It's been unusually busy at work for this time of year. Working 6 days this week. Had my only day off yesterday while the girlfriend worked so I decided to get in some fake welds.
Started by going out to get some nitrile gloves. Slapped them on and scooped out little even sections of parts A and B of apoxie sculpt. Knead them together till a uniform color. Weird weird smelling stuff! Not bad, just weird.
I did a couple practice lines on the scrap styrene you can see in the first pic. This stuff has an incredibly long working time which is wonderful.
The technique I came up with starts with making a tiny 2 to 3mm ball of putty. To start the weld line, I place it just next to where I want the weld to END. From the side I'll be placing new pieces, I slowly push my finger over the ball while slightly rolling my finger onto it. This makes a tapered semi tear drop shape.
All the following balls I place at the tail end of the previous piece.
Then I repeat the process. Start finger tip just next to the ball. Push and roll slightly to overlap last piece. They should look like mini stacked pancakes. Then at the end I tap lightly to push down the round edges. This adds to the overlapping effect and makes it less prominent and cartooney to my eyes.
I'm an audio visual technician by trade and work with aluminum lighting truss. Been studying the welds for months getting ready for this.
Lather, rinse, repeat!
At the end of the weld line, I placed the ball in between the first and last piece.
Instead of the normal finger tip push and roll, I used a ball tip sculpting tool. I'd wet it (with spit, ew) and very gently push in the center working my way to the outer edges. Kind of trying to make a blood cell looking thing here. Like a slightly concave pancake. This is how I see aluminum welds end on the truss I work with. Hope my descriptions make sense!
So that was the rear handle. Took about 1.5 hours. Had to redo some sections my fingernail poked while rolling my finger. Advice, trim nails before making fake welds! I started using my pinky finger and I found I had more finesse and could get in tighter places.
I wanted to keep the front handle removable so I spread on some Vaseline lip balm with a cotton swab. This worked as a barrier and release agent so the putty wouldn't adhere to the plastic barrel.
Front barrel all welded up. This one only took a half hour. Practice baby! Although it was about half the surface area to cover due to no crazy angle like the handle.
Removed the front barrel ever so slowly and carefully. Came out great!
Welded up the banjo and switch/light ears. Love how these came out.
Did half the little barrel lock guy as I saw in reference photos. My barrel won't rotate, but I want it to have the illusion it can. I also didn't put any on the forward facing side as the grip sits flush up against it.
I applied some Vaseline balm to the area around the trigger bar access panel.
That came out great. Was weird making sure it looked like the welds over lapped all the way around. Since the removable section had so little putty material, I let it sit for several hours to cure up some before removing the panel.
Success! I love it when a plan comes together!
When I have time next I'll rub these down slightly with a gritty cat tongue sponge to blend them together. Thanks Alan for the suggestion on that! I did think they looked a bit like scales. After the rub down, they should look just like reference photos. Some photos in reference section look like they were quickly spot welded. Mostly the trigger bar to instrument bar. This is to be an idealized pack so I'm making idealized welds everywhere.
Woo! Stay tuned.
"Don't be a crazy!" -
Alan Hawkins "Let's just not get bogged down in print tolerances, as spending six years cutting a perfect pack is all blown away once the thickness of the PAINT is introduced! hahaha" -
johnnyace_pi0.125" Styrene Proton Pack Scatch Build Thread
Rothco to Nomex Uniform Upgrade Thread