Tutorial: Scratchbuilt cardboard weapons for noobs

[marshon]

Right fight fans, let's finish off this little panel.

I fixed the switch in place with two tiny blobs of hot-melt glue - taking great care not to gum up the mechanism. Once it had dried I went over the back of the flanges with a little more hot melt to secure it in place. Then test it still works correctly!

The two LEDs were secured with a little cyanoacrylate (super glue) which does not seem to affect them in any way.

Next I collected together my battery box, resistors, soldering iron, flux, solder and a small set of pliers and snips. Also a cocktail stick will come in handy!

Plug in your soldering iron (if you are young get some help so you don't end up in the ER). Leave it for 10 minutes or so to get hot. A damp sponge will be handy to clean off the tip if required. You can also dab the tip in the flux momentarily to clean it.

Next, cut the battery box leads down as short as you can comfortably get away with, strip the sheathing off about 6mm (1/4") of the ends of the red and black wires, twist the ends into neat braids. Then dip the ends into the flux to coat them.
Touch the tip of your iron against the end of the solder. A small 'blob' of molten metal should then cling to the end of the iron. Draw the twisted ends of the wires thorough the molten blob making sure that the wire contacts the actual tip of the iron to transfer the heat. You should hear a comforting hiss as the flux is burnt off and see a nice shiny coating on the ends of the wire.
This is known as 'tinning' and serves two functions, firstly it will bind the strands of the wire together making it easier to handle. Secondly it means that there s already a small amount of solder in the wire which will help when you come to join it to something else.

Next thread the red wire from the battery box to one side of your switch, I'm using a DPDT switch because that's all I had so mine goes to one of the middle connectors. If you are using a SPST switch then there should only be two connectors. Use any one of the two.

Now, ideally we would have had plenty of room to create this little circuit, but for this weapon we have very limited space. Therefore I decided to use the resistor tails as the connecting wires and soldered these directly to the other side of the switch.
The trick is to loop the wire tichtly around the switch connection, then using a cocktail stick coat the joint with flux. Get a blob of solder on the tip of your iron and then press the iron against the joint to transfer the heat. With small bits like this there should be enough solder on the iron to run into the joint. It takes seconds to make the joint.

Now, what I did next is bad practice but due to the space restriction I didn't have any choice. I carefully bent the resistors to lay flat against the panel and twisted the end around the Positive (Anode) leg of the LED as near to the base as I could. A dab of flux and a blob of the soldering iron and they were joined. I then cut them off as close to the base as I could get away with. Not good, but saved loads of space!

Then I pulled two short lengths of sheathing off an off-cut of the black wire left over from the battery box. These were slid down the Negative (Cathode) legs of the LEDs. I bent the legs down almost flat and soldered the black wire from the battery box to both legs.

All done, now to fit a couple of batteries and test!

Now it just remains to be seen if we can get it all to fit!

Note:I will try to keep momentum going on this tutorial, but I have two commissions that have come in and since they are paid work, this may have to take a bit of a back seat for a couple of weeks.

 

[vshore100]

Note:I will try to keep momentum going on this tutorial, but I have two commissions that have come in and since they are paid work, this may have to take a bit of a back seat for a couple of weeks.

Aaawwweeeeee.......but...but...ok then. I'll wait.

 

[marshon]

I said I'll try and keep it going .........

Anyway, next step is the two receiver side panels. From the drawings it is obvious that these are a slightly different shape to the barrel and that they are stepped towards the rear to accommodate the cylinders.

As usual i started off by using the template to create two backing panels, then used the same method as we did for the barrel. Nothing we haven't done before here. The only thing of note is the stepping at the rear. I did the offside one first since I need to figure out how to fit our LED panel to the nearside one.

Here are the WIP images:

and mounted on to the right side of the weapon.
I will still need to build the panelling on this side as we did for the LED panel.

 

[Dark Star]

I really hope you keep up momentum! D: Also, if it's not too much trouble, would you or someone else who followed the tut on that circuit better than I did be able to make a technical drawing of it? 0_o? I'm having trouble following it and sorting out where the connections stop and the hot melt begins.
Thx in advance!

 

[marshon]

Also, if it's not too much trouble, would you or someone else who followed the tut on that circuit better than I did be able to make a technical drawing of it?
Thx in advance!

Here you go ..

 

[Dark Star]

Thank you much ^_^

 

[marshon]

Ultra quick update.

Here's the receiver block on the nearside.

The LED panel is a good push in fit, and with the pipework it won't fall out.
Here's the fitted panel:

 

[xcal13]

I just stumbled onto this and its a very useful tutorial
Thank you

 

[ZHunter]

I cannot wait til this tutorial gets done. This is an excellent tutorial. Well done.

 

[nesbitt101]

This tut just keeps getting better!

 

[Cirkob5477]

Wow, I am impressed by the complexity of the build itself and the simplicity of the explanations.
I think I might make a silenced SMG using this method... Thank you for sharing your 30+ years of experience with us!

 

[jokerjack350]

Moar!!! We need moar!!!

 

[marshon]

Moar!!! We need moar!!!

I'm really sorry guys, I have been working on two commissions, and my own armour and haven't had a chance to do an update on the weapon. I promise I'll try and do some more on it during this week.

 

[spartan z92]

Mr. marshon not worry take your time, by the way good ttutorial, I already started my assault rifle, just one thing i dont understand that part of painting with a line to cut from the beginning. If you could explain me that i will greatly appreciate it.

 

[Dark Star]

I'm starting an SMG a BR and two magnums off of this xD HOWEVER! My thread doesn't go up till I get pics ready

 

[marshon]

Update: Firstly I have to apologise to anyone who has been waiting for updates here. I have had a couple of commissions to work on, I wanted to finish off some of my armour and I also wanted to complete the helm.

However. I have a couple of days free so I thought I would try and get a shake on with the rail gun before the weekend.
First thing I did today? Change the scalpel blade out for a new one!
Then I checked the gun over. It's had a week to dry and is nice and strong. I checked to see if there were any voids or unclad areas I had missed. Nope.

So the next item to work on is the main grip. I checked out the remainder of the templates to decide which bits to start on next.

I decided to leave the cylinders out till last and to ignore the rear stock at this stage.
In order to get acquainted with the gun again, I thought I would make a simple addition first. The base of the magazine.
This is simply a rectangle of corrugated card, lined on all four sides with a thin strip of the offcuts from the original template print. I just glued it on to the bottom of the mag.

Now we turn our attention to the grip. Once again we have limited information from the drawings. It is obviously narrower than the mag or we could see it from the front, but EXACTLY how wide it is we can't really tell. We also don't know how 'rounded' bits are for the same reason, so we have to make it up as we go along. There are some clues.

By looking at the render I tried to work out which bits fit on top of others and therefore MUST be 'thicker' in cross section. Then, using the template I actually marked out a simple plan of levels marked 1, 2 and 3 with 1 being the lowest and 3 the highest.
I used the main template cut out to prepare two base sheets of corrugated card to act as the panel supports and level number 1.
I could then build up the main panel off the gun as before.

Now by carefully cutting out the template sections and using those to transfer to card stock I was able to start cutting out the levels required. I started with level 3, which seems daft, but I wanted to use 4mm foamies for this - didn't have any left so I had to laminate some 2mm card stock. That's why I did these first.
I glued the laminates to the backing panels.

Next using 1mm and 2mm foamies I started to cut out, transfer and glue on the different levels marked out on the template slowly building up the grip.
I cut out the small recesses and adding felt tip marker to show where details need to go.

Now we need to 'etch' some panel lines and details into the surface of the foamies. I use a small gas torch fitted with a needle tip soldering bit. You could also use a normal soldering iron with a filed down tip for this.

The way you actually etch the foam, is to draw out the pattern with felt tip first (green in my case), then simply draw back over your design with the torch. It will 'melt' the top 1/2mm or so of the foam leaving a cool indentation which we will enhance with paint later.
Once the pattern lines for the grip and the grip pad itself were etched, the panels were glued to the sides of the weapon.

There is a small retaining section below the grip on the template. I'll make that in a short while. The inner faces of the grip also need to be clad. I feel that the grip is a bit to 'square and angular' in the hand in this configuration, so I will add a bit of rounding to the edges when I clad the inner faces. However, main construction of the grip area is now completed.

 

[Sierra 091]

Good to see this back up and running. Its been a relay inspirational tutorial, and once I'm back with my hobby things I plan on building something using your method.
Keep up the good work.

 

[Dark Star]

Lol, it's really frustrating just learning how to do this. I have to keep reminding myself you've been at it for 35 years XD

 

[marshon]

Lol, it's really frustrating just learning how to do this.

If you're having trouble, just let me know what part is frustrating you and I'll do my damndest to help.

 

[marshon]

I will try and get two updates done today.

I've had a few thoughts whilst working on and around the grip. I have decided to follow the original artists colour layout, however I will substitute a green where he's used white to lose the District 9 look and bring it a bit more into line with a 'Haloish' theme.

I have also decided to rubberise the hatched part of the grip with coloured latex to give it a more realistic 'feel'. Finally I have decided to detail out and undercoat the grip area before I move on so that I can be satisfied that it's nicely sealed and won't get damaged after further work is done to the gun.

Anyway, last night I made the base retaining clip at the bottom of the grip. I used the good old box building method we use earlier, so nothing new here.

Now, to get the 'rounded' look I wanted on the grip I used the following method. I cut 2mm foamies and deliberately made them thinner than the final grip will be. I then glued them into place down the centreline of the grip. I used two lots to give a total 'slope' of about 4mm. I hope you can see the effect here in the grey foamies on the front of the grip.

I have also added the trigger guard plate and some of the lining out of the rear sections which do not need to be rounded off.

Then I measured and cut some 1mm black foamies to cover the grey 'pyramids'. The black foamies had extra care taken to ensure that the edges were well glued down. This forces the underlying grey ones to compress at the edges forcing a curve.
I hope you can see what I mean in the next image.

Next I lined out all of the back section of the grip to cover the corrugated card and seal it all up.

I also lined out the front section and the trigger guard area. I have spent nearly 4 hours on this grip area this morning. Most of it on rounding the grip. This may seem like an inordinate amount of time and effort on something that will rarely be seen BUT besides improving the look of the weapon, remember that this is a tactile prop. I will be handling it a lot.
I will be disappointed every time I handle the grip if it doesn't 'feel' right, and that will ultimately make me disappointed in the weapon itself. Better to spend the extra time and enjoy the prop than not and regret it later.

Here's the lined out front section: