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[Syko Voss]

Well, I've nearly finished on the scratchbuilt twin Westar 34s for Nikjay so it's time to get started on my main weapon.

I've decided to be a bit more ambitious and take the kickass design of the 1313 Boba Fett Blaster and try my hand at beefing it up and making a carbine version of it, with an extended stock echoing Boba's EE-3.

Here's my quick Photoshop knock up to compare it to the 1313 original...



Currently wranging a template so I can go out and cut some big slices of MDF so this thing can have some weight, heft and a barrel made out of 43mm PVC pipe!

[Korran Orainn]

He..gjs..sjdjskkw *explodes*

Ori'vod, you just won the Internet.

This concept is gorgeous, a perfect blend of 1313 and 'Traditional' Boba. With the skill and dedication you put into those Westars for N'ika, I know this'll be an epic build

Eagerly await the next update!
Ol

[Havelock]

I have no doubt you're going to make this look amazing.  Quick (stupid) question, though.  What's MDF?

[Syko Voss]

Thanks guys!    (All I have to do now is make it!) 

It's Medium Density Fibreboard - available at most DIY stores over here in the UK and dirt cheap - I've used it for a number of shelves and out-of-the way DIY projects.  Have to make sure you don't breathe the fumes while you're cutting it, but it's great for shaping, sanding,etc (it's the stuff I made the grips for the Westar 34s with)

[Havelock]

Cool.  I may have to look into getting some and experimenting.  Thanks.

[Straka Zulu]

Vod, when you get finished, you should make a casting of it. This is a work of art.

[Welkin]

That is a brilliant looking concept. Can not wait to see it implemented.

[Havelock]

Vod, when you get finished, you should make a casting of it. This is a work of art.

That is a dandy idea!

[Kebii'laar]

Adam Savage used MDF in this One-Day Build: http://youtu.be/QWiqr-lwYA0

Because we seem to love referencing Adam Savage in these threads 

[ROBLBC]

he was using LDF in his build. Gives me ideas for my next weapon

[Syko Voss]

Watching the build of the Barbarella rifle actually made me realise that I could do this...albeit without several thousand $ worth of cool lathes and drill presses to do the really fancy stuff. 

Right - so here's an update chaps...

So I printed out my Illustrator mockup and sketched the outline onto a sheet of 6mm MDF - the stock was about 1cm too long to fit on the whole sheet, so I had to tweak that back...



Then it was glue and clamps to a second piece of 6mm MDF and a few strategically placed drill holes so I could bolt the two halves together and guarantee no risk of shearing while cutting (also the middle hole would serve as a place to start cutting the centre hole between the stock and the grip)



Some time with the jigsaw got me the first profile at 12mm thick...



Pleased to say that hand fits around the grip nicely, thumb goes easily around the back of the grip and the stock at the shoulder feels right.  Also, with my arm down by my side the gun isn't too big in that it doesn't drag on the ground...

(I had contemplated making a card mockup as I had with my first project - the Westars, but I double-checked my measurements and with the paper template I was confident that it would work.)

Then, after that I spent time with the physical piece working out what layers I would need and how I'd be making the barrel out of PVC pipe - 36mm and 43mm pipe.

The two trickiest challenges would be:

• How to cut the MDF and barrel pipes together so that the MDF frame would remain as strong as possible, while allowing me to keep as much of the barrel as a complete cylinder so that it would retain its strength and illusion that it was a single piece from the back to the front of the gun
• How to layer up the MDF so that it fit around the barrel and looked like the 2D concept image (which looks super cool but being only a 2D concept is not guaranteed to actually work in 3D)

Much jigsawing and hacksawing saw me opt to cut 12mm wide slots in the barrel pipes, cut slots down the barrel end of the MDF main body and a big chunk out of the centre of the main body to make the barrel work.

I also cut various strips of MDF to layer above and below the barrel to create the shape of the rest of the gun...



The two outer layers of the stock I cut to fit what I'd intended to be the original size for it so with a little bit of fill-in, I'm able to create the stock to the original size/proportions of the template.

Roughly layered up everything now looks like this: (I will trim the barrel back to meet the end of the MDF but only when I'm confident everything works - a barrel that long does drag on the floor...)



Since I'm working through this organically I do need to do a bit more work...

The piece that cradles the bottom of the barrel is made up of two pieces....the first sits right under the barrel:



The second is slightly taller and sits on top of it...



Unfortunately this isn't quite enough to accomodate the barrel at its maximum width so this top plate sits diagonally...

So I'm planning to cut another slice to sit inbetween to complete the cradle...



The worst side-effect of this I see is that the gun is only going to look meatier and more baddass as a result.

I think I can live with that... 

Right, that's me done for the weekend.
Unfortunately I have to work away this week so I won't be able to do any more prop work/post any updates for at least 5 days.

So I'm going off to the Outer Rim Territories for a short while and will meet you, my friends at the rendez-vous point next week.
May the Force be with You!   

[Havelock]

Vod, your work is so good that my wife, who's not into all this stuff, is sitting next to me saying, "Wow," and, "He's really good," and, "You should buy one of those from him," and things of that nature.  Your work is amazing, my friend.  Have fun at work this week, and I'll be looking forward to your update next weekend.

Edit:

It's Friday evening on the East Coast of the US.  Where's the updates, vod?  *taps foot*   

Hope you're having fun in the Outer Rim.

[Syko Voss]

Well lately, I've been busy (so busy in fact that I've haven't had time to post), so here's an update...

The first order was to fix the cradle around the barrel with an additional piece of MDF...



...which fixed the gun, and indeed, made it look much more baddass...



And with the major pieces of MDF cut I decided that it was time to screw everything together...



This meant that I could pick up the blaster for the first time and wield it - feels good, feels meaty.  Although the job of screwing it together took longer than expected because I found my toolbox had screws that were so long that they met in the middle of the blaster or were too short to go through 3 layers of MDF.

I solved this by gluing some of the layers together and doing a serious countersinking job on the shorter screws.

By using screws it means that I can take the blaster apart and reform it as much as I need to - particularly since the middle barrel section (which still needs detailing) will no longer slot into place with the cradle around it attached to the blaster.

I then took a look at the underside of the blaster....



Unfortunately I don't have access to the fancy kind of scroll saws that you'd need to do a great job of this, I'm doing this all with a regular jigsaw, so there's a lot of error between the parts which means I'm expecting lots of bits of corrective sanding and filler work to be done as we go.

But, rather than obsess about those bits and get bogged down with them, I realised the best thing to do would be to start breaking down all the detail pieces since a lot of those might cover up my 'crimes' on the body for me - no point in refining the piece in places that will be covered up or unable to be seen!

So instead I decided to tackle the tricky problem of drilling the holes down the barrel - a task made much easier after picking up a tip from a fellow member on the forum of using a template...

So, doing a bit of math (2 x pi x radius and all that), I drew up a template in Adobe Illustrator, printed it out and wrapped the barrel...



Why I hadn't have thought of that before I don't know, but I could have made the detailing on the Westars much easier this way.
Well, we live and learn...

And now I've begun the process of slicing up a full-size printout of the blaster into smaller templates and cutting pieces out of 3mm Foamex (Sintra) to create the details...



One thing I am learning is that cutting convincing small circular shapes is near impossible, so I'm doing my best to source things like washers, components from the insides of pens and any other bits I find in my toolbox to stand in for the small circular pieces.  This seems to have the effect of 'tightening up' the look of the piece where the critical details catch your eye.

Many more parts to cut so I'll update again when I've got more of the details built and am ready to move to the next stage of assembly.

[Havelock]

 

[Straka Zulu]

Agreed