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[Hiryu02]

Good afternoon all, I am working on a paired set of one-handed Vibro-axes. I'm new here, and this is my first Mando build. While I wait for responses from the various sellers and makers of goods I have contacted here for my armor parts, I decided to start on some of the equipment that my Mando will be carrying.

The plan is for dual-wielded hand axes when in CQC, sniper rifle from afar, and a blaster pistol sidearm in other circumstances.

A helpful vod here suggested using PVC piping as a base for the melee weapons and it was a great idea, better than the all-EVA foam prop design I had in mind. So off to Lowes we go and now here we are.

This is the detailed design for the weapons. The idea is that the power source in the pommel/base of the axe produces Vibro-energy upon activation. The sleeve-like vibration conduit distributes the energy upwards to the business end of the weapon and a circuit focuses additional vibro-energy into the head and blade via the diffusers. 



The design incorporates a front handguard and a rear parrying quillon for protection. The handle is wrapped in leather or hide.
In practical terms I will be purchasing leatherette or something similar from a fabric shop to wrap the handle. The circuit will be made with plain old black electrical wire. The PVC base is shown below:



I will be adding greeblies to the pommel and other areas and likely giving the pommel more mass via putty or something similar. The "sleeve" I will be making out of either another, larger PVC pipe section cut down and sanded to finish, or if that proves impractical I may use some EVA foam.

The axe "blade" will be made by drilling through the top section of the shaft and threading an appropriate thickness of armature wire through for a guide and for reinforcement. The actual blade will be two halves made with EVA foam glued together with the armature wire in the center.



This should make the actual blade safe and sturdy enough to stand up to moderate play-fighting, should it need to be used. A false edge can be cut into the inner side of the avehead, for effect. Of course the rest of the work will be sanding down factory edges to create a worn look, installation of greeblies and other painted-on detail work, and final paintjob.

I do want to ask for opinions on the "vibro-circuit". Should the circuit be mirrored on both sides of the weapon so it appears identical from either side? or is an asymmetric look better? A third option is routing a single wire back and forth so that it appears on both sides of the weapon haft. Suggestions and feedback welcomed.

Thank you for reading this far!

[Mig Gilamar]

I've found that a source for cheap leather is Goodwill or the Salvation Army stores. Look for old beat up leather purses or coats. Purses are usually a few bucks each, a coat will be pricier.

Hobby Lobby also has a leather work section where you can buy bags of leather scraps in various colors.

[Hiryu02]

Some progress today, was brainstorming a few ideas and another visit to Lowes and this is what we have:



And for some idea of the scale and proportion of the axe heads:



Now, I have three handguard options, and some questions. The first two options are in the above image, which looks better? Keep in mind nothing is set in stone and of course everything will be painted, greeblied etc for more detail.

The third option is to make a handguard out of EVA foam, painted and reinforced with in internal wire for shape, and this handguard would be more rounded and possibly more organic-looking than the above examples, which are more industrial-looking. Unfortunately I can't make a an example build yet as I need to purchase some armature wire etc before I can make a mockup.

So I wanted to request feedback, which of the three would be best? OR, I could perhaps use two out of the three designs so each Axe was somewhat unique? Axehead and the rest of the weapon would be mostly identical, so the handguards have a chance to be differentiation.

Any thoughts?

[Cakes]

This is looking great vod. I would do one of each? You could taper the straight guard down to a point maybe to add some detail?
You could use wire used to tie fencing together as It's pretty strong for your wire, but I'd also suggest notching out the piping so you can feed the blade through. If you did that you could then notch out a bit of the cap so it slides down locking the blade in place.

[Hiryu02]

This is looking great vod. I would do one of each? You could taper the straight guard down to a point maybe to add some detail?
You could use wire used to tie fencing together as It's pretty strong for your wire, but I'd also suggest notching out the piping so you can feed the blade through. If you did that you could then notch out a bit of the cap so it slides down locking the blade in place.

One vote for one of each!

But yes sir, I plan to dremel and bevel/round off all sharp, prefab-looking angles to get rid of the mass produced look. Drill holes, cut slots for greebs etc.

The notching idea is interesting and I will see what I can do to create that type of notch to feed the axehead through. I'm going to experiment some. Hopefully this weekend I should have a blade built and mounted for inspection and feedback. Thanks for the thoughts, vod!

[Cakes]

You can use a cutting disc on your dremel to notch it and sand it, sort of like this

Cap
_________
|     __      |
|__|    |__|

pole
__      __
|   |    |   |
|   |    |   |
|   |__|   |
|             |
|             |

[Hiryu02]

You can use a cutting disc on your dremel to notch it and sand it, sort of like this

Cap
_________
|     __      |
|__|    |__|

pole
__      __
|   |    |   |
|   |    |   |
|   |__|   |
|             |
|             |

I follow you, vod. I'm going to try that if my original plan doesn't work out.

Speaking of which, I got some armature wire and some leather/suede strips and also finished cutting out the base axehead pieces. Again, nothing is permanently fastened, more of a test fit type deal.

Here is the axe with the wirebase and a closeup laid over the wire.



And here is the second axe with a test-hit "sleeve", I will probably have two sleeves on each haft, one resting inside the other, with the wire coming out of the sleeve. I also wanted the sleeve to be offset instead of perfectly aligned with the shaft, so it wasn't just a bunch of parallel shapes.



Next step is to actually install the axehead via armature and see how it fits and feels.Also need to create the inner sleeve and start thinking about details for the paintjob and also what greeblies to stall.

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions!

[Malek Dair]

Those look great vod! Love how these are shaping up so far!

Oya!

[Cakes]

Loving it! The sleeve looks fantastic and really ties it in.

[Hiryu02]

Made some more additions over the holiday weekend. Here is the base axeblade showing the armature threaded through the haft.



Now, I added a false inner and front edge by sanding, I also cut out some styrene pieces for the "diffusers" on the blade itself. I also made a test piece for the inner sleeve and also test-fit the "vibro-wire" and its pattern on the haft.



Again, nothing is permanently secured or glued in as of yet.

Now, the plan is to have wire running up both sides of the haft and secure it with drops of hot glue at the bend points. I'm using just regular black primary wire for this. I think having wire on both sides will make the weapon look more real, and not just plain on one side.  I'm also going to finetune the shapes of the styrene on the blade. The lower wedge-shaped piece I'm not completely satisfied with. I'm also going to mount a styrene plate peice on either side of the PVC top cap, then seal and mold it in with Apoxie sculpt. I haven't decided on a final method of securing the back end of the armature wire, I'm planning to test JB Weld-Plasticweld, and also some Aves Apoxie, plus a possible technique that involves melting the wire into the PVC. After the wire is secured I can mount the rear spike of the axeblade over the wire to hide it fully.

After that it's the power switch, rear quillon, basecoat, adding greeblies and painting in details and so on. Still brainstorming what to make the rear quillon out of and also what greeblies to add, exactly.

[Cakes]

Lookin good vode

[Hiryu02]

So while waiting on weather conditions to improve so I can paint, I've started working on my rifle and pistol.

Here are some cleaned up sketches, and the pistol design I'm going for in the end is the "C" design.



Here are a couple of test fits with different chamber widths, just to overall get the proportions in hand. Foam cutouts are just placeholder to give an idea of the shape.





Now, I'd like to ask for some feedback. It's a minor thing, but I'm trying to decide on the width of the chamber. The first pic has a chamber that is about the same size as the "power core" set behind it. The second pic has a larger chamber, thus offsetting the parts in front and behind it. I'm personally leaning towards the second, larger chamber because I like breaking up straight lines in what is essentially a series of tubes. But I wanted to know what other people thought, as I prefer to have sets of eyes looking at the project other than my own.

So what do you guys think? Same-sized chamber, or oversized chamber? I look forward to any feedback.

[Helix]

Option 2 look better to my taste, like you said it help breaking the general tube shape (essential when working with pipe) and give it a more bulky feeling.

[Cakes]

I'm gonna have to go with the second one as well

[Echo Darklighter]

Hey!  Looks kinda like the Calico kit-bashes from Episode 1!  I like!

[Hiryu02]

Worked on the blaster pistol chamber, the plan is to build up the domed side of the chamber with putty, then cut a niche in the bottom of the chamber to slot it into a small raised area in the grip, then drill through the domed area to mount the middle part of the barrel.

First I sanded off the text on the PVC dome and cut a template piece out of paper to transfer to styrene.
I used some sheet styrene fit together via a slot cut into each piece to make the "frame". The next step is to glue the frame to the base dome, then fill in and dome over the frame with Aves apoxie sculpt. After the Apoxie has cured, I will sand down the putty until I hit the frame again. This should mean that the putty dome will be even and shaped correctly.

[Hiryu02]

Another update this week.
Now that I'm starting to work with Aves Apoxie sculpt and Plastic-Weld, daily work slows down because I prefer to wait until the sculpted putty is fully cured before I sand or add more putty.

On the blaster, I am just about finished forming and sanding the chamber's "dome":


Here is a testfit with the full chamber. I plan to cut a niche into the bottom to fit more snugly agaisnt the top of the trigger housing. The large section of barrel that is directly attached to the dome will be cut and sanded to fit the curve of the dome as well.


On the axe, I glued clear plastic plates with a nice curve onto the haft midway at the endcap of the haft. These will be painted as well. The rear quillon will be sanded and shaped down to look cleaner.
I also attached a "fin" of sorts to the front handguard, mostly to breakup the pre-fab nature of the pvc shapes. I also will add a mini-pommel to the bottom of the handguard.


The quillon is built from Aves, around an armature wire core that is glued into a shaped pvc piece which will fir flush against the haft.






The end plan is to make the quillon look less lumpy of course, and sand it down to make it symmetrical and blend it into the pvc. The intention is to make it look like a single piece of forged metal.

Now the next steps are to finish attaching any greeblies that are to be mounted before the first coat of paint. Then plan details for the sleeves and finish the greeblies on the main pommel, and I've already made some progress on the pommel.

[Cakes]

The dome looks pretty perfect to me vode. I'm sure your hand guard spikey thing will look just as sleek.

[Hiryu02]

Some additional work completed on the blaster. Cut and sanded the niche into the chamber so it now fits flush onto the rail on top of the trigger housing. Then I trimmed and sanded one of the thicker parts of the barrel that is intended to sit against the chamber dome. I've decided not to totally smooth out all the imperfections on the dome so that when it is painted and weathered, it will have more character and a worn look to it, hopefully.

[Kavryn Falco]

It's a good start, but you'll definitely have to even up that seam where the pipe meets the bondo. It's very obvious that it's not all one piece You could try to sculpt an even rim all the way around, but either way it still needs work.

[Hiryu02]

It's a good start, but you'll definitely have to even up that seam where the pipe meets the bondo. It's very obvious that it's not all one piece You could try to sculpt an even rim all the way around, but either way it still needs work.

Dear lord yes that seam is going to be taken care of, never fear! That is just a test fit. I am going to make sure all seams are clean and sanded. Thank you regardless for the observation.

Edit: Not meaning to be short, I was pressed for time. I plan to generally clean up all seams on the finished product before the basecoat. That chamber will have a nice defined seam where the apoxie meets the pvc. I do appreciate any and all feedback.

[Kavryn Falco]

Ah, okay, that's good then. Some people say "some imperfections" but mean "I stopped halfway", haha. Carry on

[Hiryu02]

Yes sir. I merely was saying that I wasnt going to sand the dome itself into perfect smoothness, for a bit of texture. The seams though as all going to be attacked and made clean, this is supposedly still a product of a modern manufacturing process. Or should that be it's the product of an old, old manufacturing process, in a galaxy far, far away?

[Choruk Kar'ta]

How is the Axe coming along Vod! really want to see the end product

[Hiryu02]

Greetings vode, took a hiatus from the build for a while, but have resumed work on the kit. As I continue building and planning, I find myself looking at changes to the base design ideas due to new considerations that I had not thought about previously. In tune with my changes to my planned armor build, I have reconsidered some practical issues with the number of weapons I was planning to make.

In short, I realized that storing two melee weapons, a blaster pistol and a blaster rifle all on my person would be very unwieldy and not very practical in the end. So I have shelved the dual axes, and will instead carry only one.

I also bit the bullet and did some affixing of parts permanently, which I had been putting off, in particular the handguard on the axe.

Now, it basically needs some greeblies, a handguard end-capper and some bondo for seams and joints, then it's ready to sand and paint:

Also the grip will be wrapped with a leather strip.





On the pistol, I have sealed the back end of the chamber and laid out are the rear chamber pieces, with extended "op rod". Still debating how far out I want the rear of the pistol to protrude. The rear end of the main barrel has been sanded to fit, but not yet affixed. I am measuring  the dimensions for a sort of carry handle/tactical rail that will join the main chamber and the middle of the barrel. Filled in screwholes and added a sort of claw pommel for weight to the handgrip:



I hope to finish the main construction on both weapons this week and have them ready to sand.