My latest creation is to be a partially functioning sniper rifle. By this, I mean the trigger will be movable, possibly an extendable stock, the magazine and scope will be detachable, and most importantly it will be able to eject all the "unspent" rounds from the magazine using a reciprocating bolt action.
I've never used wood before for a project of this size, although my hot-wire sculpted MA37 used a similar process of starting with a central cuboid of material, cutting the profile of the gun out, chamfering edges then adding additional panels or removing them with a rotary tool.
Everything's progressing smoothly so far, and I'm about 7 hours into my estimated 70 hour completion time. The ability to set my jigsaw to 45° or 22.5° has already helped loads with the chamfering, as has the liberal use of files. I'm planning to use a decommisioned microlight crossbar from the barrel, and the aluminium tube from a roll up blind as the charging rod (Which will chamber the rounds).
Although halo.wikia states it is a 166cm long rifle, I've left the reference pepakura model at 178cm as I've taken measurements, so it's only 4cm shy of Halo 3's sniper (According to halo.wikia, again!). Toward the end of the build, I will secide how to approach the scope. At the moment I'm undecided on whether to use an actual scope with picatinny mounts, or to use a mockup scope and integrate a video recording system so I can take videos/photos at conventions without getting my phone out. Other minor obstacles are whether or not to modify the magazine to use .50 cal casings modified to look like APFSDS rounds, or build some replica 14.5mm rounds from scratch (The kind of rounds it's actually meant to take), and whether to try and make the barrel removable for portability.
I've never used wood before for a project of this size, although my hot-wire sculpted MA37 used a similar process of starting with a central cuboid of material, cutting the profile of the gun out, chamfering edges then adding additional panels or removing them with a rotary tool.
Everything's progressing smoothly so far, and I'm about 7 hours into my estimated 70 hour completion time. The ability to set my jigsaw to 45° or 22.5° has already helped loads with the chamfering, as has the liberal use of files. I'm planning to use a decommisioned microlight crossbar from the barrel, and the aluminium tube from a roll up blind as the charging rod (Which will chamber the rounds).
Although halo.wikia states it is a 166cm long rifle, I've left the reference pepakura model at 178cm as I've taken measurements, so it's only 4cm shy of Halo 3's sniper (According to halo.wikia, again!). Toward the end of the build, I will secide how to approach the scope. At the moment I'm undecided on whether to use an actual scope with picatinny mounts, or to use a mockup scope and integrate a video recording system so I can take videos/photos at conventions without getting my phone out. Other minor obstacles are whether or not to modify the magazine to use .50 cal casings modified to look like APFSDS rounds, or build some replica 14.5mm rounds from scratch (The kind of rounds it's actually meant to take), and whether to try and make the barrel removable for portability.