Archive&Future
Sr Member
From accurate perfection to Bondo messes, disproportionate official releases to garage masterpieces, the internet is in no short supply of Portal gun props.
At all.
However! The internet does not let you keep her contents, and if you want something, you either pony up the cash or get on with making yer own; which is of course, precisely why this, another ASHPD build thread has made an appearance.
Well, now that rather dramatic and hopefully stirring introduction has grabbed your attention, I'll get on with the stuff you may actually be interested in.
I started initial planning for the project back in winter last year, mainly by sketching out diagrams, cross-sections and blueprints in the middle of school lessons; which is of course a much more worthy use of time. From the outset I planned on making it by a combination of methods I'd seen across the internet and especially on here, The RPF.
As with most who set out to make an ASPHD, I studied Volpin's gun. And of course, compared with the original game model it's relatively inaccurate (I'm not discrediting his or anyone else's work in any way, just making observations!)
I then went on to look in-depth in ThrowingChicken's build, which in my very humble opinion seems to be possibly the most accurate ASHPD prop around; unfortunately my meagre paper round wages wouldn't stretch to a TC kit, so that was out of the question.
Once I'd looked and read up on the two most prominent builds I read just about every other guide I could find, played as much Portal as I could, and collected tons of reference material.
All that combined, I came up with a pretty definite design as to how this thing was going to be constructed.
To kick the build off, I went for the easy part of designing in Inkscape the prong sections and getting them lasercut from the rather excellent Ponoko.com
I then went to building the mid-barrel section; this was made from a 100mm section of pipe, with MDF oval rib structures and a copper pipe holding it all together (which will carry the wires for the LEDs later on in the build)
And the section was then glued all together to form a solid section
After a while, I got my act together and glued three blocks of insulation foam together, started getting the basic back-shell look carved out
...which ended up like this..
...which was then covered in a PVA/Polyfilla mix...
...which when sanded ended up like this...
...which when carved looked like this...
...which in turn didn't fit the barrel.
Damn.
So, that had to be started again from scratch
But anyway, instead I started the back barrel/chassis section; this was constructed from 3 MDF ribs, 1 MDF front plate and 1 acrylic backing plate, held together by 4 long threads, a lot of locknuts and some tubing. Oh and washers and wingnuts.
And all fits together like so
This time, we cut out the inside of the shell and then carved the outisde. Much more sensible.
Which once all put together started looking rather familiar
The shell was then soaked in a couple of coats of PVA/Polyfiller/water mix for strength as the resin we had was eating the foam
Anddd then I carved out the start of the front shell
I then gave the shell a thicker coat of PVA/Polyfilla/water mix.
If you're wondering why it's green, it's because I was bored and there was food colouring there.
WELL. Several month's work in the space of a few paragraphs there; I expect this is going to be one hell of a project, but it'll be worth it in the end (of course)
ANY suggestions, comments, advice or general interest is completely welcome
At all.
However! The internet does not let you keep her contents, and if you want something, you either pony up the cash or get on with making yer own; which is of course, precisely why this, another ASHPD build thread has made an appearance.
Well, now that rather dramatic and hopefully stirring introduction has grabbed your attention, I'll get on with the stuff you may actually be interested in.
I started initial planning for the project back in winter last year, mainly by sketching out diagrams, cross-sections and blueprints in the middle of school lessons; which is of course a much more worthy use of time. From the outset I planned on making it by a combination of methods I'd seen across the internet and especially on here, The RPF.
As with most who set out to make an ASPHD, I studied Volpin's gun. And of course, compared with the original game model it's relatively inaccurate (I'm not discrediting his or anyone else's work in any way, just making observations!)
I then went on to look in-depth in ThrowingChicken's build, which in my very humble opinion seems to be possibly the most accurate ASHPD prop around; unfortunately my meagre paper round wages wouldn't stretch to a TC kit, so that was out of the question.
Once I'd looked and read up on the two most prominent builds I read just about every other guide I could find, played as much Portal as I could, and collected tons of reference material.
All that combined, I came up with a pretty definite design as to how this thing was going to be constructed.
To kick the build off, I went for the easy part of designing in Inkscape the prong sections and getting them lasercut from the rather excellent Ponoko.com
I then went to building the mid-barrel section; this was made from a 100mm section of pipe, with MDF oval rib structures and a copper pipe holding it all together (which will carry the wires for the LEDs later on in the build)
And the section was then glued all together to form a solid section
After a while, I got my act together and glued three blocks of insulation foam together, started getting the basic back-shell look carved out
...which ended up like this..
...which was then covered in a PVA/Polyfilla mix...
...which when sanded ended up like this...
...which when carved looked like this...
...which in turn didn't fit the barrel.
Damn.
So, that had to be started again from scratch
But anyway, instead I started the back barrel/chassis section; this was constructed from 3 MDF ribs, 1 MDF front plate and 1 acrylic backing plate, held together by 4 long threads, a lot of locknuts and some tubing. Oh and washers and wingnuts.
And all fits together like so
This time, we cut out the inside of the shell and then carved the outisde. Much more sensible.
Which once all put together started looking rather familiar
The shell was then soaked in a couple of coats of PVA/Polyfiller/water mix for strength as the resin we had was eating the foam
Anddd then I carved out the start of the front shell
I then gave the shell a thicker coat of PVA/Polyfilla/water mix.
If you're wondering why it's green, it's because I was bored and there was food colouring there.
WELL. Several month's work in the space of a few paragraphs there; I expect this is going to be one hell of a project, but it'll be worth it in the end (of course)
ANY suggestions, comments, advice or general interest is completely welcome
