Budget Builds -Thermal Detonator, Leia's Blaster, Fett's ESB & ROTJ Blasters (<$40)

Sillof

Well-Known Member
Now a days I spend most of my time sculpting doing lines like these.
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But prop making is my first love. I started doing it back in 92 when all I had was a handful of books and no internet. My father was a tool and die machinist and it was a hobby that brought us together. I stay pretty busy with the commissioned sculpting but every now and then I make some props. These are not really new some are a pretty old but I thought I would post them.

I do occasionally take some of my commission money and buy the real parts to make authentic replicas. But I still enjoy the scratch & budgets build for fun. I love the challenge and I feel like it keeps my skills up for when I work as a production designer on films.


THERMAL DETONATOR
Nothing too original here. I was actually at Disney at the first Star Wars weekend when they sold this. I bought a few immediately with the same idea everyone else has had. I painted it with a base of silver, misted a gunmetal, sponged on rust and brown, did a black wash and then used 3 different rub n buff colors. I masked off the electronics so it still works. Of course the hot potato game was under $10.
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LEIA'S ANH BLASTER
Again nothing to special here. Except that the whole thing cost me lest than $10. If is a squirt gun filled with plaster for weight, a various pvc pipes, some plexiglass, an old xacto tip, and an old phone cord. I have since bought the correct model plane engine for a few dollars and plan to swap them out.
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Re: Budget Builds -Thermal Detonator, Leia's Blaster, Fett's ESB & ROTJ Blasters (<$

Cool stuff. Where at the Fett blasters?
 
Re: Budget Builds -Thermal Detonator, Leia's Blaster, Fett's ESB & ROTJ Blasters (<$

Years ago (1992) my fatherhelped me build one of my first real props, a ROTJ Boba Fett blaster.
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ORIGINAL LESS ACCURATE VERSION


It was very accurate by my standards (back then) and with the pre-internet reference photos and DVDs. Over the years I had always wanted to fix the inaccuracies, but it is too sentimental for me because he no longer is able to really make things. So I set about building from scratch a new ROTJ blaster. The entire thing cost under $40.


So I had a crossman 357 that I used for my ESB blaster. Then I found out it was a common base for fett guns. I bought another on an buyer on a online gun auction site who repairs airguns. I got it for $15 as it was non firing but was not going to be shooting anything.
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The first (and most timeconsuming step) was to cut down the cylinder on the sides that looks like where the bullets go. I had worked this out on my ESB build
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Next I removed the handle from one side and placed a large wooden rod in the cavity of the co2 container. It was held in by a generous amount of apoxie and sanded flat. This would give the stalk arm something to screw into.
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The barrel is just 2 sizes of pvc pipe sanded down inside to fit together. The tip of the barrel is a funnel cut down with a smaller pvc pipe with it front sanded down at an angle to fit inside the funnel to give the look of a barrel.
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The stalk was sanded down from a large piece of scrap wood bought at mendards for $1.50
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The stalk arm was cut from some plexiglass using WOF's templates
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The finished product turned out nicely. Bought some of the lightsaber handle rubber from someone (it was over 6 years ago), added some cheap ebay greeblies, built out the revolver area with apoxie, got a $10 scope at walmart, added some puddy on the stock. Painted it with a few different coats of black and grey and gave it a few washes in various browns. All in all under $40 approximately.

FINISHED GUN
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BOBA-ROTJ-3.jpg
 
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Re: Budget Builds -Thermal Detonator, Leia's Blaster, Fett's ESB & ROTJ Blasters (<$

My ESB was actually built before the above ROTJ. Excuse the poor quality of the pics they were taken about 7 years ago with the cameras of the day.

an old crosman 357 (alreadyhad the gun and thought it look like a webley - it even breaks open at the samepoint) with various pvc parts for a barrel.
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a 10$ tasco scope which I thought had a passable resemblance to the movie scope.
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Scrap wood reworked on a belt sander.
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medium stain - no varnish - actually used a semigloss model top coat.
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Apoxie sculpted the detail and made the stalk armout of plexiglass.
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the Revell part is actually 2 pieces of plexi cutout and glued on a cap.
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I picked up a junk 2 cell heiland on ebay for a steal, bought some resin greeblies, and had an old small belt for the strap.

The total cost of the entire gun is under 30$

FINISHED GUN
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Re: Budget Builds -Thermal Detonator, Leia's Blaster, Fett's ESB & ROTJ Blasters (<$

Great result on the TD, probably the best paint up I have seen, well done!!
 
Re: Budget Builds -Thermal Detonator, Leia's Blaster, Fett's ESB & ROTJ Blasters (<$

i'd love to do this someday! Beautiful rework of that crosman man, seriously talented scratchwork
 
Re: Budget Builds -Thermal Detonator, Leia's Blaster, Fett's ESB & ROTJ Blasters (<$

Amazing work

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