Captain America Shield from satellite dish

[vtswordfish]

So I've been inspired to work on my own captain america shield. I REALLY like the movie version, and wanted to try and see if I could replicate it using a satellite dish, this will be a log of my progress on the dish.

Unfortunately I didn't take some beginning shots of the dish, but I picked up an old Dishnetwork 500 dish at the thrift store for $3 bucks, stripped off all the unnecessary parts and went to work.

The stage I am at currently at is that I stripped the paint from the back of the dish, I want to make this have the metallic look of the movie shield. I am trying to figure out a good way to simulate spin lines on the metal, also a good way to etch the circles into the metal once I have them traced on, any ideas? I have a circle cutter that I used on my R2 dome that would do the trick, unfortunately the diameter is only like 6 inches so I couldn't do the larger circles.

 

[vtswordfish]

Oh and i obviously need to do some more bondo work and sanding, the holes were filled with JB weld but I accidentally sanded through on 2 of them.

 

[closetrat]

Looking good so far!

 

[superDrool]

Any ideas on how you plan on attaching the harnesses on the backside?

 

[vtswordfish]

Not gotten that far yet, I read that epoxy doesn't hold great. Will do some more research and try to come up with a suitable solution.

 

[vtswordfish]

Alrighty, another update. I finished bondoing the holes up (still need to touch them up a bit). I then took a circle cutter that I have and etched the rings into the metal, just enough to give it some depth. I then took a wire brush just as a test and spun the metal around, moving the brush to give it a spinned metal look. The picture doesn't do it justice, but this actually works pretty well, you can see the fake spin lines in it really well in person. Anyways here is the pic:

(also the pic makes it look like the outer ring is crooked, it is just the angle that I snapped the picture at)

 

[Weaselhammer]

That's a pretty good idea using a sattelite dish !

 

[dougc89]

I got my sat dish today.. Starting tomorrow on my own shield..

 

[Judge Spartan]

I ticked off! I had 2 dishes and threw them out last year! I'll never throw another thing out again...

 

[Random490]

I saw this on Backyard effects, but there the shield looked a little smaller. I'm wondering what's the diameter of your shield. I'm wondering what kind of Satellite dish I should look for.

 

[vtswordfish]

The diameter on this dish is a little over 21", so this will not be to scale with the movie version which is what I am making. A lot of people recommend the flexible flyer sled if you want to go for something larger, but I couldn't pass up making this out of a $3 dish opposed to a $40+ sled. Tomorrow I plan on making a mock-up star for the middle section, I am then going to cut it out of metal and piece it together on the shield. Lots of work still to do,

 

[vtswordfish]

I saw this on Backyard effects, but there the shield looked a little smaller. I'm wondering what's the diameter of your shield. I'm wondering what kind of Satellite dish I should look for.

You can see the name of the dish up on my first post (Dish Network 500) or something along those lines. The actual dish will be more of an oval shape and you have to cut the circle out of that. I would recommend having some sort of large compass, I got a cheap 12" one at harbor freight to use, it really comes in handy with cutting the dish and then making the bands around the shield.

Mine is just going up as a display piece so I'm not 100% concerned about accuracy, just want it to look somewhat decent!

 

[Judge Spartan]

Keep up the Great work, it's awesome..

 

[vtswordfish]

Just a small update, I sized up a star for the center section. I am going to cut this out of some .025 metal sheeting. The lines are the star are not accurate to the cuts I will make (I extended the line to the tip of each point to make sure it was a straight line). I need to adjust the size slightly smaller, but here's the pic:

 

[TallDarkandDisfigured]

Looking good! So you are at 21" diameter with this? And the movie shield is what?

I've got a couple dishes sitting in my basement....

 

[vtswordfish]

I want to say I read in Chris' thread that it was about 26.5" for the movie one, so mine will be off by 5 or 6", not a huge deal to me as most people aren't going to notice it since it will be up on my wall.

 

[Chris Fields]

I want to say I read in Chris' thread that it was about 26.5" for the movie one, so mine will be off by 5 or 6", not a huge deal to me as most people aren't going to notice it since it will be up on my wall.

Yeah, my guess is somewhere around 25" to 26", ... though they did say they used several different shields, including different sized shields for different shots.

 

[vtswordfish]

And of course Chris is the man to chime in! his shields are amazing

 

[Chris Fields]

And of course Chris is the man to chime in! his shields are amazing

Thank you! I'm looking forward to seeing yours though, it's looking great so far

 

[vtswordfish]

Alrighty, didn't think I'd update again tonight but I decided to cut out the star and see how it looks. Not too shabby for my first try. I need to file/sand the edges a bit and see if I can make it fit into the center better. If not I may scratch it and do another star that fits a little better.