Mr.Spider
Sr Member
Iv'e always wanted a pari of these and just due to losing steam on some other projects and such I've decided the best way to cheer me up is to finally tackle these bad boys.
Firs things first, none of this would be possible without Rylo who in the past has given us wonderful shots and info on the actual clubs, thank you sir !
Ok so starting off I had to go and find some good ref pictures and start scaling based on measurements I found on various prop websites and get a good feel for the size, turns out they are asymmetrical, thats right, one is longer than the other !
So after playing around in photoshop with scaling and drawing up all my measurements I had commissioned a 3D artist to render the end caps of the clubs our very own epicilepticsquirl ! and what was received was wonderful thank you as well !
Ok so after pouring over my ref photos and getting waaay ahead of myself i figured the best place to start was making a cheap mock up of the size and placement of my measurements, so I went and got a 1 inch wooden dowel and some testers candy apple red and aluminum tape, and after an hour or so I had this ........... this gives you a general idea of the size of the clubs......
Next was to find the correct size of the devil and Angel head that goes on the caps, these faces are actually from the Bowen daredevil statue's base, the large one, not the mini one released shortly after, I own the small one myself, these particular faces came from CaptainJaze, i had order the small statue first as it was cheaper, those faces would still fit on the clubs, and to be honest, fit better than the larger ones, the large ones need some re-tooling to fit properly.........
Now that I have the size and caps done , I needed to build the body, the body itself was originally a metal tube with a skin of mahogany veneer, as I currently have no access to a metal shop, wood will have to do, I picked a standard 1 inch dowel from home depot ( As I can't find mahogany locally ) that had a nice grain to it, as it will be stained later anyway. the main body of the grapple club is actually in 3 sections, so I cut the dowel and will assemble it back together to achieve that nice seam.
Ok let's cut ! , speaking of, I ended up doing this with a miter box and a band saw because I simply couldn't get a straight cut with my scroll saw.... ok moving on........
I should also mention awhile ago I found out shapeways would not print the grapple blade for me as it was deemed " a weapon "... I had it modeled, but I really don't have a place for it in this club as this one will be a stunt set essentially, so I ended up taking the graphic , scaling it, and cutting an MDF piece and then spending an hour or so filing away.......
While I was busy building , I decided to do some color tests, i have stained the wood with red mahogany then a spray of Testors Candy apple Red, followed by a gloss acrylic, Here on the left we have a piece that was unstained and then done with one coat, while the second peice has two coats of stain, making it much darker, I'm def leaning towards the 1 coat of stain for these clubs. But I'm interested in what your guys opinions might be....
And that brings us to where I currently am, there is still much sanding on the caps to be done and I need finish the wooden bodies but once that's all done, I can start making the molds and see what kind of casts I get out of the individual pieces, ( I'm aware resin will not take the stain and I will have to actually paint the resin the color of the stain, but I needed to know what colors I was shooting for in the final product, plus I would like to keep and finish the wood set as a hero set for myself ).
Let me know what you guys think, this has always been one of my holy grail props and with the realization I'll never have one of Rylo's amazing ones, i'll have to settle for what I can make myself lol.
Thanks of looking !
-Spider out
Firs things first, none of this would be possible without Rylo who in the past has given us wonderful shots and info on the actual clubs, thank you sir !
Ok so starting off I had to go and find some good ref pictures and start scaling based on measurements I found on various prop websites and get a good feel for the size, turns out they are asymmetrical, thats right, one is longer than the other !
So after playing around in photoshop with scaling and drawing up all my measurements I had commissioned a 3D artist to render the end caps of the clubs our very own epicilepticsquirl ! and what was received was wonderful thank you as well !
Ok so after pouring over my ref photos and getting waaay ahead of myself i figured the best place to start was making a cheap mock up of the size and placement of my measurements, so I went and got a 1 inch wooden dowel and some testers candy apple red and aluminum tape, and after an hour or so I had this ........... this gives you a general idea of the size of the clubs......
Next was to find the correct size of the devil and Angel head that goes on the caps, these faces are actually from the Bowen daredevil statue's base, the large one, not the mini one released shortly after, I own the small one myself, these particular faces came from CaptainJaze, i had order the small statue first as it was cheaper, those faces would still fit on the clubs, and to be honest, fit better than the larger ones, the large ones need some re-tooling to fit properly.........
Now that I have the size and caps done , I needed to build the body, the body itself was originally a metal tube with a skin of mahogany veneer, as I currently have no access to a metal shop, wood will have to do, I picked a standard 1 inch dowel from home depot ( As I can't find mahogany locally ) that had a nice grain to it, as it will be stained later anyway. the main body of the grapple club is actually in 3 sections, so I cut the dowel and will assemble it back together to achieve that nice seam.
Ok let's cut ! , speaking of, I ended up doing this with a miter box and a band saw because I simply couldn't get a straight cut with my scroll saw.... ok moving on........
I should also mention awhile ago I found out shapeways would not print the grapple blade for me as it was deemed " a weapon "... I had it modeled, but I really don't have a place for it in this club as this one will be a stunt set essentially, so I ended up taking the graphic , scaling it, and cutting an MDF piece and then spending an hour or so filing away.......
While I was busy building , I decided to do some color tests, i have stained the wood with red mahogany then a spray of Testors Candy apple Red, followed by a gloss acrylic, Here on the left we have a piece that was unstained and then done with one coat, while the second peice has two coats of stain, making it much darker, I'm def leaning towards the 1 coat of stain for these clubs. But I'm interested in what your guys opinions might be....
And that brings us to where I currently am, there is still much sanding on the caps to be done and I need finish the wooden bodies but once that's all done, I can start making the molds and see what kind of casts I get out of the individual pieces, ( I'm aware resin will not take the stain and I will have to actually paint the resin the color of the stain, but I needed to know what colors I was shooting for in the final product, plus I would like to keep and finish the wood set as a hero set for myself ).
Let me know what you guys think, this has always been one of my holy grail props and with the realization I'll never have one of Rylo's amazing ones, i'll have to settle for what I can make myself lol.
Thanks of looking !
-Spider out
