Props Mendez's 3D Printed Halo Guns!
- Thread starter CPO mendez
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SI3RRA 117
Well-Known Member
- Member DIN
- S240
Finished product looks awesome. Look forward to seeing the next masterpiece
CPO mendez
Active Member
I got a lot of interest from the halo subreddit where i posted the glamor shots. The answer is Yes, just not right now. i only got one printer and as it is its booked with projects for the forseeable future (most of which are more halo guns), so i can't really dedicate it to cranking out more assault rifles. however, i do have the knowledge and resources to do a mold and cast copies. that's be a few months away at least though. either way, keep an eye out, and if anyone else is interested, let me know so i can gauge howmuch interest there is for commissions
thanks! big update on the carbine should be coming sometime next week
TurboCharizard
Sr Member
- Member DIN
- S068
The one printer issue might be mitigated if people are asking for copies of pieces you've already completed and you use yours as a master for a mould.
mblackwell1002
Sr Member
That looks great! a little too much weathering, but nice indeed!
Also, are you a lefty? your Charging handle is on the right side of the gun...yet you hold it as if you were a righty...what's goin' on...
Also, are you a lefty? your Charging handle is on the right side of the gun...yet you hold it as if you were a righty...what's goin' on...
CPO mendez
Active Member
That looks great! a little too much weathering, but nice indeed!
Also, are you a lefty? your Charging handle is on the right side of the gun...yet you hold it as if you were a righty...what's goin' on...
Dude, no joke, i have absolutely no idea how that happened. ALL the reference pictures i've seen have the charging handle on the right, the MODEL that i used has it on the right, but somehow it ended up on the left. I noticed it once the rifle was fully assembled, and i thought i was going insane. I had to go back and check everything. the chunk of rifle that its attached to isn't symmetrical either, so it couldn't have been me gluing it in backwards! i have no idea how it ended up on the left.
One of life's great mysteries i suppose.
mblackwell1002
Sr Member
you sure about that?
The charging handle should always (unless it is a left-handed rifle) be on the Left hand side of the rifle, so that your right hand can be holding your gun, and your left hand pulls back the charging handle and loads the bullet into the firing chamber....I'm sure you know stuff about guns, but this is just a recap.
Now...that charging handle is on the Left side of the gun.
You're saying the charging handle is on the left side of the gun. Your pictures tell a different story...
now...what?
The charging handle should always (unless it is a left-handed rifle) be on the Left hand side of the rifle, so that your right hand can be holding your gun, and your left hand pulls back the charging handle and loads the bullet into the firing chamber....I'm sure you know stuff about guns, but this is just a recap.
Now...that charging handle is on the Left side of the gun.
You're saying the charging handle is on the left side of the gun. Your pictures tell a different story...
How about this reference image?
now...what?
CPO mendez
Active Member
you sure about that?
The charging handle should always (unless it is a left-handed rifle) be on the Left hand side of the rifle, so that your right hand can be holding your gun, and your left hand pulls back the charging handle and loads the bullet into the firing chamber....I'm sure you know stuff about guns, but this is just a recap.
Now...that charging handle is on the Left side of the gun.
You're saying the charging handle is on the left side of the gun. Your pictures tell a different story...
How about this reference image?
View attachment 242848
now...what?
Sorry, i got my rights and lefts mixed up. what i meant was that everything showed it on the LEFT (like your attached pic) for RIGHT handed use. but somehow the Maya 3D modeling gremlins snuck in and switched the charge handle to the RIGHT hand side for LEFT handed use. either way, i caught it too late and its not worth the time to fix for how small of an error it is (despite how weird it is that it happened in the first place) so i'm just gonna leave it.
CPO mendez
Active Member
Alright! bringing this thread back from the edge of necro-posting! its been a busy couple months for me, thus the lapse in regular postings, but i've been busy with the carbine!
Suppose i should get right back into it then:
We last left off with the last few carbine pieces finishing printing:
And with that, it was time to begin assembly! Unfortunately, things didn't fit together all that well, leaving lots of annoying gaps to fill later. (I may have been spoiled by the fantastic ultimaker that i printed the AR on, and didn't sand everything down enough to fit together)
jeeeeeezus this thing is big! really gives you a sense of scale after seeing it in the game. i had kept the barrel separate from the body for ease of transportation, but now that it was back at my workbench, it could be completed:
View attachment 247295
Somehow i managed to cock up the scale for the ammo cowl, so i had to toss it and print a new one later...
But the next order of business was filling seams! which was a pretty big task thanks to my rushed, quick-n-dirty assembly:
After three passes of sanding and filling, next up was the first layer of primer! filler primer, just like the AR:
That's the image limit here, more incoming!
View attachment 247299
Suppose i should get right back into it then:
We last left off with the last few carbine pieces finishing printing:
And with that, it was time to begin assembly! Unfortunately, things didn't fit together all that well, leaving lots of annoying gaps to fill later. (I may have been spoiled by the fantastic ultimaker that i printed the AR on, and didn't sand everything down enough to fit together)
jeeeeeezus this thing is big! really gives you a sense of scale after seeing it in the game. i had kept the barrel separate from the body for ease of transportation, but now that it was back at my workbench, it could be completed:
View attachment 247295
Somehow i managed to cock up the scale for the ammo cowl, so i had to toss it and print a new one later...
But the next order of business was filling seams! which was a pretty big task thanks to my rushed, quick-n-dirty assembly:
After three passes of sanding and filling, next up was the first layer of primer! filler primer, just like the AR:
That's the image limit here, more incoming!
View attachment 247299
CPO mendez
Active Member
UPDATE PART 2:
First layer of primer is on, next up, more primer, and a different kind of bondo. i found out the wonders of 1-part air-drying spot filler, which is in a small tube and FANTASTIC for getting into all those nooks and crannies!
Even better, it doesn't leave behind a big pile of wasted bondo from mixing more than needed. so, i got to work on the smaller seams next:
I did another few rounds slowly filling up every unwanted crack and seam i could find (not pictured, because apparently i brain farted) so next up, finally, was painting time! since i had it on hand, i started with the silver:
so much taping... but it came out nice! now, it was time to figure out what to do for the purple! i had some leftover airbrush paint that could be mixed into a metallic purple, so i did a little experimenting:
didn't turn out how i wanted, so after some brief hunting around the local hardware store, i found a MUCH better color!
tape removed and looking AWESOME!
However, it was looking a bit too flat and plastick-ey, so i broke out the washes and the airbrush to add some depth and grit
effin. cool.
so that's the carbine done, and as of now i haven't been able to start another print yet. right now, i'm torn between the spiker and the H5 BR. any suggestions are appreciated!
First layer of primer is on, next up, more primer, and a different kind of bondo. i found out the wonders of 1-part air-drying spot filler, which is in a small tube and FANTASTIC for getting into all those nooks and crannies!
Even better, it doesn't leave behind a big pile of wasted bondo from mixing more than needed. so, i got to work on the smaller seams next:
I did another few rounds slowly filling up every unwanted crack and seam i could find (not pictured, because apparently i brain farted) so next up, finally, was painting time! since i had it on hand, i started with the silver:
so much taping... but it came out nice! now, it was time to figure out what to do for the purple! i had some leftover airbrush paint that could be mixed into a metallic purple, so i did a little experimenting:
didn't turn out how i wanted, so after some brief hunting around the local hardware store, i found a MUCH better color!
tape removed and looking AWESOME!
However, it was looking a bit too flat and plastick-ey, so i broke out the washes and the airbrush to add some depth and grit
effin. cool.
so that's the carbine done, and as of now i haven't been able to start another print yet. right now, i'm torn between the spiker and the H5 BR. any suggestions are appreciated!
Austin3991
Jr Member
Wow these weapons are beautiful!
NZSpartanz
New Member
Wow, amazing build.
CPO mendez
Active Member
Thanks guys! glad people are enjoying my builds.
Now then, after another little hiatus thanks to other projects taking over the 3D printer, the printer breaking down, and other life things, i'm BACK! i've got a nice juicy backlog of props that i've been working on too, so get ready for a BUTTLOAD of pic-heavy posts!
First up, with the carbine done, i was pretty inspired by Saber's FANTASTIC halo 2 Brute build, so i figured the Brute Spiker would be a good choice for the next prop!
Start off with some printing, as usual:
Started off with the "body" of the spiker, since the blades were seperated to make assembly, detailing, and painting easier down the line. with a good chunk of the main body done, the blades were next:
And, once again, the pants-wetting scale of coenant weapons comes across. these blades are H U G E ! certainly nothing you'd wanna get shanked with by an 800 pound alien gorilla...
Human hand for scale...
With both blades done, it'd back to printing the body sections!
Now, of course things were going a bit too well, and like i said at the top of the post my printer was having a lot of issues. i debated pretty heavily on including this little breakaway from the build itself, but this issue was so confusing and difficult to diagnose that i feel like it'd be a huge help if anyone found themselves in a similar situation.
So, obviously, the printer broke down. extruder jam. fantastic. However, i disassembled the extruder, cleaned it out, torched it, gave it an acetone bath, basically the 3D printer version of a "Spa day". thinking the problem was fixed, i slapped it back into the toolhead and got printing! ...another jam. however, this time, when i took the extruder out, i found this:
Now, for those of you that didn't immediately go "um what", this is REALLY WEIRD! normally, when your extruder clogs, the toothy gear that feeds the filament into the top of the extruder just gnaws the filament down since, well, it can't go anywhere. you just have to snip off the gnawed up piece of filament and feed it through again. What it DOESN'T DO... is keep pushing the filament down until its compressed into this weird corkscrew shape on top of the extruder's heat sink.
Needless to say, i was flummoxed, and so was the Robo3D technician i called (and have on speed dial at this point). I'll skip the week or two of head scratching and frustration and get to the answer:
As it turns out, there's a fan on the side of the toolhead that helps control the temperature of the extruder. it's basically the coolant for the heat sink that you see pictured above. Now, with the way my workbench is laid out, I can't see this fan when i'm working on my printer. here's the little guy i'm talking about:
As it turns out, this fan had been sucking up all sorts of crap in the year i've had my printer, and enough hair/thread/gunk had got caught up in the motor to start choking it out. i FINALLY noticed it by complete accident while warming up the printer for another round of maintenance. i could see it spinning up, dying, spooling down, then trying to spin up again over and over. Turns out, when this fan doesn't run properly, the heat sink gets too hot, which means the filament starts melting and getting less solid higher up in the tube, which means it bends/sticks to the tube/gets sticky before its meant to, which means it has enough bend to it to make a corkscrew pattern on top of the heat sink. needless to say, i was ECSTATIC to have finally figured out the problem, and quickly swapped the fan out for a new one i had laying around. so, hopefully this helps some very frustrated people like me.
Unfortunately that's it for this post, next up, more printing! stay tuned!
Last edited:
CPO mendez
Active Member
Alright! a belated part 2, because mendez was an idiot and was sending uncompressed images from his phone to his computer and the 405th website was having NONE OF IT with these massive file sizes!
So! with that weird extrusion issue fixed, it was time for printing to begin again!
I did a larger print to catch up, and things looked great! or so i thought...
this printer was still throwing some damn curveballs my way. somehow, this print legitimately failed about halfway through (in the middle of the night, so i didn't see it) but somehow managed to correct itself and finish the print.
This meant that the middle of all three pieces was a tangled mess that came apart as soon as i pulled on it. whatever the problem was, it certainly fixed itself, but it was still a failed print and would have to be redone
So, printing continued. cautiously. and to my surprise the next print came out great!
Now we're back in the groove of things! i started cranking out parts at the normal pace again:
One of the pieces that was giving me trouble earlier still wouldn't print, so i had to bang it out at the fabrication lab on our ultimaker 3. came out smooth as butter!
And, finally, the printing for the main body was done! i played a little game of prop jenga and did a full dry assembly, just to see how it looked:
And after that, it was time to start gluing everything together!
Bing bang boom. assembly is complete! i'm keeping the blades off until after all the painting is done just to make things easier. so next up, its time to hit it with some bondo and more sanding!
So! with that weird extrusion issue fixed, it was time for printing to begin again!
I did a larger print to catch up, and things looked great! or so i thought...
this printer was still throwing some damn curveballs my way. somehow, this print legitimately failed about halfway through (in the middle of the night, so i didn't see it) but somehow managed to correct itself and finish the print.
This meant that the middle of all three pieces was a tangled mess that came apart as soon as i pulled on it. whatever the problem was, it certainly fixed itself, but it was still a failed print and would have to be redone
So, printing continued. cautiously. and to my surprise the next print came out great!
Now we're back in the groove of things! i started cranking out parts at the normal pace again:
One of the pieces that was giving me trouble earlier still wouldn't print, so i had to bang it out at the fabrication lab on our ultimaker 3. came out smooth as butter!
And, finally, the printing for the main body was done! i played a little game of prop jenga and did a full dry assembly, just to see how it looked:
And after that, it was time to start gluing everything together!
Bing bang boom. assembly is complete! i'm keeping the blades off until after all the painting is done just to make things easier. so next up, its time to hit it with some bondo and more sanding!
CPO mendez
Active Member
Part 3!
After a little fiddling, i didn't like how weak the joinery between the spiker body and the blades was going to be, so i (carefully) glued them on and sawed through the arms a bit lower down, where the bond would be a lot stronger. however, i was able to take some awesome glamor shots of the fully assembled thing!
Now back to business. Here's some close-ups of what i'm talking about. you can see how sheer the old joinery was, right up against the spiker body, and not much surface area for the glue to hold onto:
So, i cut the arms just above the blade itself, for a much cleaner, more secure joint
With that figured out, it's bondo time!
Same deal as before. all the seams and rough bits get bondo'd, sanded, and bondo'd some more.
And while this was happening, i realized i forgot to print the trigger. popped down to the fabrication lab to bang it out on the ultimaker in an hour, while the second layer of bondo dried:
I won't bore you with more bondo and sanding, but it took a good 3 or 4 passes before i was happy with the seams.
however, there was still a lot of sanding to be done to get rid of teh print lines, so i hit the entire piece with some light gray primer as a sanding guide:
Again, not much to talk about with more sanding, so we'll skip again. NOW it's time for proper painting! the first layer of legit primer went on first, a black that the slightly lighter-toned gray would go on top of.
After that, it was time to tape the bad boy up so i could paint on the lighter gunmetal details. this is probably the easiest paint pallette i've had to deal with so far, and that goes doubly so for a covenant weapon! it's really just the dark gray primer for the body, dark steel for the blades and details, and then a couple light layers of rub-n-buff to the body to give it that beaten metal effect.
That's it for this update! next up will be untaping, rub-n-buff, lots of weathering, then final assembly! stay tuned!
After a little fiddling, i didn't like how weak the joinery between the spiker body and the blades was going to be, so i (carefully) glued them on and sawed through the arms a bit lower down, where the bond would be a lot stronger. however, i was able to take some awesome glamor shots of the fully assembled thing!
Now back to business. Here's some close-ups of what i'm talking about. you can see how sheer the old joinery was, right up against the spiker body, and not much surface area for the glue to hold onto:
So, i cut the arms just above the blade itself, for a much cleaner, more secure joint
With that figured out, it's bondo time!
Same deal as before. all the seams and rough bits get bondo'd, sanded, and bondo'd some more.
And while this was happening, i realized i forgot to print the trigger. popped down to the fabrication lab to bang it out on the ultimaker in an hour, while the second layer of bondo dried:
I won't bore you with more bondo and sanding, but it took a good 3 or 4 passes before i was happy with the seams.
however, there was still a lot of sanding to be done to get rid of teh print lines, so i hit the entire piece with some light gray primer as a sanding guide:
Again, not much to talk about with more sanding, so we'll skip again. NOW it's time for proper painting! the first layer of legit primer went on first, a black that the slightly lighter-toned gray would go on top of.
After that, it was time to tape the bad boy up so i could paint on the lighter gunmetal details. this is probably the easiest paint pallette i've had to deal with so far, and that goes doubly so for a covenant weapon! it's really just the dark gray primer for the body, dark steel for the blades and details, and then a couple light layers of rub-n-buff to the body to give it that beaten metal effect.
That's it for this update! next up will be untaping, rub-n-buff, lots of weathering, then final assembly! stay tuned!
Dirtdives2424
Division Scheduler and Keeper of Con Lists
- Member DIN
- S2424
That is soooooo flipping cool!!!! It's huge.....I'm jelly of all of you that have a 3D printer and can make these things in your sleep. W/o the mess-ups that is. Then I have to say what a waste of material......if only you were watching more carefully.....then I chuckle and move on to my tedious building method......dam you all.!!!
TurboCharizard
Sr Member
- Member DIN
- S068
Not just when we sleep, also when we're at work, and also when we're building other things. Double productivity. Bam.
Dirtdives2424
Division Scheduler and Keeper of Con Lists
- Member DIN
- S2424
Ok....I'm jelly of everyone else but I hate you for your double productivity..........
CPO mendez
Active Member
Thanks man! that's the crazy thing about these truscale props. everything in halo is bigger than you think. it's what happens when your perspective in almost all of the games is that of a 7 foot tall supersoldier. and as for the wasted filament, a 2kg reel is somewhere between $15-$40, and that reel will get me most of the way through most props, so a bunch of failed prints do suck, but its not breaking the bank. plus, i got lots of artist friends that LOVE getting the weird geometry from half-finished prop prints, so i'm not throwing it away either.
Literally the best part of 3D printing props. i can make props while i make props!
Now, onto the build! last part of the spiker paintjob. we left off with the lighter gunmetal colors being applied, now it was time to untape and hit the body with a few layers of rub-n-buff to give it that weathered, beaten metal look, as well as bring out all that delicious detail.
With the rub-n-buff looking sweet, it's time to BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF THE SPIKER!
AKA, hitting the gunmetal with some sandpaper as weathering:
And with that, it was time to fully assemble the spiker! i glued the blades on, brought it up to my room, put it down on the table.... and the blades gave out and the whole thing collapsed catastrophically as soon as i turned around. picture evidence of the aftermath:
so.... the "improved" joinery was still too weak... thankfully, such a catastrophic failure brought me back to my Warhammer days, building those metal models was an absolute bastard, so the solution was to do something called "pinning". Which involved drilling a small hole onto the limb that refused to stay glued, and drilling a matching hole into the socket of the body. then, you'd snip off a straight length of paperclip, glue it into one hole, then glue the secured pin into the remaining hole, anchoring the limb into place. all i had to do was scale it up, and i had a solution to my problem.
So, i grabbed some balsa wood that matched the diameter of the hole in the arms of the blade (already there thanks to it being a semi-hollow 3D print) and started pinning!
And it worked! actually, it worked a LOT better than i was expecting! those puny little arms holding these giant blades on are now so secure i can lay the spiker on its side (putting pressure on the angled blade) and it barely even moves! now for the glamor shot:
Technically its still unfinished (needs the leather wrap on the handle) and its only ONE glamor shot, but i promise i'll finish it sometime soon and post more glamor shots! i got more props to post though, so stay tuned!
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