Looper Gold Bars

[Shonuff]

So in the midst of some other ongoing projects, I decided to start another one because I suck at time management. I haven't seen many if any Looper Gold Bars out there, just the silver ones so far. I'm making a couple rounds of them (8 bars per round) at 2 different sizes. My first set are going to be the size of what I have estimated the prop to be, and the second will be at standard 1 KG gold bar dimensions which are somewhat smaller.

I'm making these out of 385 Brass and in the end will have them gold plated.

Here's the progress so far:

Quick wooden mockup to dial in the sizes, corner radii, and bar code.

Brass Bar stock to cut out the first pieces

Template and dyed stock pieces for marking final dimensions and corner radii

Bars sanded down and contoured. Looks like smartphones

Edges routed and rounded over to match prop

My first 2 rounds of sanding completed. These are currently at 220 grit. I'll go all the way to 800 before moving on to etching the barcode.
Afterwards I'll take the final finish down to 2000 before sending them off for plating.

 

[Sundowner]

Looking forward to your progress

 

[stussy]

cool,ever thought of doing the bars from goldfinger?

 

[Shonuff]

cool,ever thought of doing the bars from goldfinger?

which ones? There's the Golf Course one, the Rolls Royce smelted ones, and the fort knox versions.

 

[stussy]

the fort knox stacks,just joking.will be watching yours

 

[ed-209]

Actually, no one has really 'Nailed' the gold bar seen on the golf course that was part of the Nazi hoard. A good friend and makeup artist friend of mine did a pretty accurate version but still a bit off. Many people ask me for a replica but they are no longer available and the ones on ebay are horribly incorrect.
If you ever consider doing them please let me know. --Ed

 

[extreme_too2]

Very cool.
Always nice to see some “Looper” love.

 

[Shonuff]

Actually, no one has really 'Nailed' the gold bar seen on the golf course that was part of the Nazi hoard. A good friend and makeup artist friend of mine did a pretty accurate version but still a bit off. Many people ask me for a replica but they are no longer available and the ones on ebay are horribly incorrect.
If you ever consider doing them please let me know. --Ed

I can definitely see a future where I make full metal recreations of any and all gold bars from iconic films. I actually own one of the screen used gold bars from The Italian Job (2003) so safe to say heist based props are some of my favs.
That being said I DO have some hangups about making anything with Nazi iconography on it. I know its one of those thing I need to get over if I want to pursue the craft and all but it has proven to be a hurdle I keep sending down the track to leap over later.

 

[ed-209]

I agree. I wouldn't want to glorify something that represents what so many of our brave soldiers, not to mention all the innocents, died because of.
That said, I think a similar symbol could be used. Such as they did in the TV series V...

 

[Mach]

You might look at casting these in aluminum bronze. It is extremely hard though so machining may be a problem.

 

[Shonuff]

Back from a bit of vacation and back on the projects. Here are the bars with a resist painted on and the barcodes engraved through. Next up is the chemical etch and then on to final polish and plating

 

[Sundowner]

Can’t wait to see how they turn out!

 

[Shonuff]

Here's my first gold bar after acid etching. This thing came out way better than I was thinking it would. This is my first foray into acid etching and so glad I didn't screw this up. I left the piece in a heated acid batch of ferric chloride for a 6 hour soak and got it to etch in a good 1/16th of an inch without any bleedover. I'm super stoked! Got the second piece in now and looking forward to the final sanding/polish then kicking over to plating.

 

[Sundowner]

That looks amazing!

 

[Shonuff]

That looks amazing!

Thanks man, I just took the corner to my buffing wheel to get a peak at what it will eventually look like and the results give me a good amount of hope for the final product. I need to take some time to get all the corroded surface in the pits scraped out to help the plating stage but excited to get these done and move on to the full 8 bar (closing the loop) payout

 

[Shonuff]

.....and number 2 is etched and cleaned. Time for final sanding and polish

 

[propmainiac]

Here's the display so far....not much just hung the blunderbuss yesterday.

 

[Shonuff]

Here's the display so far....not much just hung the blunderbuss yesterday.

Nice man! You make it or is it screen used?

 

[Hatefrost]

Here's the display so far....not much just hung the blunderbuss yesterday.

Where did you get the metal backing for that display? it’s cool.

 

[Retroneon]

It's fortunate but also curious that the etching went straight down. What would have happened if the bar was placed at an angle? Would the etching be sideways?