Goldeneye Limpet Mine

Making a Goldeneye limpet mine, the ones Bond uses to trash Alec Trevellian's lair at the end of the film*.

This was a nice easy build.
When I found out that the Limpet mines  in Goldeneye are just repainted joystick bases I quickly set about tracking down the correct one.

Thank You eBay

Then it was just a case of repainting and mounting the button and LEDs.

Nice and simple, but it's still one of my favourite pieces. It brings back fond memories of hours wasted on the N64, seeing how many mines we could stick to a friend.







* I seem to remember that Alec actually disables the mines and Bond instead uses the grenade pen to blow up the petrol tanks, but it's that whole scene.

Stargate Kull Disruptor - Magazine & Finish

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3



I had planned to make another one of these and document it better, but until then I figured it was best to have some pictures of the final piece up.

The final part to be built from plasticard was this magazine type piece, that holds the power cell.

After that was finished, I cast up a copy of everything, scavenged a weaver rail mount and set about painting.

The paint job was rushed and doesn't really have the proper depth, but with a few tips from veteran Zat painters I should be able to do better next time.

But for now I'm mostly happy with how the project turned out.
Still on the to do list are:

• New paint job (got some suggestions and new paints ready)
• Draw up circuit board for lights and mill with my CNC machine
• Scavenge the perfect part for the clear plastic lens 
• Remake the moulds for the main body, it has one or two shocking air bubbles.
• Mill a new powercell out of brass. (Even a small bit of solid brass is prohibitively expensive so this one is unlikely)
  

If I can manage just 3 of those things I'll have a really nice piece.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Hellboy Corpse Locator Tutorial - Part 2

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

The Dome

One of the smallest pieces but probably the most important, so it's worth getting right.

Despite a lot of effort I could never cast perfectly smooth pieces with polyester resin. I've gotten pretty good though, so your dome may not need too much clean up, just in case, here's the process I used to have to go through the clean up my domes.

These have been sat on my workbench a while, so they're a lil' fuzzy

These were cast in open moulds so the first job is to sand the back flat. I usually just sit it on 40 grit paper but if you have a belt sander that might work too. Try not to take too much off the sides or the dome won't fit as snuggly into the centre dial.

The outer layer of the dome is a bit gummy, which means it's a pain to sand. I used a dremel attachment to get as much of it off as possible (otherwise it gums up your paper)

After this you probably want to take more 40 grit to it making sure all the gunk is off.
Then comes the slow tedious job of sanding and polishing.
First I use 100 grit to get rid of all the tool marks from the dremel. The back of the dome can be left at 100 as it gets painted anyway.

Then the dome gets wet sanded with 240, 600, 800, 1200, 2000, 2500, and penultimately 3000 grit paper.

This is painfully boring and my mind tends to wander so I tried to be methodical, counting how long I was sanding for, using a small circular motion and always washing the dome when I changed grits.
The final stage is to polish. I use toothpaste and a pair of tights to polish. One of the weirder things in my toolbox, but toothpaste is just a mild abrasive.
Some people use an old sock for polishing, but I found tights are smoother and give a better finish, plus they're finer, making it easy to handle small objects.

Anyway, the end result of all that should be a nice smooth, shiny dome.

The next job is to paint the back of the dome gold. You can use rub 'n buff, but I found it hard to get a completely solid layer without really caking it on, so instead I just used a gold acrylic and sponged it on. 2 - 3 coats should give you complete coverage, hold it up to the light to see where gaps are.

Once the gold has completely dried then you need to etch some lines in it. You can sketch out a design before hand if you want, but remember whatever you do the final result will be reversed.
Using a pin I etch lines into the paint, continually checking the other side to see how it comes out. If you are adding LEDs place your dome over them to gauge the effect.

Priming

Once all the pieces are cleaned up it's time for primer. As with most things on this build though, it's not that easy. Filling the hundreds of undercuts with spray paint is near impossible, unless you get in close, over-spray and take out all the detail.
My solution to this was to water down (almost to a wash) some primer and hand paint the main body and lid pieces. It's nice and easy to paint, and capillary action causes it all to collect in the undercuts. Once this dries I then give them a spray to get an even finish.

The other pieces can be sprayed as normal.

All pieces then need undercoating in black. Unfortunately the same problem occurs with spray. So I do an acrylic ink wash first to get paint in all the tiny gaps. You could just use a black primer, I don't know how that'll affect the gilding

Stone compass anyone?

Then they get sprayed with matt black to give a nice even finish.

Gilding

Once everything is undercoated the next step is painting the insides of the lid and body. 

These parts are hard to see, so I just went for a loose, deep red, wood kind of colour. Painted on thick and streaky to give it a bit of texture. And if you're being really detailed, you can lighten your mix a little with yellow and add a very light dry brush to highlight it a bit.

Possibly the most satisfying step in the painting, is gilding everything.

I tried a gold airbrush paint, but for a really shiny metallic finish nothing beats 'Rub 'n Buff'. I tried using the 'Antique Gold' product, but it's really dark, bronze even, so I decided upon the 'Gold Leaf' variety.

I use a large stiff brush to dry brush it on. I found it impossible to do this without Spandau Ballet rocking through my head.
Start slow, but don't be afraid to go heavy with it and get it into the gaps, remember that all this gets knocked back a fair bit with weathering, If you're unsure, add more gold! You can always tone it down later.

Once everything is gilded then you'll want to give it all a good clear coat. I used matt because, although it is gold, we're not going for that highly polished metal look.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Range Finder

We're getting very close to the end of all my old progress pictures. I did get the helmet down the other day intending to do some more painting, but gave up before I'd even started, it's just so tedious, marking out all the shapes.




Originally Posted 27-Jul-2009


Next up is the rangefinder housing. If I remember correctly this part isn't detailed in either of Antman's threads 
(which I have been following fairly closely) So I'll try to show a bit more detail.

First of all print out a set of WoF's templates from the gallery.

I'm using 1mm thick mattboard (scavenged from an old sketch book)
So I then began to mark the various places I would have to trim 1mm off of to keep the correct shape.

The dotted lines show where I'm going to angle both edges at the corner rather than just trim one of them.

Here are the pieces cut out.

I began to angle some of the pieces with a knife and sandpaper. I also drilled out the LED holes using a 5mm wood bit.

Then I just began assembling all the pieces.

I had to be careful, trying to make sure the sides were square.

One of the pieces didn't quite fit, overtrimmed, but I'll sort that out later

After letting it dry a while I decided to paper mache' the inside, to cover the small cracks and strengthen it a bit.

Then I brought out my circuit and did a test fit, bending the LEDs into roughly the correct place.

The circuit fits easily into the housing. The only problem is that it infringes on the lens' space more than I would like. 
But I can't be bothered to move all the stuff onto a smaller board.

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Electronics

A huge gap here, bringing us closer to the present. Now working on some rangefinder electronics.

Rangefinder Electronics

Originally Posted 27-July-2009
I haven't posted anything in ages because I've been away (doing an Architecture degree)

But now I'm back and have got thoroughly stuck into making my rangefinder.

First of all I purchased a metronome kit from Maplin as well as some green LEDs.

As soon as I got the kit I assembled it according to the instructions and then began to sync the lights up to the right speed (2.13 Hz), by adjusting the two pots to 40KΩ each.

That was fairly easy and formed the basis for my rangefinder circuitry.

Next I desoldered the 9v clip, the LEDs and the capacitors. I re-soldered the capacitors, leaving longer leads so I could fold them down flat.

I had to extend the leads of the LEDs, this was fairly simple, I just soldered on some short lengths of wire and added heat shrink tubing.

I then re-soldered these longer LED's into place.
Also I filed off the unused areas of the board.

Until I could scavenge another resistor (maplin only sell them in massive sets) I'm leaving the circuitry here.

Total spend is now £9.58.

- Large card for main helmet & mask : £2.00
- Pint o' PVA Glue : £3.00 
- Metronome kit : £3.99
- Superbright green LED : £0.59

Stargate Kull Disruptor - Power Cell

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

In the original prop this part holds an electronics board, that flashes lights when plugged in to the body. I spent a fair bit of time drawing up schematics in Eagle, intending to have some PCBs fabricated. However I came a bit unstuck trying to sort out the layout and ran out of time. I still want to output some PCBs from Eagle, maybe next time I'll try an easier circuit.

Power Cell

The tie-dye tanic power cell, as I'm calling it, is probably the trickiest part of this build. I think the original was milled out of brass, which makes replicating it, both the quality and finish, very difficult.

Regardless I ploughed ahead with cutting out plasticard.

After a lot of cutting, layering, filling and sanding I was left with these two. 
Not milled brass, but not bad either.

I've always wanted to try cold casting (adding metal powders to resin to achieve a realistic metal look). This isn't an ideal project for it. Cold casting is best done in larger open moulds on ornate looking pieces where you will get a good contrast when you polish it up.

This piece is small, in a two part mould and has lots of flat surfaces.

However I think they look pretty good.

There was a lot of experimenting to get these results. How much black pigment and brass powder to add can be tricky to balance. Then once the piece has cured I rubbed the pieces down with white spirit (this dissolves the surface of the resin allowing the brass powder to show through. Lastly I give them a final buffing with steel wool.

The paint job on these is odd, it looks like pink with splatters of brass showing through.

To try to replicate the look, firstly I splattered the pieces with liquid mask (a tinted latex paint that easily rubs off when dry)

After that dried I sprayed some translucent pink on them, then peeled off the liquid mask.

I'm sure it's not exactly how the original was made but I think it emulates the effect quite nicely.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Indentured

A slave to perfection. That's the problem with this build, the longer I spend on it, the more I want it to be right (definitely never redoing it).

Redoing The Dent

Originally Posted 26-Oct-2008 Very small update, I wasn't happy with my dent. It was too deep and lacking in detail. It's probably in the wrong place too but I can't be bothered moving it.

Any who I filled it up with polyfiller and sketched a design onto it with pencil. I over exaggerated the shape because I knew I would loose some detail when sanding. 

Then using a small half round file I began to etch out the main lines.

After that I filed out the main, depressed areas.

Then with the file I began to round off the raised areas. After that I moved to sandpaper and ended up with this.

Not perfect. But I think it's better than before What does everyone else think?