I thought I heard my ears tingling. I would have gotten back to you earlier, but I was at the premiere of
Twilight: Eclipse. Edward and Jacob have a lot to teach me about monsters that I'd never be able to learn by watching any of the Predator, Godzilla, or Gamera movies.*
Anyway,
here's the thread where I showed how I built my blade extension/retraction mechanism using the motor, gearing, and tracks from an old CD-ROM drive or two. I used a DPDT center-off switch to make the motor go in forward and reverse, so you'll be able to extend and retract the blades. I used a 12 volt battery to power them.
I'm planning to make more for sale. Since I made my own, I made some engineering improvements: I decided to build the mechanism on top of a flat plastic platform, and I'm casting copies of the track in plastic instead of flipping CD-ROM trays upside down in the future. I'm also thinking about finding a more powerful motor that would take less voltage, like a 3 volt hobby motor.
I'll reply to your PM. To build a blade mechanism for an existing gauntlet, I'd need to know how much room there is to work with inside the gauntlet, how far the blades are spaced apart, how much clearance there is on the bottom, and so on.
* OK, I lied. I wasn't at the premiere of
Twilight. The only thing I could learn about monsters from that series is how much talking, teen angst, and indecision you can pack into a movie, as opposed to real monsters causing carnage and mayhem.
