Mass Effect M6-Carnifex scratch build - some questions

[Sha Sha Chu]

Hi all,

I am planning on building an M6 Carnifex pistol from scratch (yes, I'm late to the party) to be molded and cast. I am going to mostly follow chinbeard aka Punished Prop's awesome instructions here but I don't want to cast it as one solid piece for two reasons:

1) I'd like to install LEDs where the lights are in this reference pic:


2) I'd like a moveable trigger.

Ultimately I'd like the LED area to be accessible after assembly in case I need to repair the LEDs/switch or change out the battery. The area where the trigger is installed does not have to be accessible after assembly, but I don't want to do something like route out a hole in the cast part after the fact.

This is the first time I'm attempting anything like this, so I'd like to run my plans by the fine folks here and see if they sound reasonable.



The plan is basically to mold it in 3 main parts (+ the trigger). The bulk of the gun will be a solid piece (everything in black lines). The red panel will be built and molded separately and be used to access the LED area. The shaded red area will be routed out of the main MDF piece to create a hollow to install the LEDs and battery. I'd like to place a switch in the switch that is intersecting the red shaded area. I was thinking of either sinking magnets into the main body and attaching the panel with magnets, or adding little walls to the panel to fit in the routed-out area and just holding it in with friction.

The blue panel will also be built and molded separately, again with the blue shaded area routed out of the main MDF to create room for the spring + upper part of the trigger. Since it won't need to be removed later, I was planning on just gluing it in place.

This approach feels right to me because the panels are made out of separate pieces of sintra/styrene anyway, so I would just be molding them separately rather than gluing them in place before molding. I'm hoping that I'll be able to just make the panels as one-sided molds; I'm not sure if this will make it difficult to make them sit flush against the main body of the gun, though. I do think it will be very difficult to make the beveled areas line up.

Anyway, does this sound reasonable? Does anyone have any better ideas? I've been thinking about this for a few days and this was the best I could come up with.

(Also: first post! Hi! I built a portal gun on a whim a couple years ago and while it was far from perfect, it turned out pretty well for not having any idea what I was doing. Fast forward to now and I received a TechShop membership as a gift, so I'm going to give a more complicated build at try.)

 

[LORDXBLACKWOOD]

Welcome to the rpf!

I would start off with asking what is the endgame of molding and casting the gun? Do you plan on selling kits? triforce props acquired the license for these and are in the preorder stage. Not that this should stop you from your build. Just something to think about if your plan is to try and sell them. Second if you arent planning on selling copies why not just make a one off out of mdf? You can get everything you want accomplished for a few hundred dollars less. Molding and casting this gun will put you in the 300-500 range. while the mdf will most likely being under $100.

 

[Sha Sha Chu]

Welcome to the rpf!

I would start off with asking what is the endgame of molding and casting the gun? Do you plan on selling kits? triforce props acquired the license for these and are in the preorder stage. Not that this should stop you from your build. Just something to think about if your plan is to try and sell them. Second if you arent planning on selling copies why not just make a one off out of mdf? You can get everything you want accomplished for a few hundred dollars less. Molding and casting this gun will put you in the 300-500 range. while the mdf will most likely being under $100.

Thank you!

I did see an article about the Triforce Props versions the day after I decided to do this build.

Part of the reason I'd like to mold and cast it is just to try it out and get experience with moldmaking and casting. And while I don't intend to sell them publicly, a couple friends have expressed interest in having one after I'm finished, so I'd consider selling them to friends basically for the cost of materials, or giving them as gifts.

But, you do make valid points. At this stage I haven't done more than make my blueprints in Illustrator, so I'm just in the exploration/planning stages.

 

[Sha Sha Chu]

Well, I decided to go ahead with this build as planned. I still haven't figured out 100% what I'm going to do with the LEDs and trigger, but it'll be a little while before I have to decide.

I started out by transferring my drawing to 3/4" MDF using a laser jet and acetone. It didn't turn out great, but it was good enough to get the outline. I had to try a couple times, and found the best results using a fresh printout. Not sure why it seems so easy for some people one YouTube, but I read somewhere that Brother printers (which I have) use a type of ink that doesn't transfer well.



I tried the same acetone trick on PVC foam and it didn't work at all, so I just printed it out and glued the printout onto the foam with a gluestick.

I cut the PVC foam my hand using a utility knife, which worked out pretty well but took a few hours. I'm not looking forward to having to do a second one of these. I cleaned up the rounded parts using a Dremel and router bit (not shown. )



I cut the MDF at TechShop using a bandsaw, which worked out pretty well.



Unfortunately the shop doesn't have a scroll saw, so I had to do the internal cuts with a coping saw. They turned out pretty horribly, but I was able to save them a bit with some filing. Still, I'm going to have to do a lot of filling and sanding. Does anyone know if magic sculpt can be used as a filler? I've used bondo in the past and I'm not wild about using it, not to mention the smell.





I did a test fit and it was ok. After I cut out the rest of the PVC foam, I'll clamp all the layers together and sand them at once so I can get the edges to line up more cleanly.



Thanks for reading! Comments welcome.

 

[Daemon]

Don't worry about being 'late to the party'. I just finished making a Paladin out of polystyrene myself. There's always room for creators.

I might not be following your post 100%, but I think it might be easier (or rather just look better) if you extended the panel on the Carnifex for the LED more to the left (I've added a very rough diagram to the post). I just don't like the idea of the seam going through the exterior of the pistol without some way to hide it.

Whichever way you use, I hope this works out for you!

 

[Sha Sha Chu]

There is actually a seam running on the gun there anyway, but I think your that your idea will be easier to execute. Thanks for the input!

 

[Sha Sha Chu]

Took a bit of a break from the pistol to build a foldable work bench in my garage:

Anyway, just plugging away with the 1/4" and 1/8" PVC foam parts:

Everything has been roughly cut out, but there's a lot of Dremel-ing, sanding, filing, etc to do. I can't completely glue it together for that because I want to leave it in parts for molding.

I'm also still rolling around ideas in my head about the best way to mold this thing. I haven't made any more cuts into the MDF because I want to make sure I don't cut out anything I'll need later.

Slow and steady!