Steamtech 1876

Leather Commissar Hat

noreply@blogger.com (Renquist Von Reik) — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 16:35:00 +0000

The time had finally come.

A boyhood dream was screaming to be realized, and it could be ignored no more.

A hat, special and magical, needed to be brought into this world to usher in a new age.

Alright, maybe I'm exaggerating things a bit, but it's true that ever since Junior High when I first discovered Warhammer 40k I've wanted a leather commissar hat. I had leather, I had (some) skill, I had tools. The time was now!

Having set my mind to the task, but not having any clue where to begin, I decided it would probably be best if I had some kind of mock up or model to reference. I grabbed a big block of foam and started carving! I decided I should probably do it in two pieces, one piece for the top of the hat, the big pointy awesomeness, and another piece for the hat band so I could make sure it was the right size and wouldn't end up either too big or too small.

Here's my foam model with a sturdy construction paper brim!

Now that I had a model made of foam, I somehow needed to magically transform this into leather ensuring it was hollow allowing my head to fit snugly inside! I grabbed a 3' length of 1/2" PVC pipe and waved it over the foam model chanting arcane phrases in Pig Latin but nothing happened. It was still just a foam model.

"Damn you Harry Potter! You lied to me!!"

Having failed at my attempts at arcane transmutation I grabbed a few sheets of construction paper (red of course, it's makes the project go fastah!) and started to pin it down to the foam. One piece of paper wasn't big enough for each section, so I grabbed my PVC wand, waved it over the paper shouting "Paintus Tapicus" and taped two pieces together. Oh my god, it worked! I now had double sized pieces of construction paper big enough for each section.

With the paper pinned down to the foam I took a sharpie and traced the edges. Removing the paper, I moved onto the next section and repeated the process. When I was done I had 3 pieces of taped together construction paper with wobbly lines drawn on them. This isn't going to work, I thought. Then I realized I should cut out the patterns drawn on the paper and maybe I could arcanely transmute them to leather!

Resize the image so the grid on the green mat is 1" squares and these template pieces will be accurately sized!

No dice. I waved my wand frantically and said the stupid words, "Clatu, Veratu, Necktie!" but they were still just pieces of paper. Screw it, I'll just trace these on leather and cut them out. Having done so, I was left with paper templates and leather pieces. I wanted to make sure the leather could actually be assembled into a commissar hat, so I took small binder clips and clipped the leather together how it would be sewn.

Horatio, my skull assistant, modeling the pieces for me

It looked more or less correct. I was seeing some minor shaping issues that could be easily fixed with my magic PVC wand and some forceful clubbing of the leather along with the magic words, "Get. *whack* Into. *whack* The. *whack* Right.*whack* Shape.*whack* Damn you. "

Leaving the clips in place I started stitching the leather up using my trusty ~~finger gouger~~ leather awl. The first thing I did was stitch the hat band together so it was a circle (and checked to make sure it still fit!), and the brim together. With those pieces done it was time to stitch them together. The top piece would go on afterwards because stitching the brim and band with that top piece already in place would be very difficult. You really need to be able to get your hand inside.

Horatio once again lending a skull to the process

The brim was only glued on in this picture. It actually extend up the inside of the band about an inch, and to the the leather curved into the right shape where it bends up behind the band I soaked it in water and pressed it into shape. When it dries it will hold the shape perfectly (that's a pro tip for anyone wanting to get started in leather working!). With the brim shaped it could easily be sewn into place as well.

Speaking of soaking leather to change the shape, it was time to fix the shaping issues I mentioned earlier. There were two main problems, one practical and one aesthetic. The practical problem was the angle of the top piece didn't leave any room for the crown of your head! The back of the hat sat really high up since there wasn't enough room, and that wouldn't do. I soak the top piece using a sponge on the inside and when it was good and wet, stretched it over a metal mixing bowl. I was careful to keep an eye on the profile of the hat to ensure it didn't start looking bulbous in the back and to preserve the look of a commissar hat.

The other problem was just in the look. The back of the hat was sticking almost straight out from the hat band and when you wore it, that made it look like it was hovering an inch or two above the ears. It looked a little wonky and seemed to sit too high on your head even though the hat band was in a good position. Once again I soaked the leather and bent it downwards until it was almost even with the bottom of the hat band. Now when you wore is, the curve of the edge of the brim went down into the ear instead of hovering above them and it looked much better.

With stitching and shaping done, it was time to dye the leather!

Horatio was so impressed at this point he put on his lower jaw for the picture!

Now it was really starting to look like a proper commissar hat! It only needed cap badges. Looking through picture after picture of commissar hats I decided to make perhaps the most iconic one of all - Commissar Yarrick's hat! The design wasn't overly complicated and I had some molds that I could repurpose for use.

I took my Crux Terminatus mold and poured in just enough resin to cast the skull in the center. When it was still curing I set two small bolts into the resin so they'd be part of the casting. When it was fully cured, I punched to holes in the front of the hat and bolted the skull in place. Next I took styrene plastic sheets and cut out laurels. Using a dremel with an engraving bit I carved the leaves into the styrene and painted them using acrylics. To connect the laurels to the hat I drilled holes in them along the "stem", the center of the laurels from where the leaves connect. I then sewed them to the leather around the skull.

Commissar Horatio, ensuring the morale of his troops

It was really starting to come together now, but there were still some details missing. I cast two small skulls with laurels that I used in one of my Imperial Guard medals of honor. I also grabbed some cord used to hold curtains open. Cutting the cord into two pieces just big enough to reach from temple to temple, I took big balls of green stuff and stuck the ends of the cord into. I then pressed the resin skulls over the top to create end caps for the cord. Using very small screws with flat heads I screwed the buttons in place making sure the cords were pulled tightly and wouldn't slip down the hat band. I also decided the brim needed some reinforcing, so I took a 1" wide strip of leather and wrapped it around the edge of the brim, sewing it in place.

The final result -

A hat worthy of Commissar Yarrick himself! Horatio volunteered to hold it for him until he comes to pick it up, and I just couldn't say no. He's so happy wearing it, just look at that smile!

Till next time, I hope you enjoyed the write up. If it inspired you, don't be afraid to try and make your own! Be artsy! Even if it doesn't turn out how you want I promise you'll learn some new things that will make your second attempt even better!

Feel free to ask me anything about this build or my others in the comment section! I'm happy to help.

NOW BACK TO THE FRONT LINES YOU WORTHLESS MAGGOTS!

FOR THE EMPEROR!!

(but first why don't you "Like" me on Facebook. The Emperor favors those who do!)

Warhammer 40k Galvian Needler Pistol

noreply@blogger.com (Renquist Von Reik) — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 15:41:00 +0000

I was hunting a reclusive xenos (read: my cat) around the house with bolt pistol and chainsword in hand and realized the gratuitous amount of damage I was doing to my personal belongings. Exploding mini missiles in the living room are NOT a good idea. These weapons are also extremely loud which often tipped off that uppity xenos furball as to my location so he could easily avoid me. I knew I'd need to get to work at the forges and come up with a new weapon, something smaller and quieter, less brutally destructive, but still lethally effective. That's when I knew what weapon I needed - a Needle Pistol!

As always, the first step was to hack into the Mechanicus data vaults and steal some schematics! After a herculean effort of googling I turned up this blue print from the priests of Mars.

A beautiful pistol, isn't it? Elegant and stylish, what more could an assassin ask for!

With my stolen blueprints printed out in triplicate, I began dissecting them into various elements that would be constructed independently and then assembled later - body & barrel, scope, and grip. I also decided that I would need to fabricate a grip from scratch this time. No repurposing old toy guns! (mostly because none of my old toy guns' grips looked anything like this one!)

I began with the scope, using various diameter PVC pipes.

I used green stuff (a 2 part epoxy putty) to fill in the gaps between the pipes since they didn't nestle nicely together. I had some PVC connections used to join two pipes, so I cut off a thin ring from one and added that as the ring around the front of the scope. Using another smaller one, I cut the shape for the scope mount, and then cut the pipe length wise. This would be used to not only make it look right, but also hide the holes I'd have to drill to screw the scope to the body. You can see the top half lying on the table above, waiting to be attached.

Next I started work on the body.

Again using PVC connections I cut a thick ring for the front of the body, and cut another one lengthwise to form the base of the scope mount. This also doubled the thickness of the PVC where the scope would be screwed on ensuring a rock solid fit.

The next thing to do was the grip.

4 pieces of 1/4" mdf board glued together and cut with a scroll saw. (I actually cut them first, them glued them together). The small clip was made by only cutting that out on the two middle pieces of mdf. The outer two pieces were cut at the base of the grip giving me an easy clip that couldn't be attached more securely!

I then used a dremel to sand down the sides making it smooth and comfortable to hold. Once I was happy with the shape and feel, I went over it again with a fine grit sandpaper to even out the texture. MDF is normally pretty smooth but the dremel really roughed up the edges. This would totally jump out when it was painted and so I had to employ the old elbow grease to make sure that when it was painted it looked consistent like metal should.

It was starting to take shape now and I was getting excited! With my 3 main elements underway it was time to put them all together so I could start working on the details!

First I did some measuring. I was going to screw the grip and body together which would require holes drilled in the pipe for the screws and screwdriver (since I wasn't using giant screws that could pass entirely through the pipe and into the grip). If I wasn't careful with the placement of these holes they'd interfere with the screws attaching the scope to the body though. Fortunately there was no advanced calculus involved, I just eyed up the pieces and made sure the holes and screws were placed our of each others way.

Once it was screwed together I used more green stuff to complete the scope mount. It would have to be smoothed and shaped better once it fully hardened but that's easy peasy. I also attached that top piece of the scope mount hiding the holes from the screws, and used a little bondo to smooth out the seam. For some reason the scope was angling down in the front and it was starting to look like it was designed for a cross eyed assassin. This wouldn't do! To fix this I took a strong rubber band and used it to apply pressure to the back. It worked perfectly, and when the green stuff cured it would hold the scope nice and level.

Time for details!

Ok, so maybe it wasn't exactly time for lots of details just yet. I do tend to get ahead of myself a lot during these builds lol. First thing was cleaning up the connections between my three elements. Some bondo smoothed out the grip to body, and the green stuff connecting the scope to body was trimmed to the right shape and sanded smooth. It's hard to tell, but the green stuff has a curve to it so it's not just straight down from the scope to the body. This curve is approximately the same as my pointer finger, which was wrapped in sandpaper and drug back and forth repeatedly until my finger got angry at the abuse.

I also added a small styrene trim around the base of the clip, and small dial to the scope (made from the extra piece of pvc left over after cutting the holes in the barrel of the bolt pistol. Never throw stuff like that out!). I added a cap to the back of the body, but first I drilled a hole in the center of it the same diameter as the pipe I'd be making the barrel out of. The plan was to feed that through the hole to give it good support from the back. I also completed the bottom of the scope mount assembly using pieces from the pvc connection I used earlier, plus some thick styrene (1/4") extending it down the grip.

Next I cut my barrel and using that same thick styrene I fabricated what would be the back detail.

I drilled two small holes in styrene where it would connect to the back of the grip and pit two small metal pins in there to securely anchor it to the grip. I also glued it to the back of the body even though the barrel would feed through both holding it tightly, I wanted to guarantee a strong bond for this piece.

Now it's starting to look like a needler pistol! The only major detail it needed now was the cone thing on the barrel!

Behold, cone things! Running over to my local hardware store I found a great pack of different sized funnels which would work great. I cut them down to the right size, filled them with epoxy putty so they'd be strong, and attached them to the barrel. I should mention also, I used a lot of epoxy putty to close up the front of the body where the pipe was still open. I made sure that the barrel was straight (extra sure!) because once the putty cured it would be a real nightmare to fix later. But with that done, it was starting to look good!

A few details like the sides of the grip, some bars on the front of the scope and a few other assorted bits here and there, and this thing was ready for painting!

Primer coat:

Finished paint job:

I also made a leather holster for it. This is such a sleek looking weapon I didn't want to hide it in a full holster so I came up with an interesting idea. I basically used a sword frog as inspiration and designed this:

When the gun is holstered you'll still be able to see almost the entire thing! Just what I wanted.

As always, thanks for reading and I hope this gave you some good ideas on how to make your own props and the motivation to go do it!

If you enjoyed this why not "Like" me on Facebook.

The Crux Terminatus, or, how my wife learned to love the drill press

noreply@blogger.com (Renquist Von Reik) — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Hello again! It's been too long since I shared some behind the scenes insight into how I made some of my newest props but I have some cool pictures to share of my Crux Terminatus coming together. This is a special prop because for the first time my awesome gamer wife helped with the build!

It all began with the printing of a blueprint, in this case a nice image of a crux. Then I cut up the image into it's different components - the wingy things that stick off the sides, the central circles, and the skull. Then I got to hand the templates, the styrene sheet plastic and the x-acto knife to my wife!

Starting with the wingy things, she cut out the base shape and the border.

You can see what a fine job she did hehe. If you place the border over the base they lined up perfectly. I gave her the sand paper and she beveled the outer edge of the border piece. In the template it looks as though the inner edge is beveled also, but ours was kind of small and I worried about getting the inside corners to bevel cleanly since they're so tight and in the end we settled for just the outside edge. In the end I don't think it's even that noticeable that we cheated ;)

Next it was time to cut the central circles. For this we'd need 3 in total, one large for the bottom most circle, one about 1/2" smaller on the diameter for the inner circle, and a ring to border the inner circle. Firing up the drill press I showed my wife how to use it and then it was circle cutting madness! Feeling empowered by forcing her will upon a serious power tool she went mad with power, it was all I could do to stop her from cutting circles out of everything within arms reach! In the end, though, we had our circles! :D

With our wingy thing base and border ready to go it was time to tackle the part I was fearing. Inside the border of there's curved lines which are very precise and even. Using only hand tools, precise and even can be a bit tricky especially when dealing with curves. We both thought through a bunch of options when I had an idea that might just make this easy mode - use wires!

I cut about 10 short lengths of aluminum wire (it's anodized to look like copper wire, but it's a trick!) and curved them around the smaller inner circle. We glued them to the base, glued the border over the top, and then filled in the gaps in between with hot glue. What a pleasure it was to hand her the knife and say, "Now you get to clean up the glue" which she happily did. Oh how newbies enthusiastically throw themselves at any task hahaha. She did a great job getting the edges smooth, especially around the wires on the inside.

Next I hesitantly told my wife we'd need another small circle cut out of styrene which meant she got to fire up the drill press again. The look in her eyes frightened me, I mean seriously, a honey badger doesn't look that terrifying while staring a nest of cobra eggs while standing over the dead body of their mother! In the end with dozens of small circles cut out of everything on the worktable, we had a nice styrene circle to use as the washer under the bolt that goes in the middle of the curved lines. Taking up the sandpaper again my wife beveled the edge of the little circle and glued it down. I then cut the head off a screw and bondoed the top of it to make it smooth and glued that in the middle of our little circle, and the bolt was complete.

To make life easier, and to not have to see my power crazy wife wielding the near unstoppable might of a drill press, I suggested we make a mold of the wingy thing instead of crafting 3 more by hand. I cannot express my relief when she said that was a good idea!

Here is the master, mold, and first casting. Once we had a four castings about 2 hours later (yay fast curing resin) we cleaned them up a little and started putting the whole thing together. We glued the circles to one another and then glued the wingy things around the edges. I used some clay to fill in the gaps which was a task I failed at miserably (more later). Once it was all assembled we had a skull-less crux terminatus staring at us from the worktable! I was a bit concerned by it's proximity to the drill press, but fortunately my wife restrained herself and it remained intact ;)

Well, the lack of a skull was a serious issue so it was time for me to get to work with some sculpting. My wife, however talented with a drill press she might be, will be the first to admit she has no ability to sculpt whatsoever so I mixed up some modeling clay and got to work.

The modeling clay mixture I use is a 50/50 mix of Sculpey Extra Firm and Prima Plastilina. Prima is profession grade modeling clay and sulfur free (vital if you plan to mold it, as sulfur based clays totally mess with the rubber preventing it from curing and leaving a hideous mess). The art store near my only carries a soft version of the Prima though and despite me requesting the firmer stuff time and again they keep getting the soft. I prefer my clay harder so I mix in the Sculpey, which my itself it too firm for me. Ah the toils of an artist ;) You can use whatever clay you're comfortable with, but keep that sulfur tip in mind if you're going to mold it. (if you can't find sulfur free modeling clay, or just aren't sure whether your clay is or isn't, hit it with clear spray varnish before molding. It'll ruin the clay but prevent any molding mishaps)

Enough about my clay snobbery and onto more cruxing! After finishing the sculpt and making our mold we had the first resin pull in hand! I primed and handed it back to my wife to paint. She might be useless with clay and dangerous with drill presses, but she is an outstanding miniature painter so I knew she could handle this step without my guidance so I set about on other projects. When I checked back with her some time later, this is what was waiting for me:

Now how great is that! 3 gold tones, a touch of silver, and some beautiful bone later the Crux Terminatus had finally been brought to life! I drilled a hole into the back and with great pride my wife hung it on the wall over our Warhammer 40k shrine/Black Library bookcase.

The one thing I wasn't happy about was my terrible attempt to attach the wingy things seamlessly to the center ring the way the images show it. In this prop you can totally see the connections and it bothered me so much I actually poured another casting, bondoed the seams and sanded them flush, then poured another mold! No pictures of the cleaner version unfortunately, but I do have some other pictures to offer as a sacrifice that the fickle internet gods might forgive me my sins.

I did mention while my wife was busy cutting holes in everything she could fit into the drill press I was working on some other projects. Two of them were completed around the same time as the Crux and my awesome wife painted them up for me as well.

The first is my personal favorite icon from Warhammer 40k - the Adeptus Mechanicus! This thing is 7" across and looks even bigger in person. Crafted much the same way as the Crux was I used the lid of a 64oz. mixing container as the base, built up details using clay and styrene with a little aluminum wire, and made my mold and casting in resin. This thing looks awesome on the wall next to the crux ;)

The other project that I completed was something that a lot of people had actually requested I make. It was an award I had heard of from the 40k universe, but not something I was really familiar with but I'm guessing it's a bigger deal than I thought since so many people knew exactly what it was and were really interested in seeing it come to life. It's the Imperialis Award given only to the most devout Space Marines! An awesome design, and one I happily set about making.

The skull was clay, the wings styrene, and the sculpt was finished in just a few hours. One mold, one castings, and one wife with a paint station later - viola!

I hope you enjoyed seeing the Crux Terminatus come to life, and I really hope you like the end result for the Crux, Mechanicus Icon, and Imperialis Award. Thanks for taking the time to read about my 40k adventures in the workshop, and as always if you have any questions or comments leave them below! I won't bite (but if you see my wife coming at you with a drill press, you might want to consider what decisions in your life went so horribly wrong as to bring you to that point)

Cheers!

Warhammer 40k Chainsword Replica!

noreply@blogger.com (Renquist Von Reik) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 23:14:00 +0000

When I started thinking about doing a chainsword replica I immediately thought of the THQ chainswords that were made as prizes to promote their new Space Marine video game. It was a gorgeous prop and I really would have loved to have gotten my hands on one but I knew that wasn't going to happen. I though about making my own but wondered if I could make it at least as cool as theirs. If not, was it even worth trying?

In my heart I knew the answer however...YES! Who cares if it wasn't as good as the best one ever made? At least I could have my own chainsword to play with instead of just looking at pictures of one on the internet! And with that decision made it was time to start figuring out how to do it...

As usual I started with a blueprint. In this case I printed out an image of the THQ chainsword scaled to the dimensions I wanted - approximately 3 feet long.

I cut out the chainsword and broke it up into its different elements - blade, grip, and engine case. The first step was to trace the blade pattern onto some pink foam and cut that out.

Next I added 1/4" bass wood strips to the blade edge leaving a groove in the middle where the teeth would go. This built up the side making it wider and would also hide the connection points where the teeth were attached. In the end it would be more realistic (the teeth and chain being hidden inside the weapon case) and also a cleaner build (less visible connection points).

Before attaching the wood I cut out a section in the middle of the pink foam for a PVC pipe to fit. My idea was the use the PVC as a handle and cast a resin guard and details around one end, then slip the other end of the pipe up into the blade for extra strength and stability. (That's probably not the clearest explanation but it will make sense soon!)

On any sword the weakest point is where the handle and the blade meet. Knowing my blade would have a lot of weight there would be a lot of stress on that point if anyone swung the sword (and how could you resist the urge to? I mean really!). Running the pipe through the length of the handle and into the blade should prevent any issues. (the PVC is not attached yet in the picture)

With that done I covered the pink foam in .04" styrene plastic sheeting. This had to be done because my intention was to fiber glass the blade but unfortunately you can't apply the fiber glass resin directly to the pink foam as it will melt it while it cures! (Pro time - a cheap way to prepare the foam for fiber glass is to wrap it in tin foil!)

While the glue was drying on the blade I carved a tooth out of pink foam and covered it with wood glue. I would be casting it later and just like fiber glass, pouring mold rubber directly over pink isn't a good idea. In this case it doesn't melt the foam but good luck getting the foam separated from the rubber! (yes, I figured that out the hard way lol). Here's my sexy tooth drying.

And here are some of the first castings I pulled later that day after letting the glue dry and making my mold. You can start to see how the blade would look with them lined up...scary! Just the way an Imperial Chainsword should be! ;)

When the glue was dry on the styrene it was time to fiber glass the blade! I like to use a paint brush and brush on the resin first, then lay down the fiber glass and brush more resin over it until it's all soaked through. I used the resin over the entire blade but only laid fiber glass over the sides and back - not in the groove where the teeth would go. I did that because I actually forgot to account for the fiber glass when determining how deep the groove should be and didn't want to have the teeth sitting higher up than I planned. Doh!

Once the fiber glass was dry I covered it in bondo and sanded the hell out of it until it was nice and smooth, a process which took the better part of an afternoon. With aching shoulders and arms but a perfectly smooth chainsword, I realized how horrible it looked! Not the shape or design, but the actual colors! The fiber glass has a yellowish/brown color while the bondo is pink and wow, what a horrible combination LOL! It did have some cool patterns in it though.

The final major element that needed to be added to the blade was the engine box. I used my blueprint and cut the shape out of 1/4" mdf board. Once it was glued down I realized I didn't like it...it had to be bigger! So I cut some extra pieces to lengthen the engine box and also cut the thinner strips of mdf which would give me the exhaust ports.

Alright! The blade was structurally completed now. I'd have to go back and add all the details to really bring it to life, but for all intents and purposes I had my chainsword blade ready to go!

Which could only mean it was time to work on the handle. Honestly, I'd been dreading this part. I was planning on making the mold of my handle sculpt around a pvc pipe and had no idea of my plan would work. Worst case scenario is not only would it not work but my sculpt would be ruined in the failed molding attempt! Also, should I try and sculpt around the pvc, fit it in later? What to do!?!

Throwing caution to the wind I decided to just start the build and worry about the pipe later. I figured it would only get in the way right now so phooey! I grabbed a piece of pink foam and started roughing out the shape using my blueprint as a guide. Once I had the basic shape cut out of foam I added a shield type thing to the front of it. I figured you'd want something to protect your hand if you ever got into a chainsword fight!

I decided to start detailing the handle first since it was smaller and would need to be molded and cast. While the mold and resins were curing I'd have time to detail the blade. I started by covering the pink foam with styrene again and then broke the wide areas up into smaller sections with more bass wood. I added some resin skulls I had from an earlier project, and added an little inscription using 1/4" stick on vinyl letters. I also sculpted a nice design for the front of the shield using .04", .02", and .01" styrene.

I hadn't covered the inside edge (think where your knuckles would touch if you were holding it) with styrene since I wasn't sure what to do about the PVC pipe yet. With the handle getting close to finished and my concern growing, I took the PVC and filed the end down until it was kind of sharp, then just pushed it through the foam. Can I tell you I was amazed how well it worked! I couldn't have cut better holes for it to fit through with my foam cutter! With that problem solved I still needed to prepare the pink foam for molding. I could have done the wood glue trick again but I was feeling impatient so I just smoothed clay over the foam hehe. Before molding, I stuck the PVC pipe in place and used more clay to fill any gaps when the handle and PVC joined.

It was time for the moment of truth! More like the 2 hours of truth as I prepared the handle and PVC monster for molding. In the end it worked! I had a mold with a cavity for the PVC pipe to fit into to where the resin would get poured around it.

It's a hideous mold, but it worked *happy dance*!

While the rubber was curing I took the time to grab all the teeth I had cast and stick short wooden pegs into them. This would help secure them to the chainsword as opposed to just gluing them on flat. I also primed them and painted them ahead of time. It would have been much harder to paint them nicely when they're sunk into their groove so it was worth doing it first and gluing them in when the painting was done.

So with my teeth finished and my handle curing it was time to start detailing the blade! I began by adding some details running off the engine box. I wanted it to look like it was reinforced against the vibrations and wear of having a running motor in it. Then I added the two bearings where the chain would rotate around, for the sake of realism of course hehe. Then came the wing design on the tip and using 1" stick on vinyl letters I added an inscription along the middle of the blade. This was outlined with some styrene strips so the paint job could separate from the rest and make it stand out more.

Now it's really starting to look like a proper chainsword! Time to put it together and get it ready for painting! I covered the PVC pipe sticking out of the handle with Gorilla glue, a special glue that foams up and expands as it dries. This fill the gaps between the pipe and the foam and ensure it super tight bond. Then I used some bondo to fill the seam where the blade and the handle met to finish off the build!

As far as paint jobs go I knew I wanted it to have an old school look to it, which could only mean hazard stripes!! Hell yeah! The first thing to do was prime the blade white. Then I laid down some 2" wide painters tape where I wanted the yellow stripes to be.

Once I was happy with the placement of the stripes and made sure they were all even I re-primed the entire thing black. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the paint job as it was coming along so we'll jump right to some finished pics. When I start painting I move quick, as one sections dries I start on another and keep moving around getting work done. I wish I had come up for air and thought "I should take some pictures!" but sadly it never happened :(

Before showing off the finished chainsword there was one last thing to do after the paint had dried! Finish the grip! I wrapped it with a thin sticky back foam that is intended for padding prosthetics and wrapped that in a soft leather. Then to finish it off I took an anodized aluminum wire with a copper appearance and did a wrap over the leather. Finally! It was done!

If you'd like to see more there's a short video on my Facebook page showing it in closer detail from lots of different angles! You can see it here - Steamtech1876 on Facebook

I hope you like the chainsword and enjoyed the build log! As always, I appreciate your comments and am happy to answer any questions you have about this or other builds I've done, or prop building in general.

For The Emperor!

The Inquisitor's Rosette

noreply@blogger.com (Renquist Von Reik) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 01:50:00 +0000

I've been running a Dark Heresy campaign for a small group of friends since the game came out. A little while ago we reached Ascension and the advanced character careers and they all were named Inquisitors. After playing for a few years I told them to commemorate their promotion I'd make them all rosettes and finally I have delivered on my promise!

Using the above image as a reference I decided the best way to tackle this project was using styrene plastic sheets. I used two different thicknesses - .04" (white) and .02" (black). Now once again I totally failed in taking progress shots because I suck something mighty, but I tried to make up for it after the fact lol!

Here's the finished model with the two styrene sheets I used.

The nice thing about these sheets of styrene is they can be cut with a good pair of scissors or a razor blade. I printed out my reference picture after scaling it to the size I wanted (2.5" tall) and trimmed the background leaving just the =][= symbol. I traced that onto the white styrene and cut it out. I did that two more times to build up the thickness for stronger castings later on. Then I glued the three pieces together and set it aside to dry.

Next I took my reference picture and cut out the red sections. These would be recessed in my final model so I'd have to build up the edges and center area where the skull is. To do so I used the thinner styrene. I took my reference picture and folded it in half. Wrapping it around the styrene I traced one half of it and then carefully cut it out. With that done I traced the other half and cut that out as well.

It was a lot easier to do the black part as two separate halves than trying to do it in one piece and cut out those two central sections. I lined up my two halved and made sure the edges lined up perfectly using a small hand file. Once they fit together seamlessly I glued them down to the base.

I cheated a little on the next step since I already have a bunch of small skull molds. In this case I poured just enough resin into one of my Imperial Guard medals of honor (the Medusa V Victory campaign medal) to fill the skull and let it cure. Once cured I popped it out, sanded the back to rough it up and glued it in place. This ensured my etchings left enough room around it to look right.

With the white styrene base done, the black edge in place and the skull casting glued down the only thing left to do was etch out the detail line running around the symbol. This is the gold line in the reference picture. To do so I used a small round hand file and a metal ruler to make sure the lines were straight and lined up well.

I did have to etch the curved lines around the skull by hand and just tried to be as careful as I could to make it symmetrical, which I kind of failed at anyway hehe. The worst of the etching mistakes were fixed with some clay to smooth out the scratches. When I was happy with where it was at, I used a small flat hand file and beveled the outer edge just to give it a bit of a cleaner look.

Next I made my mold using Smooth-On OOMOO 25, and poured my casting with Smooth-On Smooth Cast 320. I primed my castings and painted them up using acrylics, and finished them off with some glossy spray varnish.

The final step was the drill a small hole through the center of the top and attach a large jump ring. I then strung the rosettes off of beaded necklaces and viola, my group finally had their Inquisitor's Rosettes!

Heretics Beware!

As always feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think, but I warn you - the Inquisition considers criticism to be heresy! :D

Iron Within, Iron Without!

noreply@blogger.com (Renquist Von Reik) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:37:00 +0000

The war cry of the dreaded Iron Warriors legion of traitor marines strikes fear into the hearts of men, no matter how strong their defenses are since the Iron Warriors are master of siege.

The Iron Warriors were always one of my favorite Chaos Space Marine chapters and I used to have a pretty big tabletop army of Iron Warriors back in the day (over 2k pts worth!). Since my army is no more, but I still really love the Iron Warriors I decided I wanted to make something to honor my old army. I've been a little short on time lately so it couldn't be anything terribly big or detailed and then it hit me, I'll make a sculpt of their awesome looking Chapter Icon!

I looked around the 'webs and found this image I was going to use for a basic design. I really loved the metal skull, but I wanted it on a round background which meant adjusting the points behind it.

I began by sculpting the skull out of extra firm sculpey clay. The points of the chaos star arrows I cut out from my chaos symbol pin instead of sculpting new ones, plus time was short so I had to find ways to save time! Finally I arranged my sculpey skull and points on the lid of a pickled herring jar LOL. It was the right diameter and even had a nice little ridge around the edge.

Once my sculpt was complete it was time to make my mold! I used Smooth-On OOMOO 30 to get a quick mold. I hot glued the sculpt to a piece of plexiglass (I happen to have a bunch of this laying around so I tend to use it for various palettes and work surfaces) and took a large paper cup for hot or cold drinks, cut the bottom out and hot glued that down around the sculpt to use as a mold form. The hot beverage cups are wax coated so there's no worry about the rubber sticking to it but I gave the inside surfaces a shot of mold release agent anyway ;)

With my mold finished it was time to make my first pull casting and see how it looks! I used Smooth-On Smooth Cast 321 for its relatively quick pot life and cure time - 7 minutes in the pot, 30 to cure means in less than an hour I would be able to pop out the first casting and see the results.

The casting feels awesome. The sculpt was very lightweight being on a plastic jar lid but the casting is solid through and through and what a difference it makes in the overall feel of the piece. I was very happy with how the casting turned out, but how would it look painted?

Oh man, when this was done I started looking over my shoulder for the Iron Warriors assault on my workshop! ;) I painted this using Citadel Boltgun Silver with Mithril Silver highlights (the silver highlight/shading is actually all paint and not lighting). The red is Scab Red with Blood Red (doh, I think it was blood red...I don't remember now lol) and I have to admit, the red was a real PITA! It took about 5 coats of scab red to get an even, consistent color. I was really started to get frustrated with it in the end. When it was finally done I gave it a couple of coats of a spray on clear gloss varnish and glued a pin back on it as well.

I love my Iron Warriors icon and have cast a few more to decorate the shop and some mini cases with. I hope you like it too and enjoyed reading about how it was made. If you have any questions about any of the steps drop a comment and I'll be happy to help :)

Warhammer 40k Bolt Shells

noreply@blogger.com (Renquist Von Reik) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 20:12:00 +0000

Is your bolt pistol out of ammo? Are you tired of waiting for the Departmento Munitorum to send resupply ships to your sector? Let the independent forges of Steamtech 1876 help!

After losing many good servitors Steamtech has finally managed to perfect the production of

BOLT SHELLS!

These self propelled mini-missiles explode on impact giving you maximum lethality and xenos stopping power.

Made from cast resin, these shells measure approx. 3" long and 1.25" wide.

Unfortunately there's no progress shots as this was a rush job for Christmas, but I can give a short description of how they were made. It started with two short lengths of 1" pvc pipe (the sections painted black). I cut 5 discs out of thin styrene plastic sheets and glued them all together - 2 discs, pvc, 1 disc, pvc, 2 discs. This gave me the casing with thicker ridges on the top and bottom and a thinner ridge in the middle. A smaller disc was cut and glued to the bottom where the hammer strikes and ignites the primer (slightly visible in the bottom image).

The bullet started off as a piece of balsa wood used for roofs for model train buildings. I cut a strip of it with a length a little short then the circumference of the casing and soaked it in water for a few minutes to make it flexible. I then wrapped the wood around a brass pipe to make it round and let it dry, holding the shape. This piece formed the exhaust fins inside the cutouts.

I then cut a piece of vinyl the same size as the wood plus a little extra, and cut out the four holes through which the exhaust fins would be visible. This piece was glued over the wood and the the top of the bullet was roughly shaped with clay.

The bullet was then cast in resin and the casting put in a drill press. With the drill press running at it's slowest speed I sanded the bullet smooth and evened out the curve. Small hand files were pressed against the spinning bullet to give the lines running around the top of the exhaust area and just below the tip of the bullet. I removed the bullet from the drill press and filed the lines that cross the bullet tip by hand.

Once the bullet was completed it was glued to the casing and another mold made. The mold was made by pressing the completed shell into clay and leveling off the surface, then pouring the mold rubber over the top giving me half a mold. I then cleaned off the clay without removing the shell from the mold rubber and once it was all removed I poured mold rubber over the second half (with a liberal use of mold release to ensure the two halves of the rubber mold didn't stick together).

With two half molds I poured the resin into each and let it cure. After it was hardened I sanded and glued the two halves together, primed and painted them! All in all it took about 3 days start to finish, and I was particularly proud of the hand painted aquilas hehe. The "Kill the Heretic" scratched onto the one casing is a nod to the Warhammer 40k "Ultramarines" cgi movie, where this bolt shell design came from. (The movie isn't great, but it's still absolutely a must see for any 40k fans!)

Here's another image of the shells with a ruler for scale:

I hope you like the shells and enjoyed the build description! Please feel free to comment and ask any questions you might have. I'm happy to go into more details and of course appreciate any feedback.

Happy New Year!

Warhammer 40k Bolt Pistol!

noreply@blogger.com (Renquist Von Reik) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:08:00 +0000

One of my latest projects has recently been shown off so I figured I'd give my blog readers a sneak peak behind the scenes to see how it was made. Said project was my replica Warhammer 40k Bolt Pistol! An iconic weapon of the Warhammer 40k universe and a beast of a pistol I've always wanted decorating my workshop or game room.

I started off by scanning an image of the pistol from the Dark Heresy rulebook from Fantasy Flight Games - the Warhammer 40k RPG series. The image is about an inch big, so it's tiny tiny. I knew I'd be using the handle of a Nerf Maverick so I measured the height of the Nerf grip and then scaled the image up until the height of the grip matched my measurement.

With this picture printed out I had my blueprint to make sure all my proportions would be accurate.

Blueprint in hand it was time to start crafting! I actually had about half a dozen prints so I could cut out the patterns of various pieces. First was the main gun body - everything minus the magazine, barrel, grip, and top detials. I traced the pattern on 1.5" pink foam insulation and cut it out. Next was to cut out two of the same pieces in 1/4" MDF board to put on the sides of the foam, and 2 pieces of the casing to attach over those.

Then I built the magazine. A small piece of pink foam formed the bottom with MDF adding the sides and details.

Here is it with my cut off Nerf grip. Now I knew there would be generous amounts of Bondo needed to fix a lot of the tiny errors that inevitably appear in projects like this, and Bondo creates heat when curing. Not a lot of heat, but more than enough to melt into the pink foam causing issues. To solve this problem before it started I covered all the sides where the pink foam was still visible with thin pieces of styrene plastic.

With the main gun shape done I started to add the details. First was a trim around the casing to separate it from the body, with some extra trim around the magazine port. This was done with thin balsa wood which was sanded smooth to remove the grain. You can see it in this picture taken on the blueprint. The dimensions match! I was on the right track so far.

More details were added with styrene plastic and balsa wood. The top sight was shaped with pink foam and covered with styrene as well. I also added some rivets cut from the styrene as well as some cool screws to the casing. Here the barrel was cut but not yet attached. I was just checking the length to make sure it didn't look wonky.

With the main detail work finished I primed the gun. Priming the piece helps to pick out parts that need repair, gaps between details, rough areas that need smoothing, etc. It can be hard to notice some of these small defects when you've got all these different materials and colors all over. Also, the primer helps give a uniform surface to prevent problems when molding and give the final casting a consistent finish. The mold rubber will easily capture to textural difference between the styrene, mdf, and other materials and can give the final casts a very "interesting" finish.

In the above picture the grip, barrel, and magazine are still not attached. I knew I'd be casting them separately (except the barrel which is just cut pvc pipe) so there was no need to attach them but I still looked at the gun with the pieces in place to make sure the dimensions and overall look was accurate. The green mat under the pistol here has a 1" grid on it to give you an idea of the size of this thing. It was going to be big!

With all the pieces finished and ready for molding the only detail left to do was the large icon always present on the sides of the casing. In this case I decided on the winged skull icon commonly found on Bolt Pistols. I intended to mold these details separately so I could make new details later and add them to the bolt pistol without having to rework the main gun body. Otherwise if I decided to do a different detail I'd need to take a casting and sand off the winged skull and make a new mold of the new detail.

These details were made from styrene plastic for the wings and Super Sculpey for the skulls. I put them together and made my mold, and here's the first castings I pulled:

In the meantime I had made molds of the other pieces and cut my pvc barrel to the right length, with the large round holes cut into the sides. Everything was ready to be assembled and finished at this point!

A little glue, a little paint and finally my Bolt Pistol was ready for action! This particular pistol was intended to be the sidearm of a Cadian officer in the Imperial Guard so I chose green, black, and gold as my main colors. The red handle was to provide a little contrast in color. Here's the final result!

I hope you enjoyed seeing the process unfold. It was a lot of fun to build and I'm very pleased with the end result - a resin cast replica that weighs about 5 lbs lol. Holding it in your hands you can really get a sense of the power this gun would have on the battle fields of the 41st millenium!

As a bonus for reading this far here's a picture of my lovely headless wife modeling the pistol to give you an idea of the size of it.

Warhammer 40k Purity Seals

noreply@blogger.com (Renquist Von Reik) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:24:00 +0000

I've always wanted Purity Seals. For decades I've been looking at Warhammer 40k artwork and miniatures adorned with their wax and parchments seals of faith in the God-Emperor of Man and thought how great it would be to have one of my own. One? I actually wanted dozens. How else could I decorate my mini cases, coats and jackets, backpack, and the walls of my game room with just one after all!

After years of longing I decided it was time. The Emperor sent me a vision of standing in my office like an Imperial Noble, no like an massive Titan astride the conquered remains of an enemy city, purity seal parchments fluttering dramatically in the wind! I knew it then and there it had to be done. I had to create purity seals and let the world know my faith was pure and unshakable!

That, or my friends and I finally decided it would be pretty cool. With either of those possibilities motivating me, I stepped into the forges and got to work!

Sadly there are no in progress pictures for these, but I can give a brief description of how they were made. The first step was to sculpt the wax seal portion in clay. Mainly shaping the seal to look like wax and adding a little detail to the center of it. Once the sculpts were done I made rubber molds of them. Once the mold were done I used red colored resin to reproduce them! To accent the finished casting I used black shoe polish to darken the recesses and pick out the detail, and afterwards hit it was some gloss varnish to give it a waxy finish.

The parchment is not actually paper at all. I knew these would see some wear and tear since the plan was to decorate mini cases and bags with them so paper wouldn't cut it. I needed something stronger. I got a cheap cotton muslin material and had several designs printed on the fabric. Now I was in business! The cotton wouldn't rip or get ruined in the rain, but was still light enough to flutter in a breeze.

The last step was to glue to strips to the seals and finish it off with a pin back, since most of the mini cases were soft shells and all our coats and backpacks certainly were! I have made several with magnets as well to make sure no one questions the faith of my refrigerator! They even make the food stay fresh longer* :D

I've done some other specific purity seals as well. The implacable Grey Knights!

How could I leave out the Space Wolves! Vikings in space are as awesome as cowboys in space!

This last shot also gives a good idea of the size of the seals. The grid pictured behind the Space Wolf seal above is a 1" grid so the wax seal portion is roughly 2" x 2" and the parchment hangs about 6" long.

Thanks for looking. I hope you like them :)

*putting purity seals on your refrigerator in no way makes food stay fresh longer!