Team Fortress 2 Medipack

Ok, I'm a little behind. There's a huge gap in the blog timeline, and I've got quite a few things to post. I'll start slow.

About four months ago, I was contacted to make a medipack. At the time I was working a 12 hour day job. I might have missed a photo here and there.

Here's the best reference I could find on the web. I would credit it, but honestly I didn't write down the source and it got lost in a black hole. Whoever you are, thanks!

Annnnyhowzile.  MDF, of course. Mostly 1/8th inch to keep the weight down. The Trim is half inch.

Then these knob thingies. The collar around the PVC pipe section is styrene. The knob is MDF laminated in styrene. The notches were cut with a scroll saw. 

Getting that lid (pictured with the painters tape) was a pain to get fitted properly. It had to be removable yet still stay on with significant friction. Jah, zhe friction es goodenflaugen! 

This circle thingie is about 3 layers of mdf laminated together to save weight. The first two layers had inner circles cut out to save weight. The vents themselves are, you guessed it, styrene.

Styrene box is styrene. (There's actually a very slight drat angle on each side, and a sharp one on the top side.)

Because Commercial piping doesn't come in all sizes, I had to scratch build piping. ( I dont have a lathe.) I make two circles cut on the scroll saw, and bend the styrene around it. The seam is filled later. This keeps the diameter perfectly accurate to the drawing, and I find myself doing this on rifle scopes a lot. 

Similar concept as above, except the top and bottom are styrene. I drilled a hole in the top, fed the scroll saw blade through it as you would with wood, and used the saw on a slightly lower RPM. works great!
This is the cuff that goes around the air tank, which is not pictured, but is made out of a large section of ABS which has MDF caps that were cut at a beveled angle and then hand sanded into curved shapes. Annoying, but it works. 

Coming together. This is for those of you curious about material usage. 

Sealed + basecoat

I make my stencils out of thin styrene, and clean up the fuzzy edges with 400 grit sandpaper. 

The cord was from a dead laptop adapter. Keep your thick power cords, they're awesome for props. 

 

Finally, something that isn't a gun! even more ironic, in game this thing is used to heal. But still, its attached to a gun in game. So there. Gun nut reputation preserved.

See updates before I blog them (which can take forever...) on my facebook

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Zprops/267422419967218

Jah!

Team Fortress 2: Force a' Nature

I meant to put this and something else up in November, but my photo editing skills apparently aren't as quick as my building skills. In any case, I needed to make a FAN by late October. Volpin's build was helpful in saving me some time by using it as a guide, although I made many changes of my own.

I'd like to Thank my college buddy Emilio Arias for the huge help by taking pictures. He's just starting out doing photography gigs, so if you're in Orange County, I highly suggest sending him a message for your senior pictures, gigs, etc. (@ www.thebrightlights.weebly.com ) . As you can see, he does top notch stuff (final pictures)

I didn't take a whole lot of progress pictures this time, and the first half of the build would just look like Volpin's blog anyways. (laminating MDF.)

I started with the stock. Luckily, I have outside access to a 6" wide industrial belt sander that was able to quickly give me that hour glass/competition stock shape. I also narrowed the grip of the stock about 1/4 inch, as this was being made for a girl.

The grip , receiver, and half domes are all MDF.

After the easy stuff was out of the way, It was time for the creative part. I wanted to make sure my barrel openings were exactly the right size, as well as the degree of taper down the barrels. All of this without sanding for hours and hours. I wont get into the process of what I did, but maybe some of you can figure it out.

Another use of the belt sander, some super glue, and primer.

Gotta love fiberglass barrels. I flicked this assembly across the room at least 3 times with no damage. (I couldn't resist playing with the break-action and forgot I didn't glue this to the front grip at the time)

coming together:

Yup. More MDF. Everything but the barrels and screws, literally.
The breech lever moves and is spring loaded. I infused it with super glue and pins to give it extra strength.

Primed and ready to go, sans the butt-pad.

Shiny.

heh.

Until next time!