Flashy Build: Phase Five - Primed and Sanded

It's been a while since I've done an actual blog post, but here goes.

I've glued on the details, used wood-putty filler to fill in some gaps and holes, and done my best to sand down the rough parts.

I figured she was ready for her first coat of primer. 

And, with every prop build I've seen, she was also ready for her first round of "fill and sanding" that tends to come after every round of priming...

Here's the filling...

At this time, Flashy's just waiting for her next round of sanding and then priming, which will hopefully be today.

Closer and closer still...

Flashy: Phase Four-Almost There...

Today involved a whole lot of sanding, filling, and fabrication of the neat little details on Flashy.

I didn't take any progress photos, but I'll talk about what I did.  First, I took some wood filler and filled in a lot of the gaps and crevasses in the gun.  The trapezoid and the back where the flat "slide" meets the cylindrical barrel were filled and smoothed out as best the paste would allow.  When it dries, I should be able to sand it nice and smooth.

I took a 1/2" poplar dowel and bisected it, with these I glued them to the slide just above the trapezoid.  I then took another section of the Poplar dowel, cut and sanded 4 grooves into it, and made the front and back...I'm not sure what they are in the gun...maybe a laser sight mount?  Anyway, that stick-thing coming out of the trapezoid.

The quarter circles in the grooves above the trigger were quarters of a simple 1" wooden toy wheel blank, cut into fourths.  I took another complete wheel and set them in the trapezoid, along with two short, thin strips of sintra.

For the back of the gun, I cut off the end of a rubber cap that you'd find on the end of a cane or walker and smoothed it out for the "butt-cap".  I used plumbers two-part epoxy putty and made a sloping ridge from the wider part of the barrel to the gun barrel.  Once this dries, I'll take a dremmel and smooth it out to make a nice sharp 45-degree angle.  Finally, I placed a wooden cap in each of the carved recesses in the grip.

The last little detail I needed to figure out were the two "switches" on the back, in-line with the half-dowels.  I knew I'd seen something like them before, but it didn't dawn on me what they were until I was carving away the rubber cap for the end of the gun.

They're the locking switch from a snap-blade box-cutter.  Tomorrow, I make a trip to the dollar store, buy two, and cannibalize them to make the last switches.

There are some details that I just didn't do, and I'm not sure I'll get to them.  There's the oblong recess under the barrel by the trigger, and some details in the front of the trapezoid.  These I may just leave off.  This is "Flashy Mk I", and if there's a Flashy Mk II I'll try to incorporate those then.

All and all, she doesn't look too bad.  And she feels great in the hand.

Really looking forward to finishing this master up, so I can see how I do with molding and casting.

Flashy: Phase Three-Flash and Function

A little more work tonight, a little bit further.


First thing I worked on today was filling in the gaps in the recessed section of the trapezoid and in the indents along the barrel.  I used cut-outs from a very thin sintra sign, trimmed and fir them to place, and hot-glued them where they needed to be.

Next part is placing the end cap on Flashy.  Eventually I'll be layering on some bondo and smoothing out a sloping cone from the barrel to the width of the endcap, but first I need to make the end cap.  I cut little lengths of sintra and glued them around the inside of the pipe.  I glued on this black end-cap pipe that came with a set of shelves I had, and it made a perfect seat for the end cap, the cap to an old pill bottle.  The pill bottle cap actually works out well, because Flashy has all these indents at almost the exact spacing and shape as the pill bottle cap.

 

 I also cut some details into the trapezoid, the little "keyhole" marks.

 

Finally, I made the "clip" out of another piece of thicker sintra.  Trimmed it down to the right shape, glued it into place at the butt end of the grip, and it's good to go.

This thing is really starting to come together.

Time to make the trigger.  After dremmeling out a recess in the frame for the trigger, I cut the basic shape of the trigger out of sintra.

The trigger fits well, and looks pretty good.  I may afix the trigger into place, or I may mold it as a separate piece. I'm not sure at this point.

 

Things are definitely starting to come together for Flashy.  I really like the look and the feel of the pistol.

The next task will be the tricky one; I'll be taking a stab at Bondo.  I need to create the bevel from the barrel width to the end-cap width, and fill in the trapezoid a bit.  After that it's all about finding a few detail pieces, and hopefully getting it ready to resin cast.

Malgus Notes

For those of you playing the home game; no, I have not discarded my desire to do Darth Malgus.  In fact with a few recent aquisitions and some notes online, I'm re-doubling my efforts to progress towards obtaining my "Sith Lord" designation in the 501st.

Just putting a few links down here for future reference for this project...

Pepakura Notes and Tutorials

Fierfek's Pepakura Files - Has Some Malgus Stuff

EVA Foam -> Rotocast Finish

This could be...interesting.

Flashy: Phase Two-Barrels of Fun and the Sin of Tra

I made a little more progress on Flashy over the weekend.  I'm really enjoying how the pistol is coming along.  If there's one complaint that I have, it's that I think I'm shooting myself in the foot for being able to wire up some electronics in this thing.  Ideally, I'd like to have an LED light be inside the trapezoidial housing under the front of the barrel.  My problem is I don't think I'm making the gun quite right to do that.

Not much can be done about it at this step.  I guess I'll just press on and see where things go.  This is my first run at the subject, and my first prop ever of this type.  I need to remember that it doesn't have to have all the bells and whistles on the first try.  I need to get some experience with this stuff, and then I can move on to more advanced concepts like "electronics".

Anyway, on with the progress report...

Next up, the barrel!  I'm using a 1.25" pvc pipe for the barrel, cut to about 11" long.  I need it to have a slot in the bottom, running about 9" long, to slide over Flashy's basic frame.  This was done with a dremmel and a quik-lock plastic-cutting wheel.

This led to the next step, modifying the frame to be able to accept the barrel where I want it to rest.  As you can see, the barrel is way out too far.

As I mentioned in my last post, I probably jumped the gun a bit by glueing one of the halves of the pistol grips in place.  I needed to cut out a large amount of the frame to fit the barrel. 

Fortunately I was still able to do so, with one side of the frame still flush witht he base of the Scrollsaw.  Three quick line-cuts, and the frame can accept Flashy's barrel.

Decent hand-size, if I do say so myself.

The barrel needed a few modifications' there are indents on the left and right of the barrel that needed to get marked off and cut out.

Looking better...looking better...

Now we move on to "the Trapezoid".  The trapezoid starts out narrow at the bottom, and goes up the gun at a slope to be as wide as the barrel.  I marked off and cut the two sides out of Sintra sheets.

I then marked off and cut out the indentations on the sides of the trapezoid.

Looking decent!  But...I discovered another problem.  The trapesoids have indentations that are flush with the frame.  The barrel will need to have more voids cut out of them to allow for the indentations.

Next step is the top of the barrel.  There are 5 flat polygons that make up the encosure around the barrel, other than the sides of the trapezoid.  I measured them off and cut them out.

One quick application of hot glue and they're in their basic position.

A little more glue, and the trapezoid is in place.

I really like how this thing is coming along.  It's not going to be perfect when it's done, but I think it is going to be pretty.

Next think is to finish the sides of the trapezoid and get the end-cap in place.

Then it's on to unraveling the mysteries of "Bondo"...

Flashy: Phase One-Basic Shapes and Pistol Grips

So today I had the desire to get working on Flashy.

I copied the concept drawing I did and laid it out on 1/2" MDF board.  Taping it down and tracing over it with pencil, I got the basic body of the gun laid out.

Next step was to fire up the scrollsaw and cut out the basic body of the gun.

That leaves us with the basic shape.  From here, the gun will start to take form.

 Next part I wanted to work on was the pistol grips.  Taking a page from Volpin's ME3 Rifle build, I cut the grips out of 1/4" MDF, stacked them on top of each other, and taped them together.  Cutting them out together gave me two identical grips, one for each side.

I sanded them down, rounding out the edges, and glued one of the grips into place.

I may have jumped the gun on that one, as I may need to trim the body some more when I get to making the barrel, so I won't glue on the second grip until later.

One night of work.  Progress.