Hey everyone. Today I'm gonna show you how to make a steampunk gun prop
thing out of a couple exercise mats and a bunch of tubing and some other stuff.
I just want to mention for safety sake: Even though you know this is a prop and
it's made out of foam and it can't do anything, other people might not know
that and from a long way away it might look dangerous so be careful
where you take it.
Now let's make our steampunk prop gun.
Start by printing out
your pattern making sure it's being printed at actual size or a hundred
percent which are the same thing. Now tape together the two pages that make up
the stock, being sure to line up the alignment crosses, then you can cut out
all the pattern pieces. I like to use scissors most of the time but for the
tricky bits I pull out my scalpel and, as I hope you already know, sharp knives are
sharp, so always look at what's ahead of the blade and don't cut your fingers off.
Now you can see how excited I am at the thought of cutting out this fancy-pants
swirly piece so I'm gonna show you a handy trick. You'll need your pattern
piece printed on an inkjet printer, a sponge and a festive hat bowl. Fill the
hat bowl with water, put your pattern piece face down on the foam sheet and
slowly sponge down the paper, being careful not to move it at all.
Once it's thoroughly saturated you can carefully lift up your soggy piece of
paper to reveal the design. Just remember the result will be a mirror image of the
original but for our purposes today it doesn't really matter. Of course if you
don't have an inkjet printer or a festive hat bowl it will still work fine
with a knife and a bunch of time. Once your pattern pieces are cut out you can
trace them onto your foam. It's helpful to mark the center lines and the centers
of all the holes. Also some pattern pieces are cut out more than once,
often flipped for the second one. To transfer the swirly lines on pieces 10
and 26 you can either use the wet sponge method or by tracing on top of the
pattern with a ballpoint pen, using enough pressure to kind of rip through
the paper which leaves some marks on the foam that you can trace.
Next, draw over those lines with a fair bit of pressure, creating some nice deep
indentations in the foam. I'm using two different thicknesses of EVA foam in
this project: the two millimeter which you've already seen, and some 12
millimeter foam. This is the type of foam that you can get as interlocking mats to
put on the floor and set your weights on. Grab a mat and trace piece number one
four times, making sure to flip the paper over to create two mirror-image sets. For
one set trace the oval cut-out, but for the second set, once you have the outline
traced, cut along the dotted lines on the pattern and trace those lines on as well.
Once all your pieces are traced it's time to start cutting. Always use a very
sharp knife for cutting otherwise your foam will end up with really rough
edges. You may notice I like to use a wide blade for straight and larger
radius cuts and my scalpel for sharp corners and small radius curves. And
don't forget to punch any holes that are required as well. The textured side of
the exercise mat is kind of shiny and glue doesn't stick to it very well, which
is why it's a good idea to sand all four stock pieces and the four circle pieces
with some coarse sandpaper. Now it's time to glue the layers together. I would
often use hot glue for this but today I'm going to use water-based contact
cement. Apply contact cement to the textured side of both stock pieces with
the slot cut in them. Always follow the safety directions on the bottle of
whatever glue you're using. I'm not sure why but I forgot to put on gloves when I
was doing this. I guess I was just really excited to start gluing something. You
can also apply glue to all four of your large circle pieces. Once the glue has
dried according to the instructions, carefully line up the two stock pieces
and slowly press them together, working your way from the back of the stock to
the front. You can see how I'm using my fingers to separate the two halves so
they don't stick together until they're in the right place. Once it's lined up
give it all a good squish down, and go ahead and stick the disks together. Now
you can glue one of your outside stock pieces to your stack of center stock
pieces. Cut a piece of half-inch PVC conduit 92 centimeters long. This will be
the lower barrel of the gun but will also act as a support for the stock. I
like to use a tubing cutter for nice straight cuts. Mark approximately where
the tube leave the stock and sand the section of the tube that's
going to be in the stock. This will help our glue stick way better. When you heat
PVC it releases toxic fumes so take it outside and wear a respirator and some
gloves so you don't burn your hands. I'm gonna try out my new heat gun today that
looks a bit like a spaceship. A big thanks to Wagner who sent it to me so I
could try it out. I set it to 650 degrees Fahrenheit which is about 340 Celsius.
Heat up the section where it needs to curve nice and slowly until it becomes
flexible. Pop it in the slot and let it cool.
Next, make marks on the pipe at each end of the oval hole in the stock and drill
a hole about five millimeters behind that mark so it's hidden by the side
when it goes back on. Take two and a half meters of old telephone wire, stick it in
the hole, and start wrapping towards the other line. Go a couple wraps past the
second line. Drill another hole and stick the end into it. You could really use any
kind of wire you have around you just might need more or less of it. You'll
also want to cut away a little bit more foam right where the wire coil is going
to sit. Again the width of that cut will depend on how thick the wire is that you
end up using. Next I'm gonna cover the part of the barrel that sticks out with
copper tape to make it look coppery. I find metallic tapes to be extremely
uncooperative when you're trying to get them on smooth with no wrinkles so I
like to tape both ends of the strip down on to the table, stretching it as tight
as possible, then I can center the PVC tube on the copper tape. Cut it or pull
off the clear tape that's holding it down and then you can start rubbing the
tape down, working from the center line out to the edges.
The main thing you're trying to avoid is trapping air bubbles underneath the tape
so work slowly and methodically and you should end up with a pretty good finish.
You can see that I've covered the bottom of the pipe first because hopefully when
we put the top two barrels on they'll hide the seam where the next piece of
copper tape starts. The next piece just needs to be wide enough to cover the
remaining tube so cut a strip that's just a little bit wider than the gap. For
these thinner strips, peel a portion of the backing paper away, line up one edge
with the edge of the tape already on the tube, and stick that edge down as you go
along. Once that entire edge
is stuck in place you can burnish the tape down, working towards the other edge.
You can also burnish the tape over the end of the barrel. Apply a generous
portion of hot glue in the bottom and sides of the slot and press the lower
barrel in place. For good measure add a little more on top. Now you can
finally get out your contact cement again and glue the last piece onto your
stock stack. Now that's a pretty square looking stock so it's time to start
giving it some contours. I really like using an old electric carving knife I
got from the thrift store. It seems to me to be the easiest way to get kind of
smooth cuts when carving EVA foam, however if you don't happen to have an
electric carving knife you can still do a fantastic job using a very sharp
utility knife. I did one side of the stock with the electric carving knife
and the other side with the utility knife just to show that you can get a
good result either way. Once you've got the contours you like, sweep the foam
bits into your festive hat bowl and use them to help plump up your beanbag chair.
You're welcome, environment.
Now grab some 80 grit sandpaper, wrap it around
something round, and use it to smooth out all your crazy cutting. Once you're done
sanding it's still gonna look kind of fuzzy. You can get rid of a lot of that
by taking it outside and giving it a blast with your spaceship heat gun. Again,
wear a respirator and do it outside because foam can also release toxic
fumes when heated. It's a bit hard to see on the video but it actually made a
really big difference using the heat gun. Now let's add two more barrels on top of
the first. Set them in place on the stock and mark and cut them equal with the
lower barrel. Cover them both with copper tape the same way you did the first one.
If you want a brushed texture grab an abrasive scrubbing pad and spin the pipe
while holding the pad around it. Now you can tack the top barrels
together in a couple places with a bit of hot glue and then mix up some
five-minute two-part epoxy. Hot glue doesn't stick that well to the copper
tape and we don't want the barrel to fall apart randomly in the middle of a
very important shootout. It's important that you measure and mix your epoxy
according to the instructions and that you mix it very thoroughly otherwise
it's possible that it just won't cure and you'll have a really gooey
disgusting mess. Once your epoxy is mixed you can apply it in the center crack
between the two barrels. We don't want it to run through the crack because we're
trying to keep the glue all on the inside
so that when you're finished it doesn't look like your guns been glued together
by someone in their basement. Once that glue is cured, glue the two barrels on
top of the stock. You can slide the two circle pieces over the three barrels to
hold it all in place until the glue cures. Jam a little bit of glue in
between the barrels at the front and you should be good. Alright so that's the
basic rifle structure done. Now it's time to add a whole bunch of super sweet
details to make it... super sweet.
Okay that's it for part 1 of steampunk gun
making. Make sure you watch the video right here for part two where I put it
all together and paint it, and also at the end of that video I'm gonna show you
a sneak preview of my next project that I've already started that's gonna be
crazy cool and amazing. It'll blow your mind. So see you in the next video...