Tony starks Iron man Arc reactor VI

As you may have seen from other prop posts on here, i like making Arc reactors from the Iron man Films.

I have Previously made the first Arc here and I've also made whiplashes second Arc here

So this time I thought i would try and make the Iron man Arc reactor mk VI

So as always i started with a little google and found this rather nice screen grab of the arc.

Once I had an idea of what i wanted to make i did a little sketch of how I thought the layers would be best tackled and what thickness plastic i would be using.

once I had worked out the layering i drew up some plans in Illustrator.

Then when i had the plans finalised i cut them all out in 2mm plastic on a laser cutter.

I designed the arc to be made from 3 layers of 2 x 2mm plastic. each group would fit together and make the complete arc. 

So i glued the layers together into their groups.

I then put all the groups together to make sure that the design would work out right.

When i knew i had the design correct i gave all parts (except the clear sections) a coat of plastic primer paint.

Then just for fun i assembled them together again. i also cut a circle of translucent blue to try and give the arc the blue glow later on.

The Base and stand. 

I drew up some plans for the base that matched the film as close as i could garner. 

i cut the parts out and part assembled it and then painted them with a coat of plastic primer.

The parts that needed to be black i painted black.

I cut a disc of EL panel and placed it in the rear of the casing of the Arc. 

The image on the left is with the full blue disc in the Arc.  The image on the left is with the blue cut into a triangle (with a triangle in the centre cut out) to match the pattern of the arc.  

I gave all the parts a coat of metallic silver paint. Then I out it all together. 

i painted the base silver and glued it together.

The when it was all together and finished i placed the whole thing on a base that holds the batteries and driver for the EL panel. 

I designed the arc to be able to be removed from the base. as if it were going to be put on Iron mans chest.

Thank you for reading my blog, if you have any questions or comments please leave them in the space below.

Terminator CPU brain chip.

 

Recently i was given a little glass dome as a gift and i wanted to make a little prop to go inside it.

The dome had the space for something about 8cm long, So i thought about what props i could make. 

I came to he conlution that the brain chip from terminator 2 would look good under the glass dome. 

So as usual i started by doing a little resarch on the old interwebs. 

i found a couple of screen grabs that have other stuff in the shot to give it scale.

 

from these i worked out the size and from other photos of licenced props (bad plastic recasts) i found i worked out the correct amount of cubes on the CPU.

so i drew up some plans on Illustrator and marked out where the damage on the broken chip would go.

After the plans were finished i cut out all the parts on a laser cutter.

With all the parts cut out i assembled the chips. 

i made enough parts to make a damaged chip and a complete chip.

After assembly i gave all the parts a coat of plastic primer. then the chips got a coat of brass/gold paint and the base discs got a coat of a metalic grey/silver.

after the gold and silver had dried i set about making the cubes on the CPU look like the photos. I mixed up two batches of a rust/brick red brown one slightly darker than the other. 

the lighter, more red paint went on the complete chip and the darker red/brown went on the damaged worn chip.

Once the brown paint had dried on the damaged chip i set about making it look more damaged/fire damaged/dirty.

i took a lighter with a large flame and melted/singed and just messed up the broken end of the chip.

Also with some brown and blacks i made it look rusty and dirty and weathered.

The base discs got the same weathering ttreatment. 

i made one look clean and one look old and rusty. 

these discs are based on the port that the chips are pulled out of inside the terminators head. 

i made a small wire section that would hold the chips up so they would be on show.

 

 

 I put the broken one in the glass dome as i wanted it to look like the one they stole from cyberdyne systems in the second film. 

Thanks for looking. 

If you have any questions or comments please leave it in the comment section below or you can email me and i will try to respond.

Thats no moon. Levitating Death Star.

This is how i made my floating death star

I have always Loved globes and the like, especially the ones that float within a magnetic field. 

I thought it would be fun to change what hangs in the space of the globe so had a think and came up with the thought of making a Death Star replica. 

so i started by getting hold of a floating globe, i got mine on the electronic bay.com.

It was a nice little globe. the base was domed and had some little LEDs in to give it the space/future/star wars feel. 

i do have plans to make the dome at the bottom look a little planety or something.

 

The globe had a little Equator sticker holding the two halves of the globe. 

The top half of the dome holds the strong magnet that makes it float.

The detail of the globe (the countries and seas etc.) were on a thin plastic layer that seems to have been heat shrunk around the plastic domes. it wasn't glued down, it was only held by the top and bottom metal caps.
I stripped it of by pushing a craft knife in-between the dome and the plastic and it was easy to peel off.
 

Once i had the covering off i printed some plans of the Death Star from the Internet at the right scale of the globe i had.

I cut out the "eye" of the Death Star and placed it on the dome in the correct place.
Once the "eye" was in place i traced round the "eye". 

I carefully cut the "eye" out of the dome and flipped it round and placed it back into the hole it came from. (the same way the actual Death Star in the movies was done.)

i glued it in place from the inside of the domes. Then I gave it a light sanding to make sure it was flush.

I gave the whole globe a little sand and then a coat of light grey primer.

Its time to give the globe a little test float. changing the weight and distribution could possible change the way the globe floats.

test floats are always a good thing. 

I made a very simple press switch cell battery LED circuit. then i gave it another test float.

I drilled an array of little holes all over both domes from the inside. the reason for this will become apparent soon.

after all the holes had been drilled i started to tape the Death Star up for more painting. I randomised the masking on both domes. I then Taped them together. 

I painted the Death Star a darker grey then removed all the tape to give it some layers of details.

 

I thought i would look for the biggest ship in the star wars films and i think it was the super star destroyer, the one they released the Lego version of. The Lego one handily had a little data plaque on it that gave a size of 19km long.

In my research i found the size of the first death star to be loads of different sizes, but one number that kept coming up was 160 km in diameter.


So with a size of 160,000,000 mm for the death star and the length 19,000,000 mm for the star destroyer.

the globe i got was around 105 mm long. So  with some quick maths i worked out that it is at a scale of (roughly) 1 : 1,500,000 (it comes out to scale to the size of 106.666667 mm)

so the star destroyer of 19,000,000 at the scale of 1:1,500,000 makes the scaled version come out at 12.666667 mm  so i rounded it up to 13mm and made a little , well tiny, card model of the super star destroyer.  i attached the star destroyer to the death star with a small length of fibre optic strand, i just glued it to the destroyer and drilled a small hole in the death star.

Make sure that the length isn't too long make sure it wont hit the upright of the magnet frame.

I also used some lengths of Fibre optic strands to make the laser firing, (i forgot to take a photo of this stage but you will see it in the final images.) i sanded the fibre optics lengths a little and then stained them with some green ink. i then glued them into the holes in the laser "eye" with the 8 strands converging onto the central one which extends longer than the rest.

Make sure that the laser isn't too long make sure it doesn't hit the magnet frame. (same as the star destroyer.

Once all that is done I was finished. 

Here is a little video of the globe floating and rotating.

Thanks for looking. please leave me a comment or any questions you may have in the comment box below. 

thanks.