Bloop
Sr Member
Hey all, I've been lurking around the RPF for a little while now, finally decided to register and post a few pics of my own work. It's nothing fancy, but for a Halloween costume, I did my own Arc Reactor from the first Iron Man movie. It's not screen accurate, kind of an amalgam of the two versions from the film. I made it mostly from stuff I had around the house - the base of it is two cheap coasters (see pics for one of the originals), the lighted areas are clear acrylic sanded rough to diffuse the lights, and most of the other parts are acrylic or other scrap plastic (the ring with the oval holes was from a bendable plastic cd sleeve). Add to that some adhesive backed copper foil, metallic sliver tape for duct work (not regular duct tape), a little copper wire colored red with a Sharpee, black Sharpee for the "screws" on the face and silver Sharpee for all the other components.
The only item I special ordered for this was the led light string. I consulted some other people's DIY Arcs online (Instructables.com I think), though I basically came up with my own way since I was trying to do it on the cheap. Instead of doing my LED wiring (which I was afraid would fail due to my poor soldering skills), I purchased this battery powered string of 20 white LEDs:
Fairy Fantasia Battery Operated Teeny 20 LED lights on silver wires 4ft $11.99 Authentic Fairy Lights
They worked great; they're pretty cheap and super bright. One thing, though, is the bendable wire connecting them is lead based, so I had to wear gloves when I installed them. I put 10 LEDs around the outside (1 each for the outer ring) and the other 10 went in the center circle. I hot glued them to the base of one of the coasters, then glued that to the top coaster (where all the plastic bits went). I glued the Arc to a scrap of black fabric which could be hot glued to my t-shirt with a hole cut in it. This allows it to be removed from the t-shirt so the tee can be washed.
Apologies for the quality of the pics; the camera I used isn't great and I had to take some pics on long exposure. I originally wore just the t-shirt with the Arc exposed, but on a second wear, I opted for the long sleeve t-shirt over the top. It brought down the brightness and kept drunk people from poking it too much too.
The only item I special ordered for this was the led light string. I consulted some other people's DIY Arcs online (Instructables.com I think), though I basically came up with my own way since I was trying to do it on the cheap. Instead of doing my LED wiring (which I was afraid would fail due to my poor soldering skills), I purchased this battery powered string of 20 white LEDs:
Fairy Fantasia Battery Operated Teeny 20 LED lights on silver wires 4ft $11.99 Authentic Fairy Lights
They worked great; they're pretty cheap and super bright. One thing, though, is the bendable wire connecting them is lead based, so I had to wear gloves when I installed them. I put 10 LEDs around the outside (1 each for the outer ring) and the other 10 went in the center circle. I hot glued them to the base of one of the coasters, then glued that to the top coaster (where all the plastic bits went). I glued the Arc to a scrap of black fabric which could be hot glued to my t-shirt with a hole cut in it. This allows it to be removed from the t-shirt so the tee can be washed.
Apologies for the quality of the pics; the camera I used isn't great and I had to take some pics on long exposure. I originally wore just the t-shirt with the Arc exposed, but on a second wear, I opted for the long sleeve t-shirt over the top. It brought down the brightness and kept drunk people from poking it too much too.
