Insane! I love watching all the progress/process. Can’t wait to hold this prop
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Limited Run Leia and Chewie ANH brass handcuffs
- Thread starter eethan
- Start date
Hey there,
I received the polishing machine last week, however, the polishing compound took a detour to Corsica first, was re-packaged twice and finally got delivered today. Both packages were delivered at a grocery store 20minutes drive away. It's far from interesting, but I'm at loss on what to do right now with that delivery company, so at least, I need to rant for a minute ahah!
As you know, I live and work at home. My workshop is right on the parking lot in front of my house, I can never miss anyone coming. However, there is that one delivery company that NEVER comes. They don't call, they don't come, never. They just say that they called, that I wasn't home, and that I asked to leave the package at a grocery store that is either 20 minutes away or in some cases, 35minutes way damnit! So, it's been 2 weeks and I had to pick up 6 packages from them at those grocery store. I have lost a total of 180€ of gaz and of my time, not counting that I have spent between 7 and 10€ each time at the grocery store because I feel bad coming only to pick up a package when I don't know the owner. It's the country side here, we know everyone, and this is another town, so they know immediately that I come for a package because they don't know me
Last week, a driver from another company told me that the guy that doesn't come to my place told him not to deliver to me, that it was to far and to just leave the package in a store. (I live 4 minutes away from the village, big deal!) The driver told him that it just wasn't legal and that he didn't have delivery relays like him, so he couldn't do it. That's crazy! the guy never does his work, and now he is even trying to convince the other drivers to not do theirs either!!
Anyways, I'm super fed up with that guy and that company because there is nothing I can do, they just lie and get away with it, they don't have any system to make a claim and in the meantime, I'm loosing my time and money chasing some stupid packages around. Worst case being amazon shipping those randomly through the normal post and those stupid, and you get to chase a 5€ package at a 35minutes away drive! so stupid! Please understand that this isn't just any company, it is the official fast shipping option from the national post, it used to be public and fully integrated with the post office and it became private a few years back, but you are suposed to use this when you want a package to arrive quickly, and they never deliver, it's crazy stupid!...
anyways! the package came destroyed, 2 of the coumpound jars are broken but mostly full, the 3rd one is half empty. (I mean, after I picked up all the loose small metal balls in the box, if not, it was fully empty lol)
fun stuff! I'll try to test the machine tomorrow even though I have much less polishing compound than I imagined. I thought 3kg would be more volume, and in the end I have 2.5kg and it's not even going to fill half the machine bowl, we'll see!
sorry, i'm still very slow, my back is back to full pain since a couple weeks, and the heat is now here full blast, 38°C (100°F) in the workshop, so it's been very hard to get work done. Things are still slowly moving forward.
cheers all
I received the polishing machine last week, however, the polishing compound took a detour to Corsica first, was re-packaged twice and finally got delivered today. Both packages were delivered at a grocery store 20minutes drive away. It's far from interesting, but I'm at loss on what to do right now with that delivery company, so at least, I need to rant for a minute ahah!
As you know, I live and work at home. My workshop is right on the parking lot in front of my house, I can never miss anyone coming. However, there is that one delivery company that NEVER comes. They don't call, they don't come, never. They just say that they called, that I wasn't home, and that I asked to leave the package at a grocery store that is either 20 minutes away or in some cases, 35minutes way damnit! So, it's been 2 weeks and I had to pick up 6 packages from them at those grocery store. I have lost a total of 180€ of gaz and of my time, not counting that I have spent between 7 and 10€ each time at the grocery store because I feel bad coming only to pick up a package when I don't know the owner. It's the country side here, we know everyone, and this is another town, so they know immediately that I come for a package because they don't know me
Last week, a driver from another company told me that the guy that doesn't come to my place told him not to deliver to me, that it was to far and to just leave the package in a store. (I live 4 minutes away from the village, big deal!) The driver told him that it just wasn't legal and that he didn't have delivery relays like him, so he couldn't do it. That's crazy! the guy never does his work, and now he is even trying to convince the other drivers to not do theirs either!!
Anyways, I'm super fed up with that guy and that company because there is nothing I can do, they just lie and get away with it, they don't have any system to make a claim and in the meantime, I'm loosing my time and money chasing some stupid packages around. Worst case being amazon shipping those randomly through the normal post and those stupid, and you get to chase a 5€ package at a 35minutes away drive! so stupid! Please understand that this isn't just any company, it is the official fast shipping option from the national post, it used to be public and fully integrated with the post office and it became private a few years back, but you are suposed to use this when you want a package to arrive quickly, and they never deliver, it's crazy stupid!...
anyways! the package came destroyed, 2 of the coumpound jars are broken but mostly full, the 3rd one is half empty. (I mean, after I picked up all the loose small metal balls in the box, if not, it was fully empty lol)
fun stuff! I'll try to test the machine tomorrow even though I have much less polishing compound than I imagined. I thought 3kg would be more volume, and in the end I have 2.5kg and it's not even going to fill half the machine bowl, we'll see!
sorry, i'm still very slow, my back is back to full pain since a couple weeks, and the heat is now here full blast, 38°C (100°F) in the workshop, so it's been very hard to get work done. Things are still slowly moving forward.
cheers all
Hey there,
sorry for the lack of updates, i'm still alive, still working on this!
I have basically been doing small adjustments, cleanups, unplanned things on the parts for a month, it's crazy! This run has been way way more difficult than I ever imagined, i'm so sorry for the delay!
I have been having a hard time photographing what I was doing as well, because it's such small details, and being brass, it has been difficult to take photos of what I was improving without getting reflexions or shadows, so I have just been keeping at it slowly, trying to improve everything that I could, doing passes after passes of small fit adjustements and small cleanups here and there, i have been doing this over and over again since last month.
Today, for instance, I have finished slightly sanding all the edges of the clasps parts so they are not sharp, it takes forever.
And I have just started doing the same on every edge of each part, one by one, making sure they are not as sharp, but still as sharp looking as possible so the fit is still looking as adjusted as possible.
Also impossible to photograph:
Alright, I have been dreading showing this, and have debated doing so or not while writing this message for the past 10 minutes, but here is an example of what has actually been keeping me up at night for over a week, and the main cleanup. I explained at first that I wanted to keep the material raw because the original handcuffs look raw, I mean, not machined on the main surfaces. This is something that I see regularly on old movies props, it's the case a lot in the Fifth element too since I work quite a bit on 5th element props too.
For something you are going to sell, it's both a great idea and a terrible idea and stress inducing detail.
Basically, you can tell yourself, it's great, the material is raw, I won't have to worry too much about scratches and tiny details because the material is already oxidized, full of small bumps and scratches.
BUT, first, like always, I really obssesed over not scratching my parts while working on them, so just as usual, I'll put a piece of paper between my parts and my vice jaws, and will store them one by one next to each other on a clean surface, like I always do. So, in this case, it doesn't change anything. However, while doing the project, you realize that there are machining burrs, small things that you want to sand, some excessive oxidizing in some areas that you don't feel confortable shipping to a customer, and here comes the issue of how are you going to get rid of this while you want to keep the raw surface on the parts.
All along the project, I have kept the surfaces raw, not touched anything and been extremely carefull about all the machining and handling so I didn't need any touch ups anywhere.
But this project has been so complicated, especially using the leftover material from Chewie and re-sizing the rings to the Leia size, in the end, I had some small machining burrs and some left over small creases from an additional step of bending I had to do to adjust the fit of all the parts, and I was not confortable with this.
And like I said, after loosing sleep over this for about a week, consulting my wife with several solutions, I ended up deciding to sand slightly the junctions around the flat spots where the clasps are secured, blending the sanding finely with the raw material around, keeping it as raw as possible, and finally, making an overall pass with 000 wire wool over the whole handcuffs to give them some shine.
Here is a poor photo trying to show what I had to correct, how I did it and how it looks afterwards:
basically, the flaw I'm trying to correct is almost not showing on that photo, it can be seen better here, the flat spot in the middle:
and a better comp as well, although still hard to get a good focus on the shiny parts:
we get a very much cleaner and flater line separating the handcuff and the clasps, I'm much happier with this even though I had to sand and polish the parts a bit.
Before you start worrying, and I know this can sound worrying, I just want to be honest with everyone and explain what I really went through for this project and the decisions I had to take.
- I think they did the same on the actual handcuffs. They are raw looking (no machining marks on the ext and int surfaces) and have oxidized spots and all, but they have an overall shine that was absent of my handcuffs before I shined them a bit with the wire wool. The raw brass was pretty mate looking and dark.
- I have finished doing this a few days ago, blended the polishing as much as I could and honestly, the polished area have oxidized back to their original colour already, so I'm honestly really liking the result now. I just couldn't live with the small bumps and burrs around the clasps, so I think this is really for the best.
- I'll keep obsessing , and in fact, I am still obsessing over the handcuffs fit and finish, so I won't release those until I feel they are as close to perfect as I can get them.
- They are still raw!! Honestly, I hope you guys are prepared for this, I have warned everybody, those are raw materials, with all their little flaws, and they look awesome
In other news, I have knurled and resized a bit the 100 stainless steel bars for the clasps. I ordered 24mm lengths, but received 25mm length like the ones I used for the hinges, so I had to resize them...
testing the last step on scraps before messing up the whole run, always better:
everything is still moving forward, just slowly because it's an extremely difficult project, and I have been obsessing over everything as we are getting close to the end.
sorry for the lack of updates, i'm still alive, still working on this!
I have basically been doing small adjustments, cleanups, unplanned things on the parts for a month, it's crazy! This run has been way way more difficult than I ever imagined, i'm so sorry for the delay!
I have been having a hard time photographing what I was doing as well, because it's such small details, and being brass, it has been difficult to take photos of what I was improving without getting reflexions or shadows, so I have just been keeping at it slowly, trying to improve everything that I could, doing passes after passes of small fit adjustements and small cleanups here and there, i have been doing this over and over again since last month.
Today, for instance, I have finished slightly sanding all the edges of the clasps parts so they are not sharp, it takes forever.
And I have just started doing the same on every edge of each part, one by one, making sure they are not as sharp, but still as sharp looking as possible so the fit is still looking as adjusted as possible.
Also impossible to photograph:
Alright, I have been dreading showing this, and have debated doing so or not while writing this message for the past 10 minutes, but here is an example of what has actually been keeping me up at night for over a week, and the main cleanup. I explained at first that I wanted to keep the material raw because the original handcuffs look raw, I mean, not machined on the main surfaces. This is something that I see regularly on old movies props, it's the case a lot in the Fifth element too since I work quite a bit on 5th element props too.
For something you are going to sell, it's both a great idea and a terrible idea and stress inducing detail.
Basically, you can tell yourself, it's great, the material is raw, I won't have to worry too much about scratches and tiny details because the material is already oxidized, full of small bumps and scratches.
BUT, first, like always, I really obssesed over not scratching my parts while working on them, so just as usual, I'll put a piece of paper between my parts and my vice jaws, and will store them one by one next to each other on a clean surface, like I always do. So, in this case, it doesn't change anything. However, while doing the project, you realize that there are machining burrs, small things that you want to sand, some excessive oxidizing in some areas that you don't feel confortable shipping to a customer, and here comes the issue of how are you going to get rid of this while you want to keep the raw surface on the parts.
All along the project, I have kept the surfaces raw, not touched anything and been extremely carefull about all the machining and handling so I didn't need any touch ups anywhere.
But this project has been so complicated, especially using the leftover material from Chewie and re-sizing the rings to the Leia size, in the end, I had some small machining burrs and some left over small creases from an additional step of bending I had to do to adjust the fit of all the parts, and I was not confortable with this.
And like I said, after loosing sleep over this for about a week, consulting my wife with several solutions, I ended up deciding to sand slightly the junctions around the flat spots where the clasps are secured, blending the sanding finely with the raw material around, keeping it as raw as possible, and finally, making an overall pass with 000 wire wool over the whole handcuffs to give them some shine.
Here is a poor photo trying to show what I had to correct, how I did it and how it looks afterwards:
basically, the flaw I'm trying to correct is almost not showing on that photo, it can be seen better here, the flat spot in the middle:
and a better comp as well, although still hard to get a good focus on the shiny parts:
we get a very much cleaner and flater line separating the handcuff and the clasps, I'm much happier with this even though I had to sand and polish the parts a bit.
Before you start worrying, and I know this can sound worrying, I just want to be honest with everyone and explain what I really went through for this project and the decisions I had to take.
- I think they did the same on the actual handcuffs. They are raw looking (no machining marks on the ext and int surfaces) and have oxidized spots and all, but they have an overall shine that was absent of my handcuffs before I shined them a bit with the wire wool. The raw brass was pretty mate looking and dark.
- I have finished doing this a few days ago, blended the polishing as much as I could and honestly, the polished area have oxidized back to their original colour already, so I'm honestly really liking the result now. I just couldn't live with the small bumps and burrs around the clasps, so I think this is really for the best.
- I'll keep obsessing , and in fact, I am still obsessing over the handcuffs fit and finish, so I won't release those until I feel they are as close to perfect as I can get them.
- They are still raw!! Honestly, I hope you guys are prepared for this, I have warned everybody, those are raw materials, with all their little flaws, and they look awesome
In other news, I have knurled and resized a bit the 100 stainless steel bars for the clasps. I ordered 24mm lengths, but received 25mm length like the ones I used for the hinges, so I had to resize them...
testing the last step on scraps before messing up the whole run, always better:
everything is still moving forward, just slowly because it's an extremely difficult project, and I have been obsessing over everything as we are getting close to the end.
thank you so much, definitely a labour of love!
DagobahDon
New Member
Yes, I agree. Fabulous work, the binders look fantastic.
Alright, what did I do this past few days, how did I do it, let's update a bit!
First of all, i finally finished sanding carefully all the edges of all the handcuffs, this took forever! this is finally done and I can move on to the last difficult steps.
Now, you had a bit of a teaser of the installed clasps, how did that work?
I started by machining a small holding jig out of a leftover delrin piece I had, I machined a recess in the back carefully of the same length as my vice jaw, then a precise recess in the front of the same size as the clasps pieces. Both recesses centered on each side, not that important, but easier to work with as I know everything is centered and I know my drill bit is already centered on the clasps as well, so not need to calculate.
The jib hold by itself with a nice "clic" on the vice jaw, it allows me to place the clasps and handcuff at the same position each time, and just drill through everything, knowing that the hole will be at the proper place on each handcuff.
The first cuff I did worked beautifully, the clasps clicks in place and stays there, it was even a bit tight. So I went to lunch all happy and carefree!
I came back from lunch and drilled the second one, and this time, the clasps was not holding in place, damnit! That was a lot of cool headed preparation, but I guess it was still too easy!
anyways, I had to figure out some things. Replaced the wooden clamp (which is plenty strong already) by a strong plastic wolfcraft clamp, and figured out I needed to clamp that strongly, but not force too much on the mill vice itself. Drill carefully, then adjust the stainless steel bar a little bit if it needed to be adjusted. I played around a bit and I seem to be getting good results now so far.
It takes forever once again, and I have managed to assemble 5 pairs this afternoon. But at least, they work nicelly, so that is good because, first, this wasn't prototyped because I'm stupid, and second, this is almost the last step and it is very difficult. Don't want to mess up everything after so many months of work, really!
Really hope you guys will like them, they are coming along nicelly now, almost done!
I hope the video gives a good idea already, I thought it was pretty cool
First of all, i finally finished sanding carefully all the edges of all the handcuffs, this took forever! this is finally done and I can move on to the last difficult steps.
Now, you had a bit of a teaser of the installed clasps, how did that work?
I started by machining a small holding jig out of a leftover delrin piece I had, I machined a recess in the back carefully of the same length as my vice jaw, then a precise recess in the front of the same size as the clasps pieces. Both recesses centered on each side, not that important, but easier to work with as I know everything is centered and I know my drill bit is already centered on the clasps as well, so not need to calculate.
The jib hold by itself with a nice "clic" on the vice jaw, it allows me to place the clasps and handcuff at the same position each time, and just drill through everything, knowing that the hole will be at the proper place on each handcuff.
The first cuff I did worked beautifully, the clasps clicks in place and stays there, it was even a bit tight. So I went to lunch all happy and carefree!
I came back from lunch and drilled the second one, and this time, the clasps was not holding in place, damnit! That was a lot of cool headed preparation, but I guess it was still too easy!
anyways, I had to figure out some things. Replaced the wooden clamp (which is plenty strong already) by a strong plastic wolfcraft clamp, and figured out I needed to clamp that strongly, but not force too much on the mill vice itself. Drill carefully, then adjust the stainless steel bar a little bit if it needed to be adjusted. I played around a bit and I seem to be getting good results now so far.
It takes forever once again, and I have managed to assemble 5 pairs this afternoon. But at least, they work nicelly, so that is good because, first, this wasn't prototyped because I'm stupid, and second, this is almost the last step and it is very difficult. Don't want to mess up everything after so many months of work, really!
Really hope you guys will like them, they are coming along nicelly now, almost done!
I hope the video gives a good idea already, I thought it was pretty cool
Considering the amount of time, blood, sweat and tears you invested in this project (just like in everything you´re doing!), these should cost 1000€ per pair
Everybody, who never had any custom metal work commissioned...Eethan is insanely cheap, when it comes to pricing his work!!! He´s a real asset to this community.
Thank you Matthieu for your "craziness"!
Everybody, who never had any custom metal work commissioned...Eethan is insanely cheap, when it comes to pricing his work!!! He´s a real asset to this community.
Thank you Matthieu for your "craziness"!
Thank you so much for the kind words Markus, this project has definitely been more difficult and pricey than I anticipated. However, a lot of the delay has come from my health issues and should absolutely not be accounted into the cost of this project. It's just how it is. I get told a lot by my close family, friends and some people from the community that I'm too cheap. I try hard to get the best price possible for you guys while trying to make a living out of it. I don't think anyone honest would have priced those more than this and although my price is a carefull calculation with a very specific excell file that I have spent the last few years improving upon, what we would call "the market value feeling" of each object I make is also carefully taken into account when establishing my price. I have been a collector longer than a maker, and, although this is my full time job, I do this because I like it and I don't want to make anyone pay for my stuff more than I would be willing to pay myself.Considering the amount of time, blood, sweat and tears you invested in this project (just like in everything you´re doing!), these should cost 1000€ per pair
Everybody, who never had any custom metal work commissioned...Eethan is insanely cheap, when it comes to pricing his work!!! He´s a real asset to this community.
Thank you Matthieu for your "craziness"!
If that all makes sense!
Anyways, price is always difficult. And to be honest, I have been doing this full time for 6 years now I think, it has been very difficult at first and very slowly improving the next years. My wife tried the same and had to give up as it was just too difficult and she was not making a living at all. Last year was my first good year. It was really good, this work is hard, but when you finally get success after having built everything with your own hands from the ground up, it is so rewarding!
So it has been especially difficult this year as I have honestly not even made a month salary since the start of the year, but it is how it is when you are your own boss and have to live out of the things you build, and also eventually get sick.
But I'm really close to finishing that first half of the project, so that will help a bit
I'm not gonna lie, it has been a very difficult project, the most difficult I have made so far. And the delay is not entirely just being sick, I have spent an easy extra month figuring things out, improving here and there until I could be really happy with the parts.
It's an extremely simple design, but a difficult mechanism because of it's simplicity as well. The brass is alive and has to be accounted for, everything has to fit perfectly together, the clasp has to hold simply by pressure fitting. It's really hard to make those look accurate, good and functional! But after all this time, work and figuring out, we are almost there.
Sorry, just wanted to say thank you and got carried away as usual.
Thank you very much again Markus, and honestly, I hope you guys will like the handcuffs. They are very imperfect in their own accurate way, very raw and simple, but I hope you'll see them as the beautiful objects I'm finally starting to see assembled on my bench.
They have been very hard on me, but in the end, I think they will be my proudest accomplishment so far
Oh, regarding blood, that is actually accurate, I have bleed on each project I think, but this project gave my first scar! Accidents are always stupid, I was a bit frustrated at the beginning of that long period of adjustments I had to do, the first handcuff I took that wasn't fitting nicely, I applied some force to it and it ripped through one of my fingers pretty bad and left a good scar there now.
Matthieu I’m very excited to have these in my collection and am deeply impressed by your dedication and details, thank you very much! All the items I’ve purchased from you have been beautiful and well worth the wait!
Hey there,
done with that complicated step now! glad it went ok after figuring it out
after that, I had a bit of a pre-emptive end of project celebration and ended up cleaning up my workshop a bit as it was becoming very difficult to work in as crowded as it was becoming with stuff everywhere! still need to do a bit more but it's starting to be a bit more breathable
I know it's only just the Leia handcuffs, but we are almost there, I swear!
done with that complicated step now! glad it went ok after figuring it out
after that, I had a bit of a pre-emptive end of project celebration and ended up cleaning up my workshop a bit as it was becoming very difficult to work in as crowded as it was becoming with stuff everywhere! still need to do a bit more but it's starting to be a bit more breathable
I know it's only just the Leia handcuffs, but we are almost there, I swear!
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