#4878254
It's something that I've been giving some thought for when I start my build. I'm going to scratch build from styrene, but I've been doing a lot of research into fibreglassing, so might do this and go for an aluminium mobo
#4879620
Forgot to update work done from a week ago, Sunday, August 28th. Work has been giving me one day off in a row type schedules so it's hard to get much done lately.

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Here are the before shots from July 28th. Damn, this thing sat for a whole month untouched. Shame! Shame! Lol.

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Everything cleaned up super nice! The small tear in the gun body curve came out great. Can't wait to finish a few things left and hit it with some primer!

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Some pretty self explanatory pics of making the holes for the tip extension lever.

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I was going to have the inner retention disc rest on the handle nub inside, but it didn't lend clearance for one of the instrument bar's nut and bolt.

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So I glued in a small piece of scrap styrene and all is hunkey dorey.


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Installed without ib/tb.

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With ib/tb.

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Then I made a couple discs to laminate together for the top knob post. Got them glued together and that's where I left off.

Hopefully able to get some more done on this lovely 3 day weekend. Girlfriend also has off and we hardly get time off together lately so that's a factor. Lol. A factor of the best kind.
#4879644
Bha ha ha! I was looking through this last night for updates too! I was going to leave a shaming message about it, but internet bullying is wrong!
twmedford23 liked this
#4879650
Hahaha!

Alan, you can't quit me!

Jay, believe me, I've wanted to work on it many times! Life man, life.
#4879896
Thanks everyone for the kind words!


xyster101 wrote:Batfly,

Where did you get your plasma tube from and how much?
The plasma tube I got off "thE bay" for around $18. You can find it easily searching with these words:

PILOT 15" PLASMA NEON LIGHT TUBE CZ-192 12V

The guy I got it from has a few left. I'm sure there are others selling them too. Hope that helps :)
#4880964
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.

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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.


ImageThe 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.

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All the following balls I place at the tail end of the previous piece.

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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. :)

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Lather, rinse, repeat!

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At the end of the weld line, I placed the ball in between the first and last piece.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Removed the front barrel ever so slowly and carefully. Came out great!

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Welded up the banjo and switch/light ears. Love how these came out.

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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.

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I applied some Vaseline balm to the area around the trigger bar access panel.

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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.

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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.
Last edited by Batfly on September 19th, 2016, 8:47 am, edited 2 times in total.
ccv66 liked this
#4881042
Easily the best fake welds I have ever seen. A true testament to "take your time".
#4881095
Everyone is too damn kind! Thanks! Makes me feel like the time and patience is well spent. I'm going to snap some pics of the truss welds at work if I remember for gits and shiggles. They're really good reference being that they are bare aluminum.
#4881145
Alright, here's some shots of 1'x8' truss I modeled my welds from. All aluminum, all the time!

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I think I'll take a drill bit and make slight indentations in the center of the end weld spots. But there you go.
OCP_Model-001 liked this
#4882160
Quick little update from Friday.

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Just laying more weld beads on parts. This is good for when you only have an hour or three to work on something.


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These two pics are a good example of what I was talking about patting the raised rounded ends down. Top is before and bottom is after slightly tapping down.

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One more angle of the HGA for the hell of it.

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Some rather self explanatory shots of the welds on the injector tubes. Made sure to get the little spot welds where they meet up to the plate.

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Got the spot welds on this guy too before I had to go.

That's all, stay tuned!
Last edited by Batfly on October 2nd, 2016, 10:33 am, edited 3 times in total.
OCP_Model-001 liked this
#4882274
Astyanax wrote:Amazing build! If you don't mind my asking, what size sheets of styrene were you able to get, and how much did they set you back?
I think they were two 4' x 8' x 0.125" sheets for $30 each. Sounds about right.
#4882284
Alright, if Friday was return of the welds, then Sunday was welds forever, or revenge of the welds. Whatever!

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Started with the iron arm.

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I first thought out how I would build it if it were real aluminum sheeting. This was to figure out where to put the weld lines.

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With that sorted I started on the long sides I'd want to weld first if building it from metal.

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Same method as before. Little ball, squish, roll, and push in one motion. Repeat add nauseam. Pretty cool how it just perfectly covers the corner edges naturally with this technique.

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I told how I finish a weld line, but now I'll show it step by step. Start with a slightly larger ball than normal. Place it at the end and where the next normal weld spot would start.

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Flatten it out like a thick pancake. Don't push or roll in any direction.

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Using something pointy and rounded (I used a ball end sculpting tool. But a pencil tip or similar should work too.) make a dimple in the center.

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Then I lightly tap it down to sort of blend any hard edges or overly rounded edges.

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Where multiple lines end, I just overlap like the previous end weld isn't there.

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Got the rest of the ion arm all done.

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Put in posts to drill and tap for attachment points.

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Beam line and filler tubes received little spot welds at their bases.

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The n-filter also received some attachment points to be drill and tapped later.

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Glued on the n-filter cap and set aside to cure for a bit.

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I moved on to fill in the beveled side of the top right curved little spacer thing. Took a liberal amount of epoxie and mixed it together.

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I rolled it into a thick tube and pushed it into the stepped area.

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I applied Vaseline lip balm to a ruler so it wouldn't stick or pull the epoxie.

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Then I ran the lubed ruler slowly over the epoxie to make the beveled edge. I used a really shallow, almost flat angle to pull it across. I tried it with 45 to almost perpendicular angles and it just made a mess. Came out nice but could use a little course coaxing to clean it up.

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With the n-filter lid set a bit, I ran a weld around it using a bit larger balls of epoxie. Love how it turned out!

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Here it is placed on the cyclotron for the hell of it.

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Had some left over epoxie made up so I sculpted a little cute jack-o-lantern for my girlfriend. I might paint it. She loves it.

Next up should be filling of gaps in seems and such. Then a ton of elbow grease driving paper adhered sand over filled in areas and all welds.

See ya!
#4882365
And the hours just tick by. Awesome work and patience. I always struggle with the welds as the Apoxy likes to stick to my fingers more then what the weld needs to be on. I put water on my fingers and it works for a bit and then the apoxy gets wet and sticks to nothing. How do you handle that?
#4882400
xyster: I use nitrile gloves like the apoxie sculpt packaging says. Lol. No water, just the gloves. The stuff doesn't seem to stick to it much.

Ocp: the epoxie is much harder and stronger than the plastic. It holds threads crazy well. I haven't done much of a stress test, but being harder than wood, I can't imagine the attachment points would break before the styrene does. This thread will be the first to know if they fail.
OCP_Model-001 liked this
User avatar
By xyster101
#4882404
Just wanted to say, happy 1 year anniversary working on this project!
#4882423
Batfly wrote:xyster: I use nitrile gloves like the apoxie sculpt packaging says. Lol. No water, just the gloves. The stuff doesn't seem to stick to it much.

Ocp: the epoxie is much harder and stronger than the plastic. It holds threads crazy well. I haven't done much of a stress test, but being harder than wood, I can't imagine the attachment points would break before the styrene does. This thread will be the first to know if they fail.
Good stuff, I was thinking of using this method on a non prop related d.i.y issue, and wanted to hear your experience. Thanks man ;)
User avatar
By Batfly
#4882425
xyster101 wrote:Just wanted to say, happy 1 year anniversary working on this project!
one year already? Egad! Thanks :)
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