I finally got round to printing the sight and slider. These were printed with a black PLA plastic at a 0.3mm layer height. It was printed in two parts and sandwiched together. I now need to print the orange part, unfortunately the printer is currently out of order.
I've also ordered some SMD LEDs to light it up from the inside.
Jon
A week and a half ago I received delivery of my new toy, a Mendel90 3D printer kit. It took about 20 hours to assemble and about another 8 to configure, but it's now working well. Been mostly printing small figures and trinkets, but thought this weekend I'd try printing something more challenging. So I found a complete printable Sword of Omens on Thingiverse and couldn't believe my luck, I've wanted one since I was a kid. So far I've printed and assembled the handle and one piece of the blade. But I'll probably make the blade from a piece of wood rather than 6 printed pieces, it'll look nicer.
So I now need to get back into 3D modelling, probably using Sketchup or Blender. Then I'll be able to print parts for the Hellfire, like the sight and trigger.
Jon
Got a lot of work done this weekend, the front end in particular is coming together well. I started by cutting out the display panel out of the other side, putting the two sides together and filing the cavity.
I then started to use my rotary tool to merge the main body to the stock. Unfortunately I didn't get far before the tool packed it in, luckily my drill was still up for the job. I then used a combination of body filler and Milliput to finished it off. Lots of sanding later and it was done.
On Sunday I worked on the front end, cutting and bevelling the panels. These were then super glued in place and body filler squeezed into the cavities underneath and on top, leaving the panels open at the end. There's a nice picture of this in my image gallery.
Jon
Easter weekend, 4 days, should've had lots of time to work on the gun. Unfortunately it didn't turn out that way. Only got about 4 hours in over the long weekend, plus about 2 hours midweek last week.
I found a plastic lid which was almost the perfect fit for the clip, so I filled it with resin to make it solid as it was quite flimsy. I then cut out an MDF circle and epoxied it to the top.
I made the clip opening a little larger to fit and found it to be too close to the top. So I cut more off the bottom part and added some Milliput to the top section to move the opening down.
I then decided to cut the window which will house the guns display. I could only do this on one side as the Milliput was still drying on the other.
I also started working on the detail near the muzzle. There's a picture in the gallery showing it temporarily taped on.
Jon
This weekend I reattached the body to the stock and grip. I did this by cutting rectangle pieces of MDF and slots into the two parts. I then super glued these rectangles to attach all the parts.
I then went onto bevel the top edge to a point. And finally I used some black Milliput (epoxy putty brand) to give a nicer edge to the clip socket.
Jon
This weekend I made a decent amount of progress on the side panels of the main body. Building up the panels with body filler alone was taking too long so I decided to use a different technique I've seen used by other prop makers like Punished Props and Volpin Props. They've used insulation foam to build up the prop and then laminated resin or filler over the top. Luckily I had some left over foam from when I insulated my shed which was perfect.
So I started the same, building up fences and then gluing blocks of foam to the panel and fences. This was then filed and sanded down to under the required shape. I also cut the panels in half so I could easily shape the bevels.
I then put a layer of filler down and did an initial sanding pass.
Finally I glued the panel pieces onto the inner frame. During this I accidentally snapped a thin section which is why there's a stop and clamp in one of the pictures.
Jon
Didn't get anything done last weekend unfortunately, too busy with errands.
But today I found the time to work more on the circuitry. I've added a switch and LED and worked the code to mimic what happens in game. Results can be seen above. I still need to add more LEDs for the other light up panels etc.
Jon
I had a pair of stepper motors arrive on Friday so I spent the evening hooking them up to an Arduino Nano. Turns out they don't spin fast enough as they're geared down. I tried opening one up to remove the gearing but the motor proved to be too underpowered. So I've now go to find a motor small enough to fit, but with enough power to spin the clip.
Over the weekend I switched my attention back to the SMG. I thickened the centre layers and cut out a section to store the electronics. I also cut out a piece from the front where I'll be mounting the muzzle and other details. I then started the outer layers, creating fences and using body filler to build up to the fences.
Check out my gallery to see images of the gun and electronics build.
Jon
Today I focused on the feature at the top of the grip. I decided to cut it off so I could shape it easily, but not before I drilled some holes for more dowels so it would be aligned when I reattach it.
Jon
As I started from scratch during the week I spent this weekend going back over the same steps as before. The grip is now bulked out. I still need to do the bevelling around the thumb hole and build up the feature at the tip of the grip to get back to where I previously was.
I much prefer the thickness now, feels more substantial.
Jon
