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Limited Run Star Wars - Jedi training remote SFX aluminium box base
- Thread starter eethan
- Start date
Hello again,
alright, let's stop the tease!
so, I received the laser cut acrylic bases today
I haven't removed the protections but I'm sure they are great
so, the little "surprise", since I was cutting some acrylic parts, I had the opportunity to also cut accurate gears without adding too much cost for this project, so I thought I would give it a try
Tsophika kindly gave me some great refs a few weeks back that I didn't have myself, it not only allowed me to go a bit further in accuracy for the whole thing, but a ref was also showing the gear at the bottom clearly so, I drew it accurately and had it cut from 3mm white acrylic. Those won't be functional and they are not perfect, but that was a great way to have an accurate additional detail for not too much money, so I took the chance.
I'm pretty happy with the result, that will make a nice little detail at the bottom of the box. And If someone wants to make the box functional, you can try and find a functional gear that is correct, 66mm diameter, and I think between 108-120 teeth, idealy looking like the one I cut here with the 6 holes.
something else that I wanted to discuss, the aluminium I used for the box.
flat aluminium stock for things like this can be found in two different kind of types. One is extruded flat bars, and the other type is rolled (I think) plates (or maybe cast, I don't know. But they are plates). Looking at the references, they used aluminium plates for this prop. Those are a bit more expensive and more difficult to find in the size we want, but I decided to go for it for that extra bit of accuracy.
here is a comparison between extruded bars and the plates I used. The extruded bars have very visible lines on them. The plates have more of a thin short grain to them and have a flatter/smoother look.
final word on this, the plates are pretty clean, especially the thick ones as they came protected on one side, however, there are some scratches on the thin ones, I will orient them the best I can, but I'm going for a realistic replica of the box, and it will have some weathering. It's the game when using raw material that you don't machine, you get what you get from the supplier.
I'll be reaching out to everyone as it's a small run (when I have the time). I want to reproduce the box exactly, with the weathered blue Dikem product on the inside plates and raw material look. However, I'll do my best to accomodate if some of you want something idealized.
I had a short day of work on this today as I worked on the Cloud city comlink this morning.
And it was a pain in the arse day! I spent the whole time cutting those plates to proper size.
The thicker plates, i could only find in 15cm wide size and my saw can only cut 12.5cm. And the ironic part is that I need 12.5cm for the box. But again, i couldn't find that size. So I had to cut this 22 times from the top, then turn the plate around and finish the cut. And the plate was super heavy for my poor damaged back! fun stuff!
a bit the same photo than yesterday, but this is the 15cm plate in the machine this time:
and of course I was telling my wife only yersterday that it had been a little while since I changed the blade. And also explaining that I never really broke a blade. You can always feel it when it will break and it takes time. well, there we go! broken blade without warning! nice!
(no worries by the way, this machine is really safe, the protection is removed here to change the blade, when it breaks, it just stops right away)
takes time to change it, and when I say it was a painfull day, i don't know, the blade jumped from its wheels twice after I changed it. really didn't like those 10mm plates it seems.
anyways, this is now all cut and can move on to milling!
fun fact just to get an idea, there are 6 meters of length of aluminium plates cut for this project, the box is pretty small but it adds up quickly.
I hope you like it so far
cheers
alright, let's stop the tease!
so, I received the laser cut acrylic bases today
I haven't removed the protections but I'm sure they are great so, the little "surprise", since I was cutting some acrylic parts, I had the opportunity to also cut accurate gears without adding too much cost for this project, so I thought I would give it a try
Tsophika kindly gave me some great refs a few weeks back that I didn't have myself, it not only allowed me to go a bit further in accuracy for the whole thing, but a ref was also showing the gear at the bottom clearly
so, I drew it accurately and had it cut from 3mm white acrylic. Those won't be functional and they are not perfect, but that was a great way to have an accurate additional detail for not too much money, so I took the chance.I'm pretty happy with the result, that will make a nice little detail at the bottom of the box. And If someone wants to make the box functional, you can try and find a functional gear that is correct, 66mm diameter, and I think between 108-120 teeth, idealy looking like the one I cut here with the 6 holes.
something else that I wanted to discuss, the aluminium I used for the box.
flat aluminium stock for things like this can be found in two different kind of types. One is extruded flat bars, and the other type is rolled (I think) plates (or maybe cast, I don't know. But they are plates). Looking at the references, they used aluminium plates for this prop. Those are a bit more expensive and more difficult to find in the size we want, but I decided to go for it for that extra bit of accuracy.
here is a comparison between extruded bars and the plates I used. The extruded bars have very visible lines on them. The plates have more of a thin short grain to them and have a flatter/smoother look.
final word on this, the plates are pretty clean, especially the thick ones as they came protected on one side, however, there are some scratches on the thin ones, I will orient them the best I can, but I'm going for a realistic replica of the box, and it will have some weathering. It's the game when using raw material that you don't machine, you get what you get from the supplier.
I'll be reaching out to everyone as it's a small run (when I have the time). I want to reproduce the box exactly, with the weathered blue Dikem product on the inside plates and raw material look. However, I'll do my best to accomodate if some of you want something idealized.
I had a short day of work on this today as I worked on the Cloud city comlink this morning.
And it was a pain in the arse day! I spent the whole time cutting those plates to proper size.
The thicker plates, i could only find in 15cm wide size and my saw can only cut 12.5cm. And the ironic part is that I need 12.5cm for the box. But again, i couldn't find that size. So I had to cut this 22 times from the top, then turn the plate around and finish the cut. And the plate was super heavy for my poor damaged back! fun stuff!
a bit the same photo than yesterday, but this is the 15cm plate in the machine this time:
and of course I was telling my wife only yersterday that it had been a little while since I changed the blade. And also explaining that I never really broke a blade. You can always feel it when it will break and it takes time. well, there we go! broken blade without warning! nice!
(no worries by the way, this machine is really safe, the protection is removed here to change the blade, when it breaks, it just stops right away)
takes time to change it, and when I say it was a painfull day, i don't know, the blade jumped from its wheels twice after I changed it. really didn't like those 10mm plates it seems.
anyways, this is now all cut and can move on to milling!
fun fact just to get an idea, there are 6 meters of length of aluminium plates cut for this project, the box is pretty small but it adds up quickly.
I hope you like it so far
cheers
thank you Danny!
can you imagine if I wasn't working on 2.5 projects right now? it's 3PM right now, I have only done 1h of machining this morning so far, the rest has been 3D printing for the comlink project. I'll try to catch up in a bit.
OT comlink?thank you Danny!
The cloud city comlink with Ryan
Hello there,
pfiou! time consuming and tiring step! I had a bit of a short machining day, but I didn't even manage to do all 22 plates.
dry assembly of a box because at this point, we really want to see what it's going to look like!
well, I guess, basically, it's going to look like what we are trying to replicate
pfiou! time consuming and tiring step! I had a bit of a short machining day, but I didn't even manage to do all 22 plates.
dry assembly of a box because at this point, we really want to see what it's going to look like!
well, I guess, basically, it's going to look like what we are trying to replicate
Took me 5h today to do all those big holes! I needed to use 4 different sizes drill bit for those, so it takes times. Still need a final pass with a special tool that I'll receive in the next few days.
good progress, but those boxes are taking me much much more time that I anticipated and planned.
good progress, but those boxes are taking me much much more time that I anticipated and planned.
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I need some measurement help for the run,
if anyone has one of the real kearfott part, i need a measurement of that exact position so I can make the hole exactly the right size as well.
As you noticed in the refs, they used another weird system to secure that part and drilled an exact hole, then use a washer to push on the slot in the part and secure it (not sure how securely, very weird system...)
I don't have the part in hand and if we want to accurately reproduce this system, I need to know exactly how large of a hole to make.
thank you all.
the exact part they used is kearfott RS921-3A but at first view, it would seem there are a lot of other references that might match in size and look, again, can't verify that statement as I don't have one on hand and am not keeping one of this prop for myself.
Scruffylooking moffeaton cdyoung LewisD qcfoundry Tsophika MandoJedi Halliwax Khufu01 MojaveTrooper
if anyone has one of the real kearfott part, i need a measurement of that exact position so I can make the hole exactly the right size as well.
As you noticed in the refs, they used another weird system to secure that part and drilled an exact hole, then use a washer to push on the slot in the part and secure it (not sure how securely, very weird system...)
I don't have the part in hand and if we want to accurately reproduce this system, I need to know exactly how large of a hole to make.
thank you all.
the exact part they used is kearfott RS921-3A but at first view, it would seem there are a lot of other references that might match in size and look, again, can't verify that statement as I don't have one on hand and am not keeping one of this prop for myself.
Scruffylooking moffeaton cdyoung LewisD qcfoundry Tsophika MandoJedi Halliwax Khufu01 MojaveTrooper
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