Monday, October 17, 2011

Bought a belt-sander and spent about an hour on the laser gun with the coarsest grit. It's now about half-sanded. Was a lot of fun, except getting covered in fiberglass dust that itches like crazy. No pics--too dark. Will post once it's all sanded.

I do like the belt sander a lot (Craftsman!) and will enjoy the rest of the sanding. Was worth selling my Xbox games for it. :D

Thursday, September 22, 2011

What I learned about switches and triggers

In preparing for the fiberglassing stage, I found that my trigger was loose. Not just a little loose...tragically loose. It needed to be replaced.

Since the construction of the trigger mechanism, I surfed a few electronics sites and learned that what I made was a "DPDT momentary pushbutton switch" out of two SPST toggles and some springs. Cute, but inefficient and prone to failure. What I needed to do was order a DPDT momentary pushbutton and wire it in.

Armed with this new revelation, I just ordered one of these:
Next I plan to make a new trigger mechanism-- a much simpler, sturdier one that uses this switch to control the LEDs.

3 Months left until my New Years' Resolution expires...hope I can finish this gun in time.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Laser Gun update

Here's where I'm up to. Still sculpting the nose, but figured I'd test-fit the electronics and sketch up the patterns. I like where it's heading. Gray areas will have silver "metal" sheeting on top. Black areas will be glossy smooth black.

But she still needs a whole coat of fiberglass and a bunch of sanding before we get to those stages...

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Laser gun update

Still working away on the buttstock and getting all the lines square. I like the progress though--take a look:

Straight as an arrow...as it very well should be.
Carved out the barrel. It will have to be very strong for when someone sets it on its nose. Got a plan, but we'll just take it one thing at a time for now.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Hand Grenade Pipe

A month or so back, I doodled an ugly picture of a hand grenade with pipe stem sticking out of it. I kind of snickered at the thought, and showed it to my neighbor. I joked "I should make one of these." He looked at me and said, with great authority, "Yes, you should."

I took his challenge. Used the drill press at work as a poor-man's lathe to make a fairly ugly Jammed a stem into it and put a paper cutout on the top.

It's not much to look at, but it got a huge response on FB. I received several commissions right off the bat, as well as offers to purchase this piece! I refused to sell this one because it is not up to my standards of quality.

My wife gave her approval on my intent to purchase tools and supplies and go into production. $400 later I had cranked out the first one, with 3 more close behind.
Cork keeps the topper attached when pipe is not in use, does not disturb the cake.


Detail of African Mahogany wood grain.

Sitting open on display base.


The full display.

My personal pipe, maple burl.

I have worked in African Mahogany (shown), Maple Burl (shown), Redwood Burl and Ebony. Looking for some undrilled Briar to work with.

Right now all my commissions have been through facebook. The pipes go for $60 apiece and come with filters and the display box.

Laser Gun updates

Been working on the edges and corners--Bondo holds up a lot better than the spackel.

Noticed that the handguard is lopsided by as much as half an inch...yuck.
Built it up with some scrap foamcore board and hot glue.

Then covered it in bondo. *Gloop*

Lots more sanding and patching have been going on.


I tried out some primer, but it wasn't nearly as sandable as I had expected. Note to self: never buy non-sandable primer again.


After 6 months off-and-on-again work, it still feels like it hasn't really progressed much. I decided to treat myself by painting her black, just to get a feel for what she'll look like. Not worried about the mottled texture. The paint honestly doesn't do the gun much good at this stage, but it's good for my fragile psyche.

Still needs the dorsal bump, and got some more shaping to do, especially in the handguard and buttstock sections. Dying to get to the fiberglassing stage though.

Monday, April 18, 2011


Little by little, we're getting there.

Getting everything symmetrical and making templates for the various sections. It's finally starting to pull together. (The poorly-plugged hole near the front is just because I was tired of looking halfway through the gun while working. The foam will be removed and some electronics will go inside later on.)

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Laser gun update


Sanding, patching, sanding, patching. Wouldn't have to if I had done it right from the beginning...
But we'll get there.

Lesson to be learned: buy blocks of foam, glue them togther. Measure out your shape and draw it on the foam, then cut/hotwire it. Then do the details. When you're too cheap to buy foam, you will waste hours fixing the problems that cobbling together bits of foam causes for you.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Laser gun electronics

Sorry for the non-update period. I'll try to make it up to you with this post.
Laser gun's been moving along slowly. I finally finished the electronics for it though...

First set of half-dome lights stay on as long as the gun is in use or on display.
Once the charging button is held, the charging bars start going.
While holding the charging button, at any time you can pull the trigger and it will shut off the charging bars and engage the firing lights--the two front half domes as well as the large crystal that will be seated deep inside the barrel.

Now to finish the gun sculpt so I can start fitting this stuff to it! :D