Props Halo 4 Foam Gravity Hammer (Crimson Crusher)

Hey everyone, I've started up a build for a foam Gravity Hammer for WonderCon 2015. So, I actually started this a really long time ago because I was supposed to build it for SDCC 2014 for my girlfriend. Time ran out and I never got beyond the lasercutting stage. To start it off, I had the hammer .obj file from the file archives sealed and cleaned up by @ACDCrockr209 and then I unfolded it for foam and converted it for a laser cutter. The pep file still has some imperfections that I ended up correcting in the final illustrator files.

So, I cut all the pieces and they were lying fallow for a while until some Red decided to get a little uppity... Anyhow, with a renewed deadline, I've finally made progress on the build:

First, here's a little mesmerizing laser cutting action for you all:


And the end resutls:



For this build I started a new video series, and I wanted to experiment a little and for this video I decided to use an action cam to get a first person perspective of my build. I'll apologize in advance for it being slightly out of focus, it apparently decided to focus on my respirator and I couldn't see it until after I offloaded the video from the camera. I also did a second video after this one, but I had positioned the camera on my head in a way that my hands were JUST off the screen while working, so that one is useless.


And finally:



So that kicks off the build. What do you guys think of the First person format? Good Idea? Totally boring? Helpful in any way?

Hammer TIIIIME! YES! It'll be awesome when it's done!

You should get a bigger cutting mat, I don't know how you've survived this long with that little thing!

In all honestly, I didn't know about about a larger cutting mat. That was the one I bought from Jo-Ann's years ago after I made from gouges in my desk making ODST armor. Plus, you can see how much of my desk is taken up by monitors and keyboards, I don't have much more space to accommodate a larger pad

Regardless of your videos being in first-person or 3rd, it definitely helps to see one way to put a project together.

This is going to be awesome by any chance do you have the files for this?

Here's update 2! This time I construct the sister piece to the side of the hammer I did last time, and now you can see my hands!

BlazedStarbon said:

Regardless of your videos being in first-person or 3rd, it definitely helps to see one way to put a project together.

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I'm glad it's helpful, at this point though, I think I'll cut back on the first person videos until I reached the curved parts of the hammer or something more significant. I think it would repetitive if I just cranked out 6 videos of me cutting out and gluing foam over and over.

Masterchief0624 said:

This is going to be awesome by any chance do you have the files for this?

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I do! However, the model itself it not perfect and there's some weird overlapping pieces or some broken areas that I ended stitching together in illustrator. And if you manage to have the patience and fortitude to sit through all the videos, you'll notice at multiple points that I find mistakes or things I could have done better in the unfold and change it right there in the middle of the video. I fully expect that between now and the end of the build, I'll find a few more wonky things I need to fix in the unfold. Coupled with the fact that I unfolded it and arranged them to fit on a 2' x 2' piece of foam in the laser cutter, it might not be that helpful to the general public. But, if anyone wants the files as they are right now, I'll be glad to share them.

:cheersI'll be interested in the files thank you very much. Looking forward for more updates! :thumbsup

Your the first build I've seen use a laser cutter to slice your foam up. Looks super clean! Good idea with the 1st person view.

Masterchief0624 said:

:cheersI'll be interested in the files thank you very much. Looking forward for more updates! :thumbsup

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I'll send them over soon. From what I've seen building, there's still a lot things that need to be changed in the pattern. Extra pieces I'm not using, missing pieces, awkward splits in the unfold, etc. There'll probably be more I find as I keep moving forward with the build

DocDailey said:

Your the first build I've seen use a laser cutter to slice your foam up. Looks super clean! Good idea with the 1st person view.

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Thanks, been doing it for a while at my local makerspace. Laser cutters are awesome in the terms of saving time. But the distortion in smaller pieces and material loss from being burnt away by the laser does lead to imperfect fits. I guess it's a trade off.


Ok, so time for Log #3, Magnets! For the last few days, I've been working on finishing the head of the hammer, and I've made quite a bit of progress.

You can see my efforts to install the magnets in my awfully long build log video:




I've built out the head mostly and I've cut out the holes for where the lights will go. Having been to enough cons, I know things will break. All the time, everytime. So, I wanted to make sure that I can perform quick and easy maintenance on the hammer. With the head, I decided to make two hatches on the top and back to make it easy to access the lights and battery pack in case something goes horribly wrong.

The back portions are held on by purse snaps:



And the top portion is held on with a bunch of smaller rare-earth magnets. I originally intended for the magnets to serve for alignment purposes only and have the top portion held on by screws. But as you'll see in the video, after I got the top on, it wouldn't come off no matter how fast I swung the head. Maybe that will change once a staff is attached, but for now, I think I've got a pretty good attachment scheme:



After that, I worked to finish up the top and back, and I needed to put the "thrusters" together. I bet you can tell which one I did second...



And finally, some shots of all the work so far:

Halo 4 Foam Gravity Hammer (Crimson Crusher) Update 4

Here everyone! Here's build log #4! This one focuses primarily on the little rounded details on the front of the hammer and me working to made the curved shaft the head of the hammer is attached to. I thought it would nice to show some of the more intricate foam work for those interested.


Here's some closeups of the rounded thingys I was working on in the video:



Here's the current state of affairs:



Here's a curved bit from the top of the shaft. I wanted to minimize the amount of burning I'm doing for this build, so instead of using the shaft of the hotknife like I did in previous builds, I just cut out the grooves:



And finally, here's the shaft I was working on at the end of the video:



I needed to get some PVC pipe to reinforce the shaft and keep everything from wobbling. So in the next update I plan to work on finishing the shaft and attaching the head and blade. One complication I've run into is that since I made the rear panel removable, I needed to able to detach the head from the shaft to keep that panel accessible. I'm still working on were to put the attachment points and what to use to make it all easily detachable, hopefully. I'll have that figured out over the weekend.

Halo 4 Foam Gravity Hammer (Crimson Crusher) Update 5

Hey everyone! So WonderCon has come and gone and the Crimson Crusher is more or less complete. Given how little time I had left with the build, I shot lots of video while working to finish the hammer but didn't get it all edited and uploaded until just now! So, at this point video logs 5 to 8 are up on YouTube and I'm planning to cap it all off with either video log 9 or 10 (which I haven't shot yet). For now, I'm going to make an individual post for each of the new logs. To make it less spammy, I'm not going to post them all at once, probably just one log a day, and I'll be adding supplemental pictures to the posts so they're not a complete waste of time.

So without further delay, build log #5: Twilight Spackle ('cause I'm applying spackle at night)


So after the last video, I needed to attach the head of the hammer and work on the shaft. I ended up buying three pieces of PVC pipe. The two smaller black ones for the parts that connect to the head and blade and a larger white one that ended up being the main handle. To be able to fit the hammer in my car, I ended up cutting the pipe just below first handgrip and attached a screw fitting so I could put it back together



I basically placed the pipes inside the EVA foam and used lots of hot glue to secure them to the foam. For the pipe fittings, I ended up using PVC cement, but that had a bit of a failure during WonderCon that I'll address in a later post.



For attaching the head of the hammer I used some screws and plastic posts that I found in my local hardware store. I glued some washers to the posts to have give spacing to the attachment and also spread the force pulling on the foam and hopefully prevent it from tearing out



I also put together the little box that holds the middle of the blade. Since it has lights, I made the panels secured by magnets so I could remove them for easy repairs. One fun side effect was that this turned the box into a small storage compartment. I ended up using it store gorilla tape, which was useful more than a few times at the con.



The circular bits on the shaft where pretty easy to piece together. Just needed to use the heat gun:



And here's the setup assembled:



With primary construction done, I turned my attention to using spackle to fill in the gaps and cover my mistakes:



That should cover the work done during this log. Stay tuned over the next few days for more updates!

Re: Halo 4 Foam Gravity Hammer (Crimson Crusher) Update 5

Spacemeat said:

Twilight Spackle ('cause I'm applying spackle at night)

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Bah-hahahahahaha!

That hammer is a beast! Looks awesome

amazing detale looks beast all you need know is a brute chieftain

As always, sir, glorious work.

LilTyrant said:

Bah-hahahahahaha!

That hammer is a beast! Looks awesome

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It's certainly a beast to haul around. It may be made of foam (mostly), but it can still be pretty hefty!

Noble 10 said:

amazing detale looks beast all you need know is a brute chieftain

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Hmmm, we'll have to get to work on finding someone for that... But I prefer to think we snatched it from the cold dead hands of our defeated covie enemies. Much like my prefered weapon: the sword.

arma358 said:

As always, sir, glorious work.

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Thanks! Hope you're finding the pics and vids informative too

So here's update 6! All about Plastidip.


At this point, I've taken to putting down a layer of spray plastidip first. It saves time since the first layer needs to soak into the EVA and I don't want to spend too much brushing. The second coat is where I start applying the dip to get a smoother surface on the hammer




After everything was nice and covered, it was just simple layer of primer and I turned it over to my girlfriend for a few layers of paint. Now, we basically grabbed every kind of metallic grey acrylic paint we could find and she just mixed matched as she was painting along with some white and black washing. I won't go into much detail about that step because well, it's really her expertise, and I just lay down one color. I spent the time while she was painting working on the lighting, which will be the next two videos. But for now, here's her paint job:

Hey guys! Next set of updates and these are all about lighting!


(Yes, I know the thumbnail is weird on this one, I keep trying to change it to the proper one, but the change just won't take)

Not too much to say about these, basically you see me soldering and installing the lights. Using my girlfriend's straightforward yet brilliant idea of using hotglue as the diffuser.

To accomodate the need for repairs, I made many sections of lights detachable, which you can see here:



I also did the wrapping for the handle with some leather-looking fabric from the store:



If you're wondering why I'm going over this quickly it's because the upper wrap didn't hold up too well at the con. I see what I did wrong and I'll be repairing it soon, which will be the focus of the next (and probably final) video.

So here's the pre-con completed hammer:



A few of me:



And finally, the hammer with it's rightful owner

That's one of the best cosplays I've seen in a long time! Good job sir!

Hi Spacemeat! Great build and awesome hammer. I would like to know if you can share the files of the hammer because I'm quite interested in trying to make one

Epic work!