to take off some paint around the corners and such to show the silver underneath. That's a really cheap and easy way to make something look like it was painted metal that has been in some scrapes. Also it lights up!

On, and happy about it!

The flap can be opened too. I rigged it up with red and green lights on separate switches that are super fun to flip. I also wrapped the battery with some plain brown paper so when you open it up it doesn't say ENERGIZER on your seemingly very used, period prop. It looks so happy don't you think?

Moving on to paint. Like any of my other guns, I used the dry brushing/dirty wash techniques from before. Oh! I almost forgot one of the coolest parts! I used some of this paint that has tiny metal particles in it so it can actually rust. Anything on the gun that looks rusty is the real deal.

Lookin funky

The gun was still missing something so I added some yellow to kindof bring it and the battery pack together. Erin suggested it. She's the best. The yellow on the fin got a little washed out with further painting but I just chalked it up to it looking used and left it that way.

There you have it! I sent in my submission last week so wish me luck. :D Here are some glamor shots to brighten your day.

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Glamor Shot!

How the hell did that get in there?! Carry on people. >.>

Until next time...

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Little Update

Hey there folks! Lots of stuff has been going on in the last month. Ive been trying to set time aside to make some rayguns and to work on my submission to the WETA, Dr. Grordborts contest. Work and other projects have kept me from making too much progress on these but I just wanted to drop by and make a small update.

Here's a work in progress of the gun I've named "The Buffaloafer" with help from my super cool wife. All of the submissions for the contest need buffalo themed names and she pulled that one from her brain vaults. :P

I wanted this to look like it was put together from the weak original rayguns they received and parts that were found at hand or around camp.

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That's why on this one I simulated a big fat weld to make it look like it was put together very quickly.

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I'm far from done and only have a month left to finish. When completed though, I hope it looks as awesome as it does in my head right now.

Until next time. :]

Monday, June 20, 2011

The Haint



Hey there folks, it's that time again. Do you feel cold? Did the lights just flicker and your breath catch in your throat? Look out it's a haint! The Haunt to be specific. I'm not going to pat my own back or anything but this thing looks pretty cool. I'll walk you through how it was made and then I'll post some glamor shots at the end.

This project started with my finding an old hood ornament at a junk shop here in Austin. One look at it and I knew I had to make something out of it.

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I had this hacksaw handle that I cannibalized from Harbor Freight as mentioned in a previous post and thought the two looked really good together. Combined with a martini shaker and the insides of a pneumatic staple gun I had the basic form I was looking for.

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After drilling through the handle and the ornament I found some neat looking thread caps at Lowes. I used them to finish off the ends of the threaded rod holding the handle onto the hood ornament.

Fancy bolt caps

Here's an exploded view of all the parts before I got all down and dirty with wiring.

Exploded!

I'm really digging working with lights now even though my knowledge of wiring is rudimentary at best. There's just something great about setting everything up and seeing the light go off when it's done right.

Anyways, I found a push button switch and installed it into the handle to work the lights.

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I picked up a super bright blue LED from Radio Shack and soldered a resister to one of the leads. Evidently if you don't add a resister the LED can burn out in seconds as apposed to lasting for years. You learn something new every day.

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Everything soldered and taped and put in it's place with a 9 volt battery attached.

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Test fire! I drilled holes in the end to give it a pattern to shine though.

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Time for paint. I went ahead and put down 2 coats of grey primer. I chose grey because it reminds me of the days when I did a lot of 3d modeling. It also looks really cool.


After that I hit it with a couple coats of silver paint to see how everything was going.



Lookin preeeetty nice. Not much more to do but get filthy with the same old dark paint dry brush and wash. I'm going to have to make a clean looking gun one day but it's just much more fun to add some grime and age to make it have a story of it's own.

Here's the final product. I think this is the best one so far so enjoy yourselves.

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More to come as I make them. I'm currently working on a contest that Weta put together at the replica props forums too so I'll have a post made for that as well. Leave a comment if you like them, hate them, or just have a question. Until next time!