Kronos Props

Portal Turret Blueprints

2012-01-11T16:01:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to share the final version of the Blueprint for the Portal Turret V.1. My good friend Tyler Garrison put this together for me to hang behind my finished turret. He did a great job of making it feel authentic. It also comes in a traditional black and white line variety. Enjoy!

New Updates

2012-01-04T10:27:00.000-08:00

A whole host of new photos are up on flickr. Head on over and check them out!

2012-01-02T20:44:00.000-08:00

Ok, it's been waaaay to long since my last post. During my absence, I have been hard at work on the Gears Digger Launcher prop. Its entering the painting phase. I will be posting all of my progress later this week so check back. Also started up a twitter account so people can follow my work. Link on the left.

New Progress Photos

2011-09-06T11:18:00.001-07:00

Construction of the Gears gun is under way and new photos have been posted. Head on over to my flickr page to check out the current progress.

New Projects

2011-08-10T13:33:00.000-07:00

After finishing up a few duplicates of previous projects, the time has come to start on a few new ones. I have two new guns on the drawing board that I'll be starting on in the next two weeks. The first will be one last gun from Fallout. After that I am officially retiring from making Fallout weapons. This last weapon will be the Combat Shotgun, pictured below. It should be a fairly quick build since it not a terribly complicated weapon. I expect to be able to knock this one out fairly quickly... hopefully.

The second weapon I'm really excited about. I will be visiting the Gears of War universe and tackling a locust weapon. I'm not going to say which one it will be just yet but I'll post progress as I go. If you're a Gears fan, get excited as this build is going to be "Epic".

Stay tuned!

Portal Turret Build

2011-05-26T16:16:00.000-07:00

So this was a really fun project to build! I had some major obstacles to overcome, but that was part of what made it so fun. The first step was to decide how big I wanted this guy to be. There were a few factors that I considered when making my decision, the first being the overall weight. Since this guy has very thin legs, I knew that weight was going to be a serious issue in getting the turret to actually stand. As it gets taller the weight grows exponentially due to the increased surface area. The second factor was displaying the turret when it was finished. I didn't want it to take an unrealistic amount of space to display. After considering all of these factors I finally decided on roughly 36 inches. This is obviously not full scale, but I found it to be the perfect size to fit my needs.

To make the turrets as light as possible, I decided to make molds and cast the necessary parts. Slush casting worked perfectly to create a thin plastic shell. By making molds there's no need to hand make every part that will be in the final turret, since several of them I can just cast twice. With this decision finalized, it was time to start on the masters. Lets start with the body:

Phase One: Making the Masters

I originally started with a foam base that I carved down to the shape of the turret. I roughed out the general shapes for the various parts, including the arms, eye socket and main body.

Next I coated this with bondo and built up a thick enough layer to be able to sand and shape. Note, bondo will partially melt the foam if you don't coat it with resin first. Here is an early shot of the bondo buildup.

This method originally seemed like a good idea. It wasn't. After weeks worth of work I just wasn't happy with the shape of the body. All the sanding had slowly distorted the shape of the body, and for something that needed to be perfectly symmetrical, it just wasn't working. So I was at a crucial fork in the project... do I keep working with this body and hope that I will be able to finalize the shape, or do I scrap all the work I had done up to this point and start over.

Start over. This turned out to be the best decision I could have made. Since I already had the general dimensions of the turret from the first version of the body, I was able to quickly create a skeleton framework of the body out of MDF.

With the rigid framework, the turret is now perfectly symmetrical with a straight center line. All I needed to do was fill in the gaps. With some quick shaping of some foam I was able to rough out the body. To cover the foam I decided to use Apoxie Sculpt instead of bondo, rolling it out into thin sheets and covering the surface. After letting it dry I sanded it smooth and in a matter of a week I went from a terrible version 1 body to a near perfect version 2 body.

I left a large hole in the middle if the body to house the electronics. I'll cover that later on in this write-up.

The eye socket was something that needed to be figured out early on in the project. I knew I wanted to go with a lens look for the eye, so I found a plastic cover that worked perfectly. It is actually the cover for a Skil router bit that I picked up from Lowes. I formed the eye socket of the body around this cover. The result was spot on.

Next up on the body was many many coats of primer with lots of sanding between each coat. Slowly working my way to finer and finer grit sandpaper, I had a glassy smooth finish. The final coat was wet sanding with 1000 grit and then the surface received a coat of wax.

Body ready for its mold.

While I was making the body I was also working on the arm. Since I will be making a mold of this, only one master arm is required and I'll then cast it twice for the left and right side. The arm was built using methods from both versions of the body. I started out with a foam base and attached wooden plates for the 2 flat portions on the inner top and bottom sections. The outer surface was just covered with lots of bondo and sanded to achieve the curved I needed.

The inside of the arm was formed by creating a template of the arc and using it to form the bondo while it was still malleable. The hold for the gun box was cut out with a Dremel.

The entire arm then went through the same process as the body, and was primed and sanded until it was glassy smooth and ready for molding.

The same general techniques were used for the remaining parts. The 4 leg pieces started as blocks of wood and were shaped appropriately. I found carving these straight from wood was a much faster technique than starting from foam, coating them in resin, and refining the shapes.

I only made one long leg piece to be cast 3 times, with the front two legs cut to length. I also made a single gun box to be cast twice.

That covers all the main pieces I will need to make a full turret. By the time I had finished the body, arms, legs and gun box, I lost count of the number of cans of primer I had gone through. It was seriously a lot of primer.

By this point my garage now has a nice thick layer of dust on absolutely everything! I'm really looking forward to having to clean it all up at the end of this project.

Phase Two: Making the Molds

First things first. I need to get all of materials I will need to create all the molds. Luckily I found a place right near where I live that carries Smooth-On products, so I was able to avoid the crazy expensive shipping costs associated with the large quantities I needed for this project. The boxes can be very heavy. Due to the size of these molds, I'll be using the hard shell mold technique. There are a bunch of resources online for different techniques, if you interested in casting and mold making. I decided to go with Smooth-On Rebound 25 rubber for the molds with a Plasti-Paste shell.

The body and the arm will be cast with hard-shells while the 4 leg pieces will get block molds. Lets start with the body. The first step is to create the division line for the first half of the mold. It actually work out really nicely that a piece of foam core perfectly fits into the center groove of the body. After adding some registration keys, acorn nuts, and a clay dam around the perimeter, its time for rubber.

The rubber was built up in many coats with registration keys added to help fit the the rubber into the hard-shell. Looks messy but it got the job done.

The clay dam was moved out and Plasti-Paste was added on top of this to finish up the first side of the mold. Flip it over and repeat for the other side.

The same general technique was used for the arm master so I won't bother repeating the process here. There are photos over on Flickr on the molding of the arm. On to the legs. Since all these pieces are much smaller, I'll build block molds instead. This will be much quicker and only use a minimal amount of extra rubber.

These are poured in halves like the body to create two pieces for each mold. Finished they look like this:

The holes you see here are spots for the connection point with the body and legs. From here on out, all the pieces that are created will be part of the final turret which is pretty exciting! Its time to start casting pieces.

Phase Three: Casting the Parts

I decided to use Smooth-Cast 300 to cast all the pieces. My original plan was to use this ultra white plastic as the final surface of the turret, with only some clear coat added for extra shine. After some test casts I determined that wasn't really going to work for a few reasons. More on that later. With weight being such an important issue, all pieces relating to the body will be hollow, and all leg pieces solid for extra strength and support. I'll talk about the body and arm first.

My goal with the hollow pieces was to create a shell that is roughly 1/8" thick. After doing a few tests with different ways to achieve this, I decided to do each part of the mold separately and then merge the 2 halves to create a final cast. This helps guarantee that there aren't any spots that are too thin.

And by doing it this way I can add a little extra plastic wherever it might be needed. This isn't pictured but I added a solid block of wood to the bottom rear of the main body that got sealed in place with more liquid plastic. This way there is a nice solid block that I will be able to drill to attach the legs. The rear seam was also reinforced for structural support.

Once I was happy with the overall thickness of the shell, I merged the 2 pieces together. Leaving a small hole in the center cavity of the molds, I'm able to add additional plastic to seal the seam. After a few coats (and adequate curing time) I opened the molds:

And the arm.

Its definitely a little more work to do it this way, but the final pulls are lightweight and durable!

There is some clean up work required around the edges of pieces. The arm on the left side of the image also has had a pass of bondo added to fix a few low spots it the pull. The body will receive the same treatment to make the surface as flawless as possible. Overall the pieces are fairly good and after some love, they are ready to paint.

The last large piece that needs to be cast are the gun boxes that fit inside the arm panels. One box was shaped out of wood, sanded, and primed- ready for a mold to be made. Here you can see one in the mold curing, as well as a pulled piece.

There is still some work to be done on these guys. Holes for the gun barrels as well as the center connection point need to drilled, and the majority of the controls for the turret will be on the rear of one of the gun boxes. After carefully laying out the pattern, I drilled and cut all the spots, and this is the final result:

Phase Four: Finishing and Paint

Painting is one of those aspects of a project that can completely ruin everything, if you don't take the time to do it right. It's the difference between a project looking amateur or professional. I think my plasma rifle is a good example of a paint job done properly. One thing I've learned is that there are 2 situations spray paint hate more then anything else: humidity/rain and temperatures below 70. Both are usually not a problem here in Southern California, it is a desert and all. Perfect for painting!

Not so much, with an unusually cold and rainy year so far: every night when I would get home from work it was too cold in the garage to paint, and on the weekends it would rain. This happened like clockwork for 2-3 straight months. Really slows down your progress. So I officially recruited my wife to help me get this project finished on time. She has helped me paint in the past with outstanding results, and I was more then willing to give her the reins. Being a fine artist and painting from home, she was able to paint pieces for me during the day when the weather was nice. She did an amazing job! Each piece has a few coats of primer, several coats of gloss white, and then several coats of high gloss varnish on top of that. All the while sanding with very fine sandpaper between each coat, to make the surface as glassy as possible. I don't think I could have done a better job if I tried crazy hard... the final finish is pretty much perfect. Take a look for yourself:

Phase Five: Electronics

Now here is the fun part of the project! Essentially bringing the turret to life. There are a few main elements that I wanted to incorporate into the final turret. First being the red LEDs for the eye. Simple enough. Second is a series of audio clips controlled by a motion sensor. Third, the ability to play the original Portal theme song. Now I know the turret shouldn't have the ability to play the theme song, but since this is meant as a display piece, it seemed appropriate to add this extra feature.

For those interested I am choosing to leave out the functionality of playing the audio clips when the turret is picked up, as well as the related audio clips when the turret is knocked over. The reason is pretty simple. This guy is not being built to take the abuse of constant handling or being knocked over all the time. While the individual parts of the turret are fairly strong, the assembled turret will be somewhat fragile on those thin spindly legs. For weight reasons I am also leaving out the ability for the arms to move around like they do in the game. All of the extra engineering required with components and servos would likely add a good bit of weight to the turret. It would be cool, but I'm going to stick with a static model. Same with functioning guns... it all comes back to the weight.

Alright! After hours on Mouser and Sparkfun researching components, and much experimentation, I have finally settled on the setup below. The main components include and arduino uno, mp3 trigger, power regulation board (not shown) and an epir motion sensor. There are various other smaller components like switches, buttons, LEDs, resistors, the speaker, battery packs and wall jacks. Here is the main setup:

The programming was all done in the Arduino environment. Since I would classify myself as a beginning programmer, there were portions of the code that I needed some serious help. I called on a work buddy of mine, Pedram Javidpour: professional scripter extraordinaire, to help me get this program up and running. I couldn't have finished it without his help! Below is the start of the program that controls the turret.

After the program was finished I was ready to start installing all of the electronics into the turret. I decided to split up the components between the arm and the main body cavity. The arm would get the battery pack, wall jack, power selector, motion sensor, main power switch, and the button to play the theme song. Here is what it looks like installed into the arm gun box. Looks a little messy and confusing, but it all works perfectly.

So electronics in the arm cover power and small components. The main guts of this guy are located within the body cavity. In the picture below you can see the arduino on the right side, the mp3 trigger on the bottom, and the speaker on the left. The cluster of wire at the top link up to the eye.

The eye piece is arguably one of the most important pieces of the turret. I really wanted it to stand out, taking the time to make sure it came out as best as possible. After finding a suitable plastic lens I could start on making all of the other necessary pieces. Here is an image of everything that makes up a finished eye. The black disks were designed and laser cut to create the groove pattern you see in the final eye. The translucent disk will help diffuse the red LEDs, and the black rod will create the dot in the center.

After roughly fitting all the pieces together I noticed that the light spill coming down the sides of the lens was really messing with the overall look of the eye. I resolved this issue by coating the inside of the lens with black electrical tape to prevent any light leak from happening. This way the only light you will see is coming through the translucent surface of the eye. The final result is perfect.

All that's left is to install the eye and connect up the power. With the electronics finished and installed, all that remains is the detail work.

Phase Six: Finishing the last Details

Let's start with the pipe work on the interior of the body. This was done by bending black plastic rods with a heat gun. A small connection point was made for the end of each piece to attach to the main body. You can also see the location of the speaker in the shot below. Here is a rough placement of the various pieces for this side of the turret. They will then be cut down to size, and after the white plate in the center is painted black, they will all be properly installed.

The gun barrels were shaped out of MDF. I decided this would be quicker, rather than cast them. They will be cut down to the proper length and attached to the gun boxes after they are finished.

After primer and sanding, they received my special layering of metallic paint. Throughout various projects I have figured out a great way to simulate metal by layering several different types of metallic spray paint. I've tried to find a single can that does this, but haven't found anything I like yet. These guys will receive a small amount of weathering to make them look more like they have been used before being installed.

The final step to be done was probably the scariest part of this project. Until this point, I have not actually connected the legs. I still didn't know if the turret would actually stand.

The legs are solid plastic epoxied together to form the main part of each leg. This connection point is fairly strong, with a peg system that connects them together. The thin rods of the legs were probably one of the more challenging parts to figure out. They needed to be as strong as possible, metal, so I went with 3/8" aluminum rods. These were bent by hand (tough) to form the proper shape. To achieve this I created a wooden template to bend each rod around. The ends of each rod had several notches added so the epoxy had a better surface to grip. They were painted black and then assembled.

It was time for the moment of truth... I connected the legs and cautiously turned the turret right side up. It didn't collapse! It's definitely top heavy, but it stands. It was truly nerve racking to know that this project could have completely failed at the very end.

Phase Seven: Taking Sexy Pictures

Well all that's left is taking pictures that make your project look unbelievable! There are a few things I do here to get the best documentation possible. The first thing is to set up a proper photo shoot. Luckily for me, the building I work in has a nice large space with no windows, and some really nice box lights. They provide great soft lighting, and are part of the reason my photos come out looking so polished. The second thing I do is to have my wife take all the pictures! She has a much better sense for photography than I do, and she's always taking these amazing photos. I'm sure it comes from the fine art background, and she always does an amazing job.
If you're interested, check out her work here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/denapalser/

After a few minor adjustments in photoshop, the project is officially done... hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it!

Final Portal Turret build writeup coming soon.

2011-05-11T14:48:00.000-07:00

Its been awhile since I have posted anything. Apologies for that but I am currently working on the writeup for this guy. So check back soon if your interested in how this guy was built!

A3-21 Plasma Rifle Finished

2010-08-28T10:35:00.000-07:00

So it's finally done. After 5 months of work, the world finally has its first plasma rifle. I know this post is a little late and by this point most people have already seen the finished product on Flickr. So I thought I'd make this a quick post and wrap this project up. This project was quite the learning experience. I tried a lot of new techniques that I haven't done before. Molding and casting, Detailed electronics work, back lit panels, the list goes on. Mistakes were made along the way and lessons were learned. I really look forward to applying this new knowledge to future projects going forward.

Unfortunately I had a camera malfunction and lost the last set of progress photos so the final steps will have to remain a mystery. The back lit panel was made by printing out the black pattern I created on transparency film. This was then sandwiched between a thin piece of clear plastic and a thicker piece of fogged plastic. I placed a few orange LED's behind this to provide the light. It came out exactly how I wanted with no hot spots. Just a nice even orange glow.

The thing that really sold this rifle was the paint job and it came out absolutely perfect. I really wish I could take credit for this but it has to go to my wife who is a painter. She is incredibly good at layering different colors and patterns to create the perfect look of grime and ware. In my opinion, this is what made the final product of this gun so amazing. The dirt and grime is all acrylic paint layered on over the course of a few days. The paint went on thick and after it was completely dry, it was rubbed back with a rag. After the weathering was finished, the paint was sealed with a thin coat of matte spray fix to knock back the shine.

The last thing to do was to make a nice mahogany stand to display it on. After a few quick cuts, a quick run through the router, and a few coats of stain, it was done.

If anyone has any specific questions about the final stages of the project, send me a message and I'll try to answer as best I can. Thanks again everyone for all the humbling comments.

Addendum
At this point I have had a lot of people pointing out that A3-21 is the android and not the name of the rifle. Naming this rifle the A3-21 was a conscious decision I made. I wanted to give it a model number similar to the AER9 Laser Rifle and since it doesn't officially have one in the game, I decided to go with A3-21 in honor of the android. While I know this is not "technically" correct, it is what I decided to go with much like working from the concept sketch rather then the in game model.

Plasma Rifle Update 4

2010-07-26T22:06:00.000-07:00

So I'm back again with another update. The rifle in very close to completion. Now that the main framework is finished, it is time to move on to all of the detailing. And there is a lot of it. I started on the back of the rifle. The rear canister was the best place to start. It was cut out of MDF with a thin sheet of styrene on the sides to create the raised yellow labels.

And a shot of it painted with all the connection points attached.

And finally a shot of it in place with the wiring installed.

The next big step in the build process was to create the 6 canisters along the top of the gun. I decided to try and save time by not creating 6 of them. Instead I created just one and then molded and cast it.
This worked out pretty well and it allowed me to simply add the textured pattern to the lower part of the canister out of clay. Here is the shot of the molding process.

I then cast all 6 out of smoothcast 300. After the plastic was dry, I took 2 of them and cut out a section from the middle to make the small canisters on the right. The whole process went really well and with the exception of a few bubbles on a few of the pieces, I'm very happy. After they were painted a combination of metal and black I attached them to the gun.

Also pictured in the image above are the connection points for the white tubing that covers the sides of the gun. These are just copper plumbing fitting connected to the surface of the gun. They connect to a lower panel that joints up the the lower canister.

This shot showed these lower connection points pretty well. Below this is the large canister. This was created out of 2 3-inch PVC caps that I glued together and smoothed out the seem. The shape of the caps worked out perfectly and the canister. It was painted yellow and the decals were added. It looks great.

The handle, believe it or not is important part of any gun. Like the AER9, I created it out of MDF and sheet styrene. This was then attached to the front of gun.

The next update should come in the next week or two as the rifle is almost finished. I have attached on the white tubing on the sides of the gun and added on the decals. There is one final electronics piece to create and then its on to the weathering. I have also created a stand for the gun to sit on just like the AER9. As usual there are more photos over on my flickr site so go check them out if you haven't already. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter!!!

Plasma Rifle Update 3

2010-06-20T22:15:00.000-07:00

Its been a while since my last update. I had to put work on hold for a bit but now I am back working on the gun. The main framework is now completed and I am down to the detail work. I have assembled the main barrel chambers and build the main framework for the rifle. The framing is shaped out of MDF and apoxie sculpt. The joint in the center of the photo below has also been reinforced with a steel brace to give it strength. This was really important since this joint is the main connection point between the front half of the rifle and the back half.

The nose of the gun is also almost complete with just minor detail work left. I have added electronics so the acrylic tube in the nose will glow green. This is in addition to the lights in the main chambers that are controlled by the switches. Here is a picture of the nose lit up.

The black rubber tubing is heavy duty electrical cabling that I cut down and inserted into brass plumbing fittings on the gauge boxes. The main framework has been painted with the same technique used on the AER9. First a base coat of chrome and then a light coat of silver which gives it a great cast look.

The rear cap for the main barrel was also an interesting piece to make. It was made of MDF and a handful of acorn nuts. Here is a picture before it was painted.

And finally here is a photo of the gun assembled and painted.

Getting the frame built and assembled was a major milestone since I can now get a feel for how the gun will look and feel once it is finished. It is going to be a BIG gun. Now that the main elements of the gun have been built, it is on the the detail work which there is a lot of. There are so many smaller components to build that I can't wait to start working on. I will be starting with the front grip so the gun is easier to hold. As usual there are more photos on my flickr site so head on over and check them out. Updates should be coming more frequently as small pieces get added so check back soon!!!

Plasma Rifle Update 2

2010-04-19T22:11:00.000-07:00

Back with another update. First up is a set of Vents on the side of the 2nd chamber of the main barrel. I started out by cutting the framework for each vent and hollowed out the PVC tube within the edges of the vent. There will be one large vent on each side.

I then built the vents within this outer frame out of MDF and filled in any gaps with Apoxie. The whole thing got a coat of primer and painted black. The vents are slightly angled to give it a more interesting look. Here is a view of them painted.

The next piece I started on was the nose of the gun. This is a very detailed part of the rifle and I was really looking forward to getting started on it. I order an acrylic tube off the internet for the main part of the nose. The main materials for this section are the acrylic tube, sheet plastic, heavy gauge wire, braided metal plumbing hose and the LED array I am going to rig up so the whole thing is illuminated. Still waiting on the LEDs to arrive.

First thing was to get all of the individual pieces cut out of the sheet plastic based off of the blueprint and the concept sketches I have. Here is what I ended up with.

Next up was gluing all these pieces together into the final shape. After this was done, the whole thing got a coat of dark metallic paint. Here is the framework without the acrylic tube on inner pieces in place.

I'm just about ready to put it all together and as soon as the LEDs arrive I will start on that. LEDs will also illuminate the interior of the chambers through the portholes. I also finished up the painting of the main barrel. Black and Yellow. It is similar to the image above. I haven't photographed it yet so pictures will be included in my next update. I will be started on the main frame for the entire gun soon so there should be some big updates in the future so check back soon.

Plasma Rifle Update 1

2010-04-06T09:04:00.000-07:00

So construction is underway and it is time for the first update!!! I started by drawing out a set of blueprints for the main barrel chambers. Make no mistake, this gun is going to be BIG. It is roughly 8-10 inches longer then the AER9 laser rifle and much bigger around. The blueprints were sized around a 3 inch PVC pipe from the hardware store. Rather then one continuous barrel, I chose to cut it into segments to make each piece easier to work with and also allow me to insert the dividers more easily. The image below shows this step. The white disks are the dividers before they have been hollowed out.

The next step was adding the portholes. These were created out of PVC connectors with disks attached to the end to create the rim. A second piece with detail bolts and clear plexi will cover the ends of the portholes. Holes were then drilled into the main barrel to allow the inner chamber to be visible since it will be illuminated. Below you can see the various stages.

The chambers will be painted yellow with black and metal accents. I have decided it will be best to paint as I go. There are far too many hard to reach crevices that will be to difficult to get too once it is all assembled. Here you can see what an assembled porthole will look like.

Here is a quick setup of the current chambers versus the blueprints. The front 2 chambers already have a coat of paint so you can see an early sign of the colors.

There are a few more photos over on my Flickr site so feel free to check them out as well.. The next major elements I will work on will be the front nose piece and a set of vents on the second chamber so check back soon for the next update!

And The Next Project Is..... The A3-21 Plasma Rifle

2010-03-27T21:15:00.000-07:00

Well, now that the AER9 Laser Rifle is finished, I have officially started on my next project. Next up is the A3-21 Plasma Rifle. This gun is also from Fallout 3. I enjoyed building the laser rifle so much with all the gritty weathering and character that I have decided to build another weapon from the Fallout universe. For those unfamiliar with the game or this rifle, it is far more complex then the AER9. One thing I will be doing differently with this one is that the A3-21 will be getting the full electronics treatment, complete with illuminated plasma chambers. The final game model of this weapon is a little lacking in detail so I will be building mine based off of one of the concept sketches from the Fallout art book. Below is the sketch of what this gun will look like. I have drawn up a set of blueprints and have begun the construction of the main chambers.

With this project I will be documenting my build process as I progress. So there will be plenty of updates to come!

Fallout 3 AER9 Laser Rifle Prop Finished!!!!!

2010-03-20T20:18:00.000-07:00

Last fall I came across a blog by the name of VolpinProps. A friend had commissioned him to build an AER9 Laser rifle from the Fallout 3 video game. Being a huge fan of the game, I decided I had to build one for myself. I knew I had to wait until I finished up my steampunk keyboard. Earlier this year I finally started on my version of the AER9. It is always important to start with a good set of blueprints.

This set of blueprints is were created by NeXXt. The gun from front to back measures roughly 38 inches. Going into this build I had decided not to worry about documenting my process. At the time I was more interested in just building it. Since I finished, however, I have had a lot of people ask me if I had photos of it in progress. Sadly I always have to say no. Looking back now I wish I had documented it. This is something I will do going forward on future projects.

The gun is made mostly of MDF and various types of sheet plastic with a few other materials for small detail pieces. Plastic is a surprisingly easy material to work with. It can be cut and sanded as well as heated and shaped. The two materials work extremely well together. The gun was built in pieces and assembled after all of the individual parts were finished and base painted. The main pieces were the barrel, the nose cap, the rear cap, the stock, the hand grip, the energy cell, and the lower bar. Believe it or not, the entire thing is held together with glue. Every screw on the gun is cosmetic. After everything was assembled, the gun was ready to receive a very heavy coat of weathering. If you are unfamiliar with Fallout 3, These weapons are supposed to be roughly 200 years old in a post apocalyptic world. As a result they are very worn and dirty from years of use and abuse.

Below are a few pictures of the rifle. To view more photos of the finished gun head on over to my Flickr page!

Steampunk Keyboard Build Photos

2010-03-18T20:48:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I came across the amazing work of datamancer. His keyboards inspired me to try and build one of my own completely from scratch. I didn't do a very good job of documenting the build process however below are photos of some of the process. You can view photos of the final keyboard over on my flickr site. The images below should give a little insight into how I created this keyboard.

The first step in the process was to get an appropriate clicky keyboard. I picked up a Das Keyboard professional typist keyboard off ebay and disassembled the entire thing. I also cut down the individual plastic keys so that only the center stalks remained. The following image is the result.

The next step was to create the template for the wooden faceplate. I created the template out of thick card stock and tape to get a perfect match of the spacing on the keyboard.

I took this template and used it to transfer the design onto a thin piece of wood. I then started the tedious task of cutting out the pattern. I almost drove my self crazy cutting out the little squares.

I created the entire brass frame out of wood first to test the fit of the keyboard. After this was complete I was ready to move onto the brass. I did this since brass is not particularly cheap and I wanted to make sure all the design work was correct before I started on the brass. The last thing I wanted to do was have to order more. I started with 3 brass plates and cut them down into the four side pieces and 1 round brass rod for the top and bottom bars. Brass is a relatively soft metal. I was able to cut and sand it just as I did with the wooden version. I spend many many hours sanding and polishing the pieces until I was happy with the look. Below shows the pieces after they have been cut out. with the patterns attached.

After all the brass work was finished and assembled, it was down to details. I purchased 3 matching sets of vintage typewriter keys online and began cleaning and dissembling them. I had to buy 3 sets because modern keyboards have 107 keys. Old typewriters only had 45 to 50 keys. So the only way to get enough for the entire project was to buy 3 sets. I created all new surfaces for the keys and began attaching them in the correct places. Before the wooden face plates were attached they received a beautiful coat of mahogany stain. Below is an image of the keyboard close to being finished.

Below is a Picture of the Finished keyboard. If you would like to see more detailed photos, pop on over to my flickr page.

Officially up and Running!

2010-03-18T13:20:00.000-07:00

My blog is officially live! I will be posting images from my last 2 projects soon. This includes the steampunk keyboard as well as The AER9 Laser Rifle that I recently finished. They should both go live this weekend! Check back soon!