Finally Started This...

[B1ahh]

Looking good!
I love seeing your cnc'd weapons uncut from the boards
They remind me of Gundam Models... But amillion times more bada$$
And everyone loooves to build Gundams

[InfiniTTTy]

Amazing work. The material you're using, is that MDF?

[Nintendude]

Wow is all that I have to say and if you decide to cast one I'll start saving up my money.

[Metalfr3q]

O_O So...many...CLAMPS!!

As Juliet76 once said. "The man who dies with most clamps wins!!!" You sir, are in the running.
Awesome work.

[thorssoli]

looking pretty sweet there

Wow. Incredibly cool.

P.S. I know, I know, such comments not welcomed here, but just I can't keep myself...

Thank you and please, by all means, leave comments, criticisms, or compliments. This sort of thing tends to work like fuel for my projects. That, and caffeine.

I was wondering if that file was going anywhere!! I sure hope you end up casting this thing!! Its so beautiful!!

I may end up casting it, but it will be a little while before I do that. Meanwhile, it looks like LeeKeegan is going to be offering up casts of his handmade sniper rifle. I've got one of his M6Gs and a pair of his SMGs and he does great work.

How much did you pay for "Lopez" there and would you say it was worth it?
I've seen you make quite a few things from it and you seem very satisfied.

I picked this one up off of ebay for around $900 plus shipping. With the software upgrades and replacement parts I'm probably into it for about $2,000 now. It's a very low-end CNC machine, so I'm pretty much using it to the absolute max of its potential. It's designed so that hobby woodworkers can add carved panels to jewelry boxes and such. I was already taking it a bit above and beyond that with only the second project I started on it.

Still, I had a very good idea of what I was getting into when I bought it. There's a very helpful community of other carvewright owners who post on the forum on the company's website. It's a bit finicky and prone to nuisance failures, but if you have any kind of mechanical inclination and you can read a manual, it's not all that bad.

If money were no object, I'd prefer a 5-axis machine big enough to just carve out my whole suit of armor. If I'm right, a machine of that scale will cost around fifteen times as much money. So that'll have to wait until whatever I do after the project after the HALO project.

Amazing work. The material you're using, is that MDF?

MDF, yes. I tried cutting a few pieces out of insulation foam, pine, mahogany, and even cast acrylic. In the end, MDF provides the best paintability, workability, and detail retention for the price. Unfortunately, the adhesive they use to bond the wood fiber together contains formaldehyde, so whenever anyone stops by the workshop the dust on the floor is probably giving them butt cancer or something.

Wow is all that I have to say and if you decide to cast one I'll start saving up my money.

If you don't want one of LeeKeegan's, start a penny jar now.

O_O So...many...CLAMPS!!

As Juliet76 once said. "The man who dies with most clamps wins!!!" You sir, are in the running.
Awesome work.

I do have a bit of a clamp fetish. As you can see in some of the background shots in my build threads, there's clamps everywhere in the shop. Even so, whenever I find myself in the hardware store I always end up picking up a few more. You never can have enough.

UPDATE TIME: Here's some pics from this afternoon:






I only stopped by to pull the clamps and see how it looked now that the epoxy had cured, but I couldn't help but spray it black before I left the workshop.

Tomorrow I'll be doing some emergent repair work on my boat. If that goes quicker than I expect, I'll get Lopez working on the scope housing later in the afternoon.

Stay tuned...

[tubachris85x]

Man that wood routing tool is really useful! Might as well call it a relatively cheap alternative to a CNC mill! I hope your going to be molding that sucker!

[got armour]

im sure it will turn out like your other projects AWSOME!

[spartan-005]

man that thing is so smexy i want one if you mold it how much would a cast cost?

[skylow]

You guys with your CNC machines have all the fun great work !

[thorssoli]

man that thing is so smexy i want one if you mold it how much would a cast cost?

It's going to be a few large pieces that will take up a lot of material. Shipping will be expensive. That said, I'm hoping to keep the cost somewhere between an XBOX 360 and a Vespa scooter. I can't post prices here and until I've figured out the cost of molding and casting this thing, I don't know how much copies will cost.

Lopez was giving me a bit of grief this morning, so I had to spend a couple of hours taking him apart and blowing out the dust clogging his sensors. By the time I'd left the workshop he was about 63% done whittling out the muzzle brake. When that's done I'll have him start on the scope.

Pics tomorrow at the latest. Stay tuned...