Last Man Standing: killbook of a bounty hunter, Gun-Tar Build: Pic heavy

spazzman31337 · Nov 16, 2014

I recently bought myself a copy of Dan Luvisi's book Last Man Standing: killbook of a bounty hunter and needles to so I feel in love with the magnificent artwork in this giant book. While I was showing it to a few of my friends one of them asked me if I could build them a prop from the book. I asked which one they wanted and she pointed to the GunStar Guitar that Alice one of the members of PMS plays. I told her I would be more then happy to build this bad boy and begun to build it today

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The idea:

after looking at this thing for a good while I took it into illustrator and built myself a blueprint of it:

Once I had finished drawing the blueprint I printed it up and assembled the papers since I don't have one of thous fancy large printers and all haha:

Once that was all done I found a large piece of 3/4″ MDF that I had just laying around. I wasn't to sure if the prints would fit ,but once I cut them all to size they fit with space left over. XD

I used 3M super 77 spray glue on the sheet of MDF and on the backs of the prints. Once this stuff touches itself there is no getting off "That sounded dirty"

Here are the prints now one with the MDF. Its like they where made for each other (^_^).

Now came the fun part where I would learn how to use a jigsaw on my only sheet of MDF without practicing first. No better way to learn then not being able to mess it up the first time, right haha.

VOILÀ and here it is all cut out and beautiful. Now we get to do this two more times

To get the holes in the body I figured by drilling a few starter holes would be a good idea to get the jigsaw in to start the cuts ya know.

BOOM all three parts done and not a single **** up haha.

and here is a size comparison just to get an idea of what its going to look like and how its all going to fit together.

Anyways that is what i have gotten done thus far and shall continue in the marrow

spazzman31337 · Nov 17, 2014

Re: LMS GunStar Guitar: Pic heavy

To start the day off I was looking at what I had done last night and thought to myself " hmmmm it seems a little to thick."

Fortunately when I cut out the face piece of the body I had challenged myself to see if I could cut it out without cutting in from the edges, and by being a weirdo with my little self challenges I cut out a perfect brace to hold it for me.

I threw the face in and would you look at that its like it was made for it... Oh wait.

So the plan here is to cut this baby down to half the width it is now. "Note to self when you change the router tip make sure its tight or it tends to drop while your working, Oops."

All done and just to let you know there is a crap ton of sawdust that came from this thing haha.

So the hole I accidentally carved into the face board I filled with some caulk I had. This I do not recommended, the **** dint dry all the way and is just not meant to be used in this way who knew haha.

See this is the hole in the face board that I tried filling with caulk, but as I said this was a fail idea so I pulled it all out.

so I went out and bought this stuff and things and such.

I decided filling the hole with wood putty was a much better idea. What a concept right.

And Would you look at how nice that is. It's almost looks like I know what I'm doing HA.

so yeah that's what ive gotten done so far i'll probably work on it a little more today

spazzman31337 · Nov 17, 2014

Re: LMS GunStar Guitar: Pic heavy

So right here I have been working on the mechanical parts with a dremel for about 20 minutes now and that = FAIL way to long for so little progress.

So what I did is I went and grabbed my plunge router and went to town on it. this only took me about 10 minutes to finish up. Its a little ruff but much better the the dremel. I then used a cutting bit on my dremel for the line work.

I found some wood working tools that I had around laying and used them to make the edges of the mech parts look crisp and tight.

spazzman31337 · Nov 19, 2014

Re: LMS GunStar Guitar: Pic heavy

Welcome to how to bake a Gun-Star Guitar 101. First you are going to want a layer of tin foil between your guitar and work station.

Next we are going to unleash a cascade of wood glue onto the surface of the guitar. Make sure to spreed it out evenly all over the body.

Next take your second half and sandwich them together. Make sure to use to use lots of claps

USE ALL THE CLAMPS!!!!

Now remove the clamps and tin foil. this next step you dont have to do but I did it anyways. I drilled holes all over the body and then taped wooden dowels and wood glue into everyone. This just makes me feel like its more sturdy, but its probably doing nothing for it haha. The food was good too.

I then used some more putty to fill in the little holes I made all over this thing.

I found this awesome little bit that if used the right way makes all your edges perfect XD. I have perfect edges now well somewhat.

Okay now to add the detail to the other side. I cropped and mirrored the blue print then stuck it to the other side of the body to start work. I guess you can free hand the lines in with a pen, but this only took like 3 minutes to do.

so yeah that's where im at with it at this moment. ill update in a few once im done carving out the backside

gunnerk19 · Nov 19, 2014

Re: LMS GunStar Guitar: Pic heavy

Interesting....

However, to be honest I was expecting something from "The Last Starfighter" when I read the thread title...

Badsprout · Nov 19, 2014

Re: LMS GunStar Guitar: Pic heavy

gunnerk19 said:
Interesting....

However, to be honest I was expecting something from "The Last Starfighter" when I read the thread title...

Ha, me too! However, as a guitarist myself I'll be following this build with interest.

spazzman31337 · Nov 19, 2014

Re: LMS GunStar Guitar: Pic heavy

Here is the side of it I have used some wood putty to fill in holes and cuts from the carving processes. Needs a few more layers and lots of sanding but its coming along

I also found some screws and doodads to add to it for some detail

see a doodad.

I edged the bottom of the face board where it meats with the mech part to give it a felling of depth.

See.... Depth....

Attaching the face with all the clamps once again and ill let this thing dry for the rest of the night

spazzman31337 · Nov 19, 2014

Re: LMS GunStar Guitar: Pic heavy

gunnerk19 said:
Interesting....

However, to be honest I was expecting something from "The Last Starfighter" when I read the thread title...

Lol sorry to disappoint I didn't realize my tittle referenced something else

Badsprout · Nov 20, 2014

Re: LMS GunStar Guitar: Pic heavy

Will you be able to play it, or is it just going to be a prop?

Reminds me a bit of this:

spazzman31337 · Nov 20, 2014

Re: LMS GunStar Guitar: Pic heavy

Badsprout said:
Will you be able to play it, or is it just going to be a prop?

Reminds me a bit of this:

The person i'm building this for wants it to be a fully functional guitar so im going to do my best to make it playable

and lol yeah your not first person so say it looks like the millennium falcon haha

spazzman31337 · Nov 23, 2014

Re: LMS GunStar Guitar: Pic heavy

I let the face meld with the body over night, and once the claps where removed the two halves had become one thus completing the body. I then took the router to all the sides once again to make it all nice and perfect. TIME TO GIVE IT SOME SHAPE XD!!!

So I garbed my belt sander and went to work on the edges of it.

I took a crack at the grip and ended up with something that is actually comfortable to hold lol.

I then finished up the rest of the edging.

Time to flip this bad boy over and go to work on the back side. I took some artistic liberties back here since there are no real shots of the back and gave it some nice shape

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I flipped it back over and remembered that I haven't cut the groves into the clip yet, so I attacked it with my trusty dremel that I have gotten pretty good with and shaped the groves out with a sanding bit.

After doing the groves in the clip I did some detail work on the face of it. "Note this creates a lot of smoke lol"

Once the detail work was done I scraped the last of the paper off it and sanded it down and here it is all pretty and almost done

Next ill be painting the first coat of primer on so I can see all the little imperfections ill update later today