tailonmakes

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Braveheart

Progress Report #1

Well, well, well, look who's back on his bullshit.

Kingdom Hearts 3 came out, and Riku has a new Keyblade in it which means my dumb ass is back at it again. This is the first stage, this time, I'm acting like some kind of actual professional, and made a real template, a vectorized one, even! I used InkScape for this, tracing my paths along the screenshot shown above to create a clean, scaleable line template, which I got printed life sized (170 cm, about 5' 7"), and cut out with a good old X-Acto knife. I'm hopin I can actually keep up with this one and not fall off working on it!

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Fightstick

Final Progress Report

I guess it's only two posts.

These photos encapsulate roughly two weeks of painstaking sanding with just a handheld belt sander and a dream (big thanks to my mom, who grew up around a carpentry shop and is thus actually good at this unlike me, for getting the box to uhhhh, close)

Once shaping was done, all that was left was to cut the holes, 8 buttons and one joystick, thin the space behind to accommodate the part tolerances, sand everything to finish (I only went to about 400 grit), paint the top black, install the hinges and clasps, and the box was done!

Wiring was pretty simple, once everything was in place, an easy wiring harness from the lovely folks at focusattack.com (not sponsored, I fukken wish though) made it a 10 minute job. And after moving the PCB once, realizing the stick was on the wrong direction, fixing that, and plugging it in, it works like a dream, Brook and the folks at Focus Attack really do amazing work making this stuff as painless as possible!

Final Parts List

Box:

1/2in Birch Plywood

Jigsaw

Belt Sander

Wood Glue

Wood Filler Putty

Drill

24mm and 30mm Forstner Bits

Various other Drill Bits

Buncha screws

Electric Screwdriver

Hinges

Clasps

Fightstick Components:

Brook PS4+ PCB

PCB Mounting Feet

8x Sanwa Denshi OBSF30 30mm pushbuttons

3x Sanwa OBSN24 24mm pushbuttons

Sanwa JLF Joystick

20-pin Wiring Harness from Focus Attack

4-pin Secondary Wiring Harness

10' USB A Male to B Male Cable

1.5' USB A Male to B Male Cable

Neutrik USB A Female to B Female USB Pass Through

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Fightstick

Progress Report #1

Blog what blog what're you oh, uh, shit.

So I built a Fightstick over the course of a few weeks, it's complete as I write this, but this'll be two or three posts over the next couple of days for brevity's sake.

Pictured are some of the earliest design process, a full cardboard prototype for testing size and button layout. I cut walls and tops for an extremely basic box from 1/2 inch Birch plywood from The Home Depot, and glued them together as jankily as possible.

Please never do anything I do on this blog, if anything I make ever ends up looking remotely professional, it's because of wood filler and glue covering my many sins.

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tailon-makes-weapons > tailonmakes

Just in case anyone is actually paying attention to this blog. Also sounds less like I do crimes.

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Kerberos

So…I got a job…

It’s very nice having money and a job I like but obviously, this blog has been neglected, but with a week off I decided to finally make something.

So I made the best sword I could make given all the skills, tools, and supplies I’ve amassed over the course of running this blog and ended up with this, Kerberos.

I made this with the same basic techniques as I have for the last two swords, however, I made the crossguard and pommel from EVA foam, layered and shaped with a rotary tool, and painted blue. I also carved my Cerberus symbol into the pommel with an X-Acto knife and heated it to make the engraving pronounced.

I’m really pleased with this, it’s intended to be roughly the size of a proper longsword, but due to the nature of boffers ended up a bit oversized.

Next time: Who knows, maybe that other thing I teased I was gonna do ages ago.

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S-tier foam shaping setup.

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Another several months, another blank...

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Now, witness true power.

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Commission Report: Set of LARP Swords

Well, that took longer than it should have.

While it may appear that it took months to make two of these things I had previously made in a day, the build time on these was actually pretty average. The actual reason these took so long is that earlier in the year I moved (hence the upgraded workspace partway through) and I couldn’t get any work done for a couple of months until my new workspace was set up and my tools and supplies were dug out of the boxes.

Anyway boohoo thankfully the guy these are for was very patient, largely because these are actually part of a trade, so he’s going to be doing a NERF mod for me in lieu of monetary compensation.

In any case, the Hellfire Shotguns are pretty canceled. I might come back to the project but right now it’s just not going to be cost effective with the methods available to me.

However, this isn’t to say there aren’t other projects on the way, and soon…

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Hellfire Shotgun Project on hold because of reasons.

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Hellfire Shotgun [Overwatch] Progress Report #1 Pretty basic stuff today, traced the template on to MDF, partially cut them out. These things are really oversized, so I'm only making one at the moment. Obviously I need to finish up cutting these out and also need to cut two more slices of MDF and two slices of foam. That should be fun and not tedious at all!

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Death comes…

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Hey

So I just bought the Humble Books Bundle and right now and until October 25 it's a Cosplay Books bundle. The bundle has a ton of awesome resources especially for beginners, including stuff from Punished Props, Make magazine, and even a short article from Adam Savage that altogether is worth like 150 bucks. If you have any interest in making your own Cosplay stuff like the one Finished Thing™ I've made so far definitely check it out and give some money to charity while you're at it.

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One Day Build LARP Sword: Level 2 Build Time: 5 Hours

Disclaimer: I didn’t actually do the whole build on the same day on account of the sewing machine was in my parents’ room, but if it hadn’t been, I would have.

This is a pretty standard LARP sword, it’s made from ½ inch L200 foam and some scrap couch cushion foam of indeterminate kind, with a core made from a fiberglass driveway marker and a handle made from ½ inch PVC. The slip cover is made of some gray fabric I had around, and the pommel and handguard are covered in the same white fabric I’ve used before.

I’m excited to take this to my local boffer battle, should do better than my previous swords~!

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Commission Report: Throwing Knives

Oh boy, a thing! A buddy of mine needed some stuff for a Boffer war we go to, so he commissioned me for a basic pool noodle Boffer and some throwing knives, which I’ll cover here.

The knives were actually fairly simple, I cut them out of EVA foam (from TNT cosplay supply #notsponsored #they'rejustbadass) twice, contact cemented the halves together, and shaped them a bit so they have “blade” bevels, covered them in duct tape and wrapped the handles in hockey tape.

They throw pretty well so I’m quite happy with them and I hope my friend will be as well.

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Commission Update

The shield was looking a little messy so I peeled off the dinosaur, taped the whole thing black, and glued on the dinosaur again.

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Commission Report

My very first commission~!

This was made for my cousin’s 4 year old, since he saw my shield and boffers and wanted a set for himself. The shield was made with the same basic techniques as the upgraded LARP shield, except I covered the layers of cardboard and foam with duct tape before putting them together to avoid problems with the tape lifting away from the foam. I also made a dinosaur out of duct tape and thinner foam. Because the kid likes dinosaurs.

The Boffer is super basic, it’s made from a pool noodle, silicone caulk, ½ inch PVC pipe, hockey tape, and duct tape. The tips also have caps of L200 and open cell foam for, y'know, pokin’ folks. A full sized Boffer is shown for scale because the kid sized ones are real tiny and I think they’re adorable.