Strikerkc
Sr Member
[EDIT] Thingiverse files for the Mal Pistol are up. Happy printing. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2352525 [EDIT]
Hi all, I just finished up a prop project as a wedding gift for two fellow nerds of mine. They love conventions and and cosplay, and one of their go to group costumes is Firefly. The wife dresses and Mal, and the husband as Jayne.
Since they love his-&-hers nerd stuff (they display tons of Rogue/Gambit, Cyclops/Jean, etc stuff in their home) I decided to work them up a Mal and a Jayne pistol for their cons, and have a display case for around their home.
First things first; The finished product (sock monkey for scale)
Some WIP pictures of the pistols themselves;
I printed the Jayne pistol from a thingiverse file at http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1720347 , designed by Monkey540
The Mal pistol, however, I couldn't find a decent file that would work for my purposes, so I had to design and print that one from scratch. I plan on putting my files up on thingiverse relatively soon, and will post here when I have, in case anyone was looking for one that prints well on a smaller print area. [Edit] here they are, https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2352525 [EDIT]
The Box, was an odd bird to work on. I found the wooden parts at my parent's house, but the box was to narrow from top to bottom to hold the Jayne pistol. I was having no luck finding another wooden box that would work, so I opted to try printing a spacer to expand the box's height (the black bit that goes around the middle of the box). I had originally planned to paint the spacer with a patina brass or metal color, but I actually really liked the way the black looked, especially combined with the black serenity logo that was going on the lid. After getting it expanded, it was just a matter of adding the metal corner fixtures, some new heavy duty hinges, and some latches to the front.
Then it was time to tackle the inside of the box. I had originally hoped to make a warbla shelf with pistol recesses in it, covered in the green felt, but that just never panned out for me. I ultimately went with flower arrangement foam, with the pistol shapes carved out of it. The learning curve for working with the stuff was pretty quick, and while most of the Mal pistol slot was done by shaving away bits here and there with a clay/putty modeling tool set, the Jayne one was done mostly by cutting a cross work of cubes that could then be quickly popped out without creating a ton of dust, and greatly increased the speed at which I could cut the recess out.
Once done, I painted the surface liberally with wood glue; trying to glue the felt directly to the flower foam would not have held up long term. The flower foam would rip apart any time some force was applied, and the box would quickly become a felt bag around a jacked up clump of flower foam. By creating a wood glue surface, I had something durable to attach the felt to. Pretty much any glue that creates a semi rigid surface when dried should work, wood glue was just what I had. After that I used an elmers spray adhesive to hold the felt onto the flower foam block, and that was that. The spray adhesive I was using didn't damage any of the exposed flower foam, but I can't guarantee other spray adhesives won't; foam and aerosols can be very hateful towards each other. Do a test spray before you turn hours of hard work into a pile of molten goo.
And that was that.
Hi all, I just finished up a prop project as a wedding gift for two fellow nerds of mine. They love conventions and and cosplay, and one of their go to group costumes is Firefly. The wife dresses and Mal, and the husband as Jayne.
Since they love his-&-hers nerd stuff (they display tons of Rogue/Gambit, Cyclops/Jean, etc stuff in their home) I decided to work them up a Mal and a Jayne pistol for their cons, and have a display case for around their home.
First things first; The finished product (sock monkey for scale)
Some WIP pictures of the pistols themselves;
I printed the Jayne pistol from a thingiverse file at http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1720347 , designed by Monkey540
The Mal pistol, however, I couldn't find a decent file that would work for my purposes, so I had to design and print that one from scratch. I plan on putting my files up on thingiverse relatively soon, and will post here when I have, in case anyone was looking for one that prints well on a smaller print area. [Edit] here they are, https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2352525 [EDIT]
The Box, was an odd bird to work on. I found the wooden parts at my parent's house, but the box was to narrow from top to bottom to hold the Jayne pistol. I was having no luck finding another wooden box that would work, so I opted to try printing a spacer to expand the box's height (the black bit that goes around the middle of the box). I had originally planned to paint the spacer with a patina brass or metal color, but I actually really liked the way the black looked, especially combined with the black serenity logo that was going on the lid. After getting it expanded, it was just a matter of adding the metal corner fixtures, some new heavy duty hinges, and some latches to the front.
Then it was time to tackle the inside of the box. I had originally hoped to make a warbla shelf with pistol recesses in it, covered in the green felt, but that just never panned out for me. I ultimately went with flower arrangement foam, with the pistol shapes carved out of it. The learning curve for working with the stuff was pretty quick, and while most of the Mal pistol slot was done by shaving away bits here and there with a clay/putty modeling tool set, the Jayne one was done mostly by cutting a cross work of cubes that could then be quickly popped out without creating a ton of dust, and greatly increased the speed at which I could cut the recess out.
Once done, I painted the surface liberally with wood glue; trying to glue the felt directly to the flower foam would not have held up long term. The flower foam would rip apart any time some force was applied, and the box would quickly become a felt bag around a jacked up clump of flower foam. By creating a wood glue surface, I had something durable to attach the felt to. Pretty much any glue that creates a semi rigid surface when dried should work, wood glue was just what I had. After that I used an elmers spray adhesive to hold the felt onto the flower foam block, and that was that. The spray adhesive I was using didn't damage any of the exposed flower foam, but I can't guarantee other spray adhesives won't; foam and aerosols can be very hateful towards each other. Do a test spray before you turn hours of hard work into a pile of molten goo.
And that was that.
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