Making Jayne Cobb's Vera: a lesson in building materials [PIC HEAVY]

[wolfman92]

Hey all, this build has been sitting on my computer for a while, I figured I'd finally post it. It's a little embarrassing at one point, but I ended up with a final product I'm really happy with!

The first step was finding the lovely recreation known as Alice from joatrash (sp?), which was all of my reference pictures. Then I had to make a 1:1 mockup on paper:



Yeah, it's rough, but it gives me something to work from when making the parts. The receiver on the Callahan Fullbore Autolock is an AK style, so I got a toy AK as close to life size as I could find.



The dowel will be the barrel, which will be securely mounted in the toy receiver. I filled the receiver with nails for weight (I wanted it to feel nice in the hands), then the dowel was glued in place with expanding foam. The nails turned out to be unnecessary, but we'll get to that.



Then I started to cut out the barrel pieces out of closed cell foam. The idea was to make them out of foam, then cover them in fibreglass. This would be easy to sculpt, and be nice and durable. That didn't turn out well.



The piece for the back of the receiver was easiest to do in acrylic:



Next: the handle...

 

[wolfman92]

The handle was next, acrylic with foam in place of the wood grips:



and the magazine:



...and a test fit of the piece so far, featuring my very cunning hat.

Now comes my downfall. As it turns out, closed cell foam and fibreglass resin DO NOT PLAY WELL TOGETHER. My pieces began melting on contact, and I had to come up with a backup plan fast! There were less pictures taken of this part, but basically, all the parts I had made thus far, I made again out of wood. Why wood? I had a lot of it around, and my dad has a very nice woodworking shop on his property that I could use.



Everything was replaced except the acrylic parts. Also made from acrlyic, the stock skeleton, the part that folds up and hinges on the back plate.



The insert that the shells go on is also wood. At this point I hollowed out a section of the side of the magazine, and put in some copper tubing painted brass. I kinda fell off the wagon with picture taking here, but I have enough i think. As you can see, some parts are already painted, the grips for example, but now the rest get some paint:



The shells for the stock are copper tubing painted brass, with 50 calibre muzzle loader rounds on top. The barrel pieces got a final paint job as well. I went for an exaggerated, almost cartoony colour for the "anodized" pieces. This catches the eyes, and to my eyes is better than a more realistic paint job. When I see the real piece, what leaps out at me are the colours.



And she folds! Next, the suppressor, rails, and scope.

 

[wolfman92]

Again, no pics of the making of, but the suppressor was a large dowel, bored out on one end to fit the barrel dowel, and on the other to look like the muzzle. I made a 45 degree jig for the drill press, and started drilling holes:


It started to look better with a couple coats of aluminum spray paint, and a couple coats of clear lacquer:



The picatinny rails were acrylic, painted blue to match the anodiztion


The trigger guard was very simple. A block of wood and a bent butter knife, cut straight.



The scope is a flashlight, with pieces glued onto it. Including a bob-omb candy holder cut to the shape of the eyepiece.



The laser on the front is a broken pair of toy binoculars



I made a custom case out of an old amp case to carry and store her in. Also pictured: Binky and Boo, Jayne's pistol and bowie.

Why did that get flipped in the upload? Who can say...

The only glamour shot I have is before I attached the laser, but other than that here she is:



A tale of trial and error. Woe and melting foam. Make sure you know some chemistry before you assume you can coat something in resin and fibreglass.