Re: 3d Printed Hellboy Sidearm (Comic Version)
rgriesbeck You did say you would like more pictures of this kit, so I will try to upload some of the ones i took while working on it.
First of this was a nice kit to work on. The print is solid and looks amazing once completed.
Before I ordered this kit, i asked if you thought it would be a good starting kit to really get into prop making and now that I have completed it, i have to agree that it was indeed a good kit. It was nice to work on something, that to me at-least, felt larger and more professional, then most projects I have worked on so far.
That being said I also learned a lot working on this project. Both from actually trying new things, as well as making mistakes and having to solve the problems these mistakes caused.
The first thing I did once the kit arrived was to lay it all out on a table to get a good look at the kit.
I decided to start working on the bullet first and work on the kit as a two part process. Finish the bullet first, then work on the pistol. The plan was to rush into the project and be able to see part of it finished fast. Looking back on it now, I probably worked too fast on the bullet itself, losing some of the detail I was going for. This was my first mistake on this project but not the last or worst one. As you can see I should have spent more time making sure the bullet had a smooth outer surface, I did however learn from this mistake and as a result, spent more time making sure the pistol was ready before I started to assemble and paint it.
To clean-up some of the excess plastic inside the lettering on the bullet, I used a needle, a pair of pliers and a creme brulee burner that I had tried to turn into something resembling a hand-welder. I warmed up the needle and carefully melted away the excess plastic while being careful not to damage the lettering itself.
Afterwards I gave the bullet a quick paint job and started working on the pistol itself.
firespiter How did you get your bullet so smooth?
I spent two hours sanding every part of the pistol to make sure the surface was smooth using sandpaper. Afterwards I started using green stuff to plug a few small holes and gaps in the plastic. I then assembled the pistol without using glue, to see how well the parts fit together. It turned out they fit together really well.
I then spray painted all the parts of the pistol and started assembling it properly. This is where I made another mistake. I should have spent some time actually looking at the pictures of the finished prop, instead of getting too focused on working on the prop itself. As a result I put part of the barrel of the gun on wrong and didn’t notice till after the glue had hardened the next day.
That meant bringing out the dremmel and cutting part of the barrel off the gun again, smoothing it down and then assembling it correctly. I then noticed another problem. Part of the green stuff I had been using to plug holes and and gaps had shrunk during the night and I had to do it all over. I did this about 3 times before figuring out that I was using the wrong kind of green stuff for the job. Lessen learned the hard way for future projects.
During the assembly, the little metal pin that had been included in the kit, to create the mechanism of opening and closing the gun, gave me a few of problems. I simply couldn’t get the mechanism to work without parts simply falling off. Mostly my glue wouldn’t stick to the metal as well as the cover screws. As a result I ended up cutting down one of my cheap wooden pencils and using it as the pin. This worked like a charm and has held up to all the use that the prop has seen so far.
I used the dremmel to drill a hole on each side of the guns opening mechanism, so that I could add a two neodymium magnets to help stabilize the prop. This worked really well and I can now handle the prop reliably without the gun suddenly opening by accident. On a side note, the plastic latch on top of the gun does stabilize the gun really well and adding the magnets was probably overkill, but better safe then sorry. Besides, I love working with magnets.
After that the gun got a nice paint job and it now resides on one of my shelf’s. There is still a few details left that I need to work on, before I post a picture of the finished gun.
