Limited Run Dredd Lawgiver 2012 Full Electronics and Action

Sorry these pics are just taken with my phone under studio lights, meant to take nice ones but it's been a crunch time weekend and I want to get this posted before it's too late. Note that I'm doing a lot of parallel operations then when it gets to the finishing stage I'm doing them 1 by 1.

Here's a full state of the union on each of the remaining Lawgivers for my part of the run.

enterprise0216 :

Yours is ready to go*!
* I did remember that you wanted the stand coppered and weathered, doing that either tonight or tomorrow AM

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(serial blurred because it's custom)

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rolandblais :

I'm just doing the final electronics installation, it's all ready to go after that pending inspection

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asavage :

Yours is almost ready to go but still needs the top coats on the frame, everything's 100% except for that

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The next two are coming along behind these, the electronics are done and they're on their second primer/finish pass:

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The last one on my list is the Toy Traders one which will be after all these have shipped and will be filmed for the 'how to' videos.
Can't wait to see mine on the block. Very exciting.
 
Wow, this is the first time I've ever had 2 complete Lawgivers co-located, what an odd feeling :D

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However, the one on the bottom for enterprise0216 was my first foray into airbrush primer and it doesn't pass inspection now the paint has set. The primer is much thinner and even the 600 grit I was using on the frame before priming creates scratches that show faintly through in the right light. I had to put a big light in line with the scratches here so you can see them in this pic, they don't show up nearly this well in person, but they're clearly there. Compare that to the top lawgiver for rolandblais and you'll see what I mean, so it has to come apart and get refinished, boo. I've messaged with enterprise0216 they've told me they're more than happy with me taking the time to get it right, so back into the forging fires it goes (if you change your mind on that message me before about noon PST tomorrow, it comes apart then). I hope you understand that there's tears in my eyes even posting this, it's sooo friggen close and I'm desperate to be done with this before Christmas, but it is what it is. For the record when I told my wife I was thinking about redoing it she smacked me a good one.

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I've been playing with short form content filmed and edited on my phone since I haven't had any time to film anything. Here's a reel of cutting the metal cocking pin on the lathe. It was 20min of raw footage, cut down to 90 seconds:

My kids took one look and said "You lost 80% of people in the first 10 seconds dad, boo", so I created a 35 second cut I'll post tomorrow and see what happens. It's a brave new world of twitchy content.
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Here's the last part of asavage 's lawgiver, it was suffering from the same issue of not being smooth enough after airbrush primer, fortunately the weather FINALLY let up so I was able to prime and sand it today, this pic is taken about 30 sec before I ran up to do this post so it's still wet:

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And finally here's the last parts of the last two of my part of the run, well on their way to final completion:

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Bi-weekly rant
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Just FYI If you're wondering why this takes so long, keep in mind the journey it takes to go from the rough support material and layer line covered plastic mess into something like you see above, it's a huge endeavor. All will be in the videos but I'm estimating even with all the parallel work it's taking me 25~35 hours each to get them out the door, and I'm probably underestimating.

There's no way I know of to scale or speed up creating these without industrializing the process. Think of 3D printing like a 'roughing machine'. It'll get you into the ballpark, some printers closer than others, but the rest is all down to your whittling skills.

The 3D printer's true value isn't speed, it's empowerment. I've always loved inventing and creating new things, but once they're done, it goes on a shelf, or more likely into a box, and is forgotten. With 3D printing, independent creators can share their wacky inventions and models and empower anyone with a 3D printer to make their amazing things, far beyond what they could do with the limited space and money most people have (especially in the last year, eh?) When I look at my favorite 3D printed thing, the Anders PKD (this model is amazing), there's no way I could have done that myself without 3D printing, especially not with all the moving parts and screen accurate detail.

My friend makes props for DC and he won't touch 3D printing with a 10 foot pole. I was hanging around his shop a few months ago while he was making blasters for a gang for a sci-fi show. He basically took some airsoft M4 lowers, some cheap Chinese lightsabers, stuck the lightsaber into where the upper went and glued it in, then shoved a block of wood in the magwell, spayed it all black, and BOOM, ready for set. He doesn't have the time or energy for 3D printing, and to be honest I don't blame him. That kind of work is not who this technology is aimed at.

If you have a love for making props like this and are willing to spend the time to make YOUR Lawgiver, PKD, or Mando blaster, this is the way...

Final note: I upped my time per day from 2.5 hours min to 3.5 hours min on weekdays on this run and I'm starting to keep a daily log on the Props 3D Discord to keep myself pumped. Don't worry about reading it there, I'll post the highlights here with the next post, this one is far too long already.
 
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Here's the daily log for this week pasted over from Discord just so you can see what I'm up to, going to have a huge update tomorrow. Will save pics until then:

Props3D_Chris — 12/05/2022 6:56 PM
Dec 3~4 - Lawgivers
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- Finished LG#7 perfectly for shipping, just gotta do the stand weathering
- 1 more electronics installed, #8
- 1 more on deck but frame needs repriming, LG#9
- 2nd pass sanded and primed last 2 frames
- Inventory check and organization - Looks like I have enough parts for the run, 1 Youtube (Toy Traders 9/9), 2 V3s, and 2 V4s. I am going to do the V3s since the frames are almost done and keep the V4s in a bin for later, may just sell them as parts kits we'll see
- Finally got the new airbushes set up, tested the siphon feed and it's way better for large coverage. Ordered a bunch of glass bottles so I can have common paints ready to go.

Props3D_Chris — 12/05/2022 9:04 PM
Dec 5 - Lawgivers
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- Resin Sights - I don't have enough sights after shipping Craig's off so I made 8 sets to cover the run, this includes some 'just in case' sets.
- Aluminum Pins - Cut two, I'm using a carbide chamfer tool now, small difference but noticeable upwards and onwards.
- Installed pin and cowl on LG#7. Will do brass plates tomorrow and get them both locked off.
- Finished sorting and locked everything except the run and the 2 V3s away, gotta focus. More parts left to sand than I thought, sigh

Props3D_Chris — 12/06/2022 10:52 PM
Dec 6 - Lawgivers
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- Completely finished LG#8 (except for brass plate, want to do testing first tomorrow before giving it the stamp of done)
- LG#7 failed final testing on the VR training, it's not accurate enough so I'll have to retrain.
- Finished machining all the aluminum pins, was planning 2 per day but did them all, need these done so I can have the surface back
- Finished sanding 2 stands, last ones for the run
- LG#9 finished detail sanding and priming
- Next two frames finished detail sanding and priming of cocking mechanisms

Props3D_Chris — 12/07/2022 11:54 PM
Dec 7 - Lawgivers
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- LG#7 will need frame refinishing, boo
- LG#9 resanded, filled, primed, spot sanded
- Last 2 frames sanded and filled
- 3 stands finished sanding, primed
- Last cocking mechanisms sanded, filled, sanded, primed
- Sanded last butt plates

Props3D_Chris — 12/08/2022 9:52 PM
Dec 8 - Lawgivers (surprise!)
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- LG #7 taken apart, for redo
- LG#9 and last frames 2 sanding and final priming
- Last top cowl final priming
- Last magazine final priming
- Resin front/back sights painted
- Final sanding for the last few pieces of the run.
- Sanded about half the few remaining small parts

Props3D_Chris — Today at 1:15 PM
Dec 9 - Slow farting sound
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My work decided a fun bonding thing would be to go up a mountain in winter and do a long miserable trudge through the snow, 11hr round trip and my back was just nuked by the time I got home, no progress made. Bonding achieved though. Got a lot of time to make up this weekend.

Props3D_Chris — Today at 7:57 PM
Dec 10 - Lawgiver (Double time double effort day)
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- 3 rear top cowls filed, milled, final sanded, reprimed
- 1 front top filed, final sanded, reprimed
- LG#9 frame final filled and last detail sand, passed approval
- Last 2 run frames final filled and last detail sand, both passed approval
- 3 cocking mechanisms primed
- Second coat resin sights
- Last two magazines final fill and detail sand
- 6 Stands stripped and repainted in flat iron. I want to try doing them differently and I'm sure enough of it I might as well commit
- 7th stand final fill and sand
---- To be continued -----
at the 7 hour solid mark, seeing if I can't get this wrapped this weekend. Arm is going to fall off, back is on full strike but this is getting done!
---- continued -----
- LG#7 2nd sanding and filling, reprimed for paint tomorrow
- LG#9+last 2 frames, 2 mags, 3 cocking mechanisms all painted

(btw, I honestly don't know if this is useful or spammy, if it's the latter feel free to call me out and I'll remove it. I spent a bit waffling but I think it's better to post)

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Appended to post to avoid spamming thread:

Dec 11 - Lawgivers
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- Sanding, sanding, sanding, except for 1 front cowl EVERY part is done for the run and 2 more. I had the last cowl but there was something about it I didn't like so I'm just going to do another one
- Painting, painting, painting. every part has been either primed or final painted. All parts including frames have passed quality inspection.
- LG#7 was reprimed and painted, but some microcracks started due to the speed I'm working so it was resanded and priming touched up. Looks awesome now but going to have to give it 48 hours
- LG#9 got primed again, it's also looking sharp now
- Next LG got serial plate, painted and top coated
- Final LG got serial plate, painted
 
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That's a lot of work for this not to be a full time gig. Can't wait to see mine in person. I might actually have a heart attack.
Haha, if this paid a fraction of what I need to give my kids a solid roof over their heads I'd consider it. I like what thing I have going now, I'm following a long term plan that works within the constraints of life so we'll see how it plays out. I'm mostly excited for getting real YouTube videos done, starting with the LG.
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Just a quick note on progress: I powered all weekend (updated the log above) and ALL the parts for my part of the run are at the 'approved' phase, Craig has also made awesome progress which he's been posting on Discord, I'll break out the sharpened stick tomorrow to poke him to post them here.
It's late and everything stinks so I'm going to leave it for tonight and take pics to post tomorrow. Paint drying is just something that needs to happen on it's time. BUT this does actually take me to the point where I can FINALLY start filming the videos starting this week.
 
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Any ability to purchase a second barrel? To be able to have one painted black and one orange in the event of a con that only allows orange? I could probably find some orange tape but would rather just buy another barrel if able.
 
Any ability to purchase a second barrel? To be able to have one painted black and one orange in the event of a con that only allows orange? I could probably find some orange tape but would rather just buy another barrel if able.
We're including both barrels, it was breezed by in a previous post but probably should have made it more clear. The metal barrel is black, the orange barrel is plastic. If you want an orange metal barrel maybe ask BeakZ who did the metal barrels for the run and see if he's willing to do another one. I can see about doing some up later but no promises, I really want to get some other projects done first so it would be a while.
 
We're including both barrels, it was breezed by in a previous post but probably should have made it more clear. The metal barrel is black, the orange barrel is plastic. If you want an orange metal barrel maybe ask BeakZ who did the metal barrels for the run and see if he's willing to do another one. I can see about doing some up later but no promises, I really want to get some other projects done first so it would be a while.
Oh, awesome. That works. I must have missed that. It came up in a conversation yesterday so I wanted to ask.
 
The sins of the past have been washed away, here's enterprise0216 and asavage 's all refinished with the new airbrush topcoat along with the refinished stands for the rest of the run and what I'll call 'the next one', Spidey74 (Craig) and I need to co-ordinate about the delivery on the rest, we're both very close and need to figure out who has to do what custom serials and brass plates later today.

rolandblais 's is all assembled and ready to go when the stand is, I just need to do the color on the logo and the paint washes for weathering, going to do the same look for all remaining stands.

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Updated Logs
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Dec 12 - Lawgivers Home Stretch
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- Sorted all parts in trays and validated completion and sorted by delivery
- Sanded 2 primed frames ready to paint
- Sanded 3 primed back cowls, 2 primed front cowls, 1 last raw front cowl

Bit of an easy day today, need to recover from the weekend crunch

Dec 13 - Lawgivers
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- Stripped down 4 full sets of matching flat parts (everything but the cowl) and repainted, this is so I can do a full set in the new airbush primer to match the redo on the frames. This was a huge amount of work so it's most of the update
- Used the new Ultra Matte top coat on one frame and one magazine. And quite pissed, turns out my compressor doesn't have enough hamsters in the tank for this honking airbush with the thick top coat, I had to order another compressor with a higher rating. It was working but sputtering so I'm just going to stop since I don't want to risk blotching everything

Dec 14 - Lawgivers
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- Ok, got a new ultra beefy compressor, it's a Chinese one worth about 1/4 of my nice Japanese one but it's soo much more powerful, I love it. I top coated all of the matte parts for 4 lawgivers and 2 frames, it worked great this time. I really need to test and see if it needs 1 or two heavy coats. I'm hoping 1 because this stuff isn't joking when it says 'ultra matte', 1 coat looks great and I worry about dulling it too much doing a second. Now we play the 'how long until it cures' game where it's really easy to scratch and I'm itching to put them together.
- Top coated all stands for the run
 
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Thanks Props3D!!

I have received prop #2 and I will hopefully be able to write-up a quick review either today or tomorrow and a more detail review next week. All I can say right now is that it looks absolutely amazing... hard to describe in words as it is more than perfect and it was an honour to be one of the lucky 16. I'm going to clear a display case position to proud display next to my other prized prop guns.
 
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rolandblais Just final testing and ready to ship!
enterprise0216 asavage All parts are done, just need to install the core electronics

Sorry about the radio silence for a bit, there's been a bit of a 2fer situation going on, the first has been ummm, here's a pic of my top coat table:
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I live in an area where it's warm enough to paint outside this time of year, so it's been an experience. The second has been giving the new airbrush top coats time to cure, I really didn't know how long it needed and since this has been an extremely eventful run I wanted to give it enough time to harden. So it's time to wrap up the next three. My kids need attention for the next 2 days but I have the week after off, I'm going to get the next 3 out the door (no more variables, they're good to go!) and work on the last two.

Here's a little holiday special, I've been syncing up with my oldest daughter to help me filming so we needed a lightweight project to do over the holidays, so I present the 12 grenades of Christmas! (in code view to prevent content spam)

Day 1: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmIq_MWghrH/ Day 2: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmLKwuyAqOs/ Day 3: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmTUG1qABzA/ Day 4: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmU0yOoAVKW/ Day 5: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmYURHEgPp0/ Day 6: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmZ-HcJh-p4/ Day 7: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmcY58GBLTg/ Day 8: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cmf33xPBlBm/ Day 9: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmhZaOdhN9T/ Day 10: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cmj17aQh8XY/

All except for the first two models are models I designed and are on the props3d thingiverse page now, or will be very soon.

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays all!

- Chris
 
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All working! Not quite ready to ship, got some more individual testing to do, my day's goal was to get the electronics installed and working in four of them. Now I've hit that I gotta call it for the night.
 
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What a friggin marathon. I had a promise to myself to get these done by the end of the year, and somehow that's... now?

Of course last minute hell broke loose as the latest code update from Spidey74 caused an absolutely nonsense issue that should never happen, that he would have no way of finding and still makes no sense to me. Then the guy and his family get sick over the holidays and can't look at it just he's bedridden, the nerve! (he's better now, I wouldn't jest if he was still in that shape)

How's this for a head scratcher: So if you test the Lawgiver over USB (how you would do it if you're working on the code) it's 100% perfect. If you test it on the Arduino 328p with the V1 bootloader, all perfect. But I have the newest bootloader 328p's and when you boot it up on battery the 'fail' sound when you don't press the trigger doesn't play, and when you do hold the trigger the startup sound plays but the progress bar sound doesn't. It works on USB, it works with the other bootloader on battery, WHY!?!?!?!

So rather than solve it I've been waiting for nature to take it's course with Spidey74 and crew and just keep powering through the run, so when he's ready I'm ready. But D day is here and on time:

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So rather than miss this arbitrary due date I'm been trying very carefully to not throw this ready to ship lawgiver across the room while I figure out WTF is going on:

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And figure it out I have! I do know my way around Arduino code pretty well but you really have to take a look at what Craig's done on Github, he's some next level savant at these things. I spent the first 30 minutes just figuring how how all the dots connected together to make it do anything. The problem was the MP3 player needed to be 'prepped' for some reason, so if I just fired a little silent blip at it during the boot phase it sorts itself out.

So throughout the day I'll be updating the code, testing and boxing these one by one. When I'm confident of their integrity I'll be messaging each person in turn with pics and a video. These are not in run sequential order exactly, Spidey74 would have had 2 done well before now if his family wasn't struck down by pestilence, but I talked to him today and he's targeting to have the gap ones done in less than a week, he was just about there when his misfortune happened.

Happy New Year all!
 
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And my last thread spam for the day:
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My part of the run is all done! Going to celebrate by taking the kids for a make-up-milkshake at Rocco's (the diner from Riverdale) and hope the sugar rides us through to ring in the new year. Will do the vids tomorrow but they're all tested and approved :)
 
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I low key regret not having picked a finished one, I don’t think I’ll make it as beautiful as these!
But I can’t wait to get cracking once you’ll have all of the instruction videos up!
 

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