Prop IED and Dirty Bomb

I managed to find a couple of pictures of some prop exposives i made for Matlock Combat Games a while ago. There are actually a few of the IEDs but this is the only picture i could find. Its an old broken mobile phone glued and taped to filled PVC pipe sections and some wires and circuit board attached. Basic but it does the job as a prop explosive. There are plans in place for a version with working phones, so the IED can be "called" to signal detonation!

Prop IED (improvised explosive device)

And here is a picture of the "dirty bomb" built into a briefcase. The box bottom left had a small LED and beeping circuit that could only be turned on or off by a key. The small laptop is a broken Redfly mini PC and the PVC pipe "charges" are filled with sand to add to the weight.
Again, I have a better version planned with one of these built in, replacing the alarm buzzer with an electric smoke charge!

Briefcase Dirty Bomb Prop

And so it begins!

I've finally pulled my finger out and gotten started! I had already glued the two recycled planks together, and since I don't have any clamps to use, screwed them together so that there was a strong bond between the two. There is a slight variation in the colour of the wood but at this point I'm not sure if this is just down to how the wood has been exposed to the weather when it was used as part of a compost bin! I'm hopoing that once it has been sanded, it should be fairly matching. and once the stain has been applied it should be ok. Here is what the planks look like.

 You can see a bit of what is already going on but it gives you an idea of how the two planks look. Where I have already started cutting a groove for the barrel at the top, you can see the somewhat imperfect join of the two bits of wood where one is slightly warped. Again, i'm hoping this won't matter to the finished piece.

 

Here you can see the rough outline of the stock shape, its kind of basic but one its cut out and the edges shaped and sanded it should look pretty good.

 

 

I marked out a 13mm slot on the top of the stock for the barrel to sit on. The barrel will be made from 15mm copper plumbing pipe which, unfortunately, I don't have yet so i'm working on theory in some regards. I marked out a 13mm slot so that the barrel would sit on it, rather than in it. I know it sounds silly but I don't know if 15mm is the internal or external measurement. in the grander scheme of things, it could make all the difference. The 13mm groove can always be widened. if its too wide I'll figure something out later. The groove was cut with a long slanley blade and the chiselled out with a very small wood cut chisel, which is really designed for decorative work (I've blunted three of them already......). once a basic 2-3mm deep groove was cut I started to use a 13mm wide Dremel sander which was labourious work but effective. The groove doesn't extend to the front or back of the stock at this point, I wanted to get the bulk of it done quickly and concentrate on the detail at the front and rear of the stock later. This way i'm hoping the barrel will look flush at both ends.

I've called it a day for tonight as there is a glass of wine waiting for me, i'll hopefully finish the main groove tomorrow and then cut the template out with a jigsaw.

More to follow!





Shall i cheat?

I’ve seen a few wooden rifle stocks on ebay for a few quid. If the home made gun stock doesn’t go according to plan, I might be a cop-out and buy one….

Minas Tirith for Games Workshop

WOW! I only created this blog yesterday and I haven’t published it to any friends yet (on account of the Steampunk sniper rifle being a gift for a friend’s birthday in a few weeks! Shh, mum’s the word), and it’s been viewed by some one from the USA! Exciting!

I’ve never blogged before and don’t feel like I have really put anything of note on here yet, so thanks for looking and check back regularly! I hope I don’t disappoint!

This blog will harbour ideas and pictures of stuff I’ve made.

Recent projects include:

Prop IEDs (Improvised Explosive Device) for Matlock Combat Games Airsoft site

A prop dirty bomb, again for Matlock Combat Games. This was a briefcase with  PVC pipe “charges” linked to a simple electrical circuit that was turned on or off by a key. It was used as an objective for airsoft games by the site. Not sure if I have pics of this, I’ll look later. I’ve got a better design for this in mind….

Anyway, here are some pictures of projects I did while I worked for Games Workshop.

A scale model of Minas Tirith from The Lord Of the Rings for the Games Workshop tabletop game.

The Steampunk sniper rifle plan

Right, the Steampunk Sniper Rifle. It evolved from another idea…..

Sometime ago I considered making a replica Boba Fett blaster (I’m not even going to explain who that is, if you’re reading this and you don’t know who Boba Fett is, seriously??). I looked at image after image of his blaster, researched what it was based on and read other blogs people had written about how they had made their own. I even went as far as buying a £2 toy revolver from ebay. The actual blaster looks like this…

You can see that it’s actually based on a deactivated WWII British flare gun with an added stock and some other bits and pieces added on. I was going to base the Steampunk rifle on this revolver, extending the barrel and adding a stock but I was put off by the actual revolver chamber and I had more of a magazine or even lever activated look in mind so this was shelved. I looked at other Steampunk guns on other sites, such as

http://www.mazahor.com/steampunk/guns/steampunkrifle1_17.jpg

http://www.svenweiss.com/2010/04/04/stc-2-001-steampunk-rifle/

http://gurutree3d.blogspot.de/2012/01/steampunk-rifle-texture-progress.html

http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/steampunk-rifle-ma/413273

They really are awesome and there are loads of images and ideas out there.

This is my first foray into anything steampunk, and I really didn’t have an idea how it should look. I had a vision of a long barrel, probably made from copper pipe and a wooden stock. And that was about it. I’m really working on a budget and looking for recycled materials. I found a couple of planks of wood that were used as part of a compost pin at my old house laying around in the garage and glued them together back to back to double the thickness to around 45mm and left it there for a few days while I looked up rifle stock designs. Again, I looked at loads of images like the one below…

I then realized that I was getting too bogged down with how ACTUAL RIFLE STOCKS LOOK!

I sketched out a few ideas for size and shape on the wood I had, still trying to stay away from realistic shapes. I mean, a rifle stock has to be functional, sit against the shoulder and be within a certain size range, but I was struggling to fit a design within the size of wood that I had. I could always add more wood to the stock end to extend its height but due to my lack of tools I really wanted to stay away from having to do it (if I had access to a table saw I could guarantee accurate cuts that would glue together properly, but I don’t). Therefore the aim is to get the stock and the forward grip from one piece of wood.

I looked at copper pipe next and settled on 15mm. My local DIY shop does it for a couple of quid a meter, but there is also a heating company on my way route to the bus stop to work so I’m going to ask them if they have anything laying around…
Pipe diameter any bigger than this would look wrong for the width of wood I’m using.
The plan is to sit the pipe on the top of the wood and either glue it in place and then hold it in place with copper/brass strips. I can see there being a length of wood beading on either side of the barrel to round off the top of the rifle body. It all depends if I can figure out a away to cut an accurate groove in the top of the body to sit the barrel in…..
This is what I plan to do later this week.

Every journey....

....starts with a single post.

Well, here I am. I’ve been thinking of blogging for a while but really didn’t know what to blog about. I’m certainly not funny enough to just try jokes and anecdotes, not clever enough to be insightful or interesting. I am repeatedly told that my Facebook posts verge on the frightening with my angry rants, so I thought I’d document some of my creative projects.

I’m starting one soon, as in the next few days, and I’m sure I’ve got some photos of previous stuff somewhere that I can upload.

But first, a quick bit about me. I’m an IT professional working for a large company (I don’t want to say who, just in case…) but I used to work for Games Workshop some years ago. Not in one of the stores you understand, I worked for the UK Events team in an area known within the company as Q-Lab. It was a workshop just attached to the main hall of Warhammer World in Lenton, Nottingham. Our workshop wasn't open to the public but we provided the games tables for events held in the hall, as well as scenery for the tables and custom display models, I’ll post some pictures of our MASSIVE Lord of The Rings Minas Tirith model later.

We had access to every tool you could ever really need. Lathes, sanders, pillar drills, molding and casting equipment (expanding foam and resin), as well as hand tools and materials. I don’t have anything like that now…..

So, my future, and recent projects, will need to be done using what I have laying around. I have neither the time nor the money to go out and buy whatever I need. Improvisation is key.

Off the top of my head, here is what I have and use most often:

Dremel

Drill

Jigsaw

Wood saw

Hacksaw

Hammer

Various screw drivers

Chisels of various widths

Pliers/clippers

My smaller scale stuff includes:

Needle files

Pin vice

Scalpels

Metal rule

Clippers

Generally, I use materials for smaller scale models, scenery for gaming tables etc but I’m branching out to bigger scale. Wood, metal, card, plastic, recycled materials, anything goes now!

My next project is a present for a friend. A Steampunk sniper rifle!!