09-06-2010, 10:54 PM
While making the pyro outfit I took many pictures of the creation process and kept links of things I bought. I hadn't made anything like this ever so it was a difficult, but rewarding process for a first time.
Pyro Suit:
Red Jumpsuit
Patches - Sparky's Stitches
Boots are standard rubber work boots
Bandolier
Back part of mask to cover entire head
Gas Mask is an Israeli surplus, readily available on Ebay
Belt & Suspenders cheap work clothing from Farm & Fleet
Grenades are PVC Couplings, any hardware store will have them
Automotive window tint
Gloves
Flame Thrower:
Gas pump nozzles are easy finds on Ebay
Shelving Unit Legs - Salvaged from my Uncle, don't have a link
Oak Dowel Rods 1 large, 1 thin
JB Water Weld
Red & Grey Acrylic Paint
6 Pipe Clamps, 2 small, and 4 large
Heavy Construction paper
Friendly Plastic and Wonderflex
Tank:
Floral Styrofoam
Styrofoam Ball
White Glue
Friendly Plastic and Wonderflex
Misc:
Red, Black, White, and Yellow Spraypaint
Tools Needed:
Electric Carving Knife
Heat Gun or Hair Dryer
Pot
Spoon
Saw
Hot Glue
Sewing Kit
Double Sided Tape
Sander
Workbench
Beginning Assembly
After receiving all of the parts I started by painting the tanks and the shelving unit legs that would become the barrel. Not even one step into the process and I already encountered a problem, the paint was not sticking well to the rubber covering for the gas nozzle, and continued to be oddly sticky even after several light coatings. This was later corrected by adding another layer of red acrylic paint on top that provided a much better finish and did not stick to anything it touched.
Tank, Barrel and nozzle Drying
Close up of the nozzle covering
Close up of the barrel
After everything was painted I assembled the base of the flamethrower. The Shelving legs are hollow and fit around the end of the pump after removing the metal nozzle, so to add strength a dowel rod is threaded through the middle, this will make the overall prop heavier, but give it the strength and durability needed for the pipe clamps later on. Initially I merely hot glued the dowel rod in, and the plan was to use the JB Water Weld to hold the legs and the dowel rod together. The hot glue ended up coming off and I ended up using the apoxy inside the handle as well.
To hold the dowel rod and plastic together firmly, I wove a line of apoxy around the dowel rod, this would spread much more thinly after putting the full unit together. Make sure to thread the plastic nozzle covering back on before gluing everything together or it will be much harder to get back on.
Handle with new covering
JB Weld is messy, so you might need touch-up painting afterward
Full Assembly
Working With Wonderflex or How to Easily give yourself 2nd Degree Burns
To make the nozzle, I used a drinking glass as a base to wrap a base of construction paper around and taped that together with simple scotch tape. On top of that I melted small pieces of wonderflex together, after drying the mold will pop right off the drinking glass, just make sure to trim back any excess cardboard.
Beginnings of the nozzle
Finished initial piece
To make the guard that's on the tank, I made a cone out of heavy construction paper, temporarily taped it together and used wonderflex pieces to lay down a basic structure. After making the shape I cut away the excess paper and used a sharpie to mark places to make the holes in it, when re-heated the wonderflex becomes soft and easily cut. After cutting away sections, I used thin strips to reinforce the holes I made.
The cone, and yes that is a real propane tank, its called a 'Naval' tank for use on recreational boats, more on that later.
Before trimming away excess cardboard
Allow the cone to cure while still soft in the spot its going to fit
Drawing lines and cutting out pieces
Finished Initial with holes cut
Working with Floral Foam - IT GETS EVERYWHERE
To make the back tank I used blocks of dense floral foam glued together first with spray adhesive, but when that failed to hold, elmer's white glue. When you work with this stuff, it gets everywhere, so have a shop-vac ready to clean everything up. After the glue had set I measured out 8" in diameter for the size I wanted the tank to be and took to the large block with an electric turkey carving knife, which worked surprisingly well and reminded me of a big hunk of gyro meat when I was finished carving.
After being carved down to size, I cut the foam ball in half and glued one half on either end to round things out, once that had dried, I jury rigged a hand sander into the work bench because I lacked a proper belt sander to smooth out the foam. Even with the shop vac set up and on underneath, get ready to have a thick layer of floral foam dust on anything near where you are working.
Wonderflex is layered on after an acceptable level of smooth is achieved, due to the time I had to make this I left it somewhat bumpy, you can smooth things out later when applying friendly plastic and leaving it a little bumpy can also give it a bit of a battle-damaged look.
Giant blocks of foam
Ready to carve
It looks like Gyro meat
Compensating for my lack of a belt sander
It kept falling apart from vibrations while sanding so I let it sit with a paint can on it over night
Cutting the ball in half
Clamping the ends in to dry
Putting on wonderflex
Completed & Bumpy tank
Friendly Plastic or How to Also Easily Burn Yourself
Unlike wonder flex which when dry has a very rough texture, friendly plastic dries smooth and white so its easily painted and makes a better surface. It melts in 150 F water so you can burn yourself if not careful. Use water with a bit of cooking oil in it so the plastic doesn't adhere to the pan. I used small handfuls at once and a spoon to get them out, the pellets will turn clear and stick to each other, just swirl them in the pot and they will all clump together like a katamari ball.
I covered the guard, nozzel cone, and tank with a layer of friendly plastic to give them a smooth look. The unfortunate part is, like the wonderflex, this stuff dries horribly, despite all your efforts, it will not be smooth. However, you can later remelt the plastic with a heat gun and roll it out to smooth it. The only surface I found that the melty plastic would not immediately adhere to was the plastic lid of a storage bin, so I used that as a surface to roll the bumps out of anything I had put the plastic on. After making things sufficiently smooth they can be painted.
Spoonful of melted plastic
Remelting the guard
The guard and the rolling surface
Remelting the tank
Making Grenades
Making the grenades was fairly simple, just a paint job then tying them to the bandoleer. Given more time I would like to go back and make them out of a differnt material, probably large plugs of balsa with a layer of the plastic over them.
Grenades Drying
Unscrewing the cap to thread in twine
Finished with Cap on
Final with grenades tied into bandoleer
The most delicate piece and How I broke it
The pilot light is by far the most delicate piece, its pieces of thin oak dowel held together with balled up JB Water weld, I threaded the piece through the end of part of a PVC link. One errant mishap setting the prop down led to the lowest joint breaking and having to emergency repair it with more JB Weld and duct tape to hold it in place.
Wooden Piece threaded through the cap
Final after drying
Oops, I broke it
Final Assembly & Why It wouldn't be allowed in cons
One thing I wanted to do for the initial build was to use a real propane tank like in the model, but these tend to be made of metal and hold (normally) volatile gas and thus would be frowned upon by hotel staff and such at cons. I did drill a hole in the bottom to make the tank nonfunctional and completely vent it (it still smelled horribly after a week of "airing"). One large problem I found is that the pipe clamps tear the paint job up, very easily, I eventually got it down to minimal damage with several re-paintings and being more careful, but damage would always be done.
After mounting everything I used clear plastic tubing for the gas line and wrapped it in plain black fabric, while the concept is right, this later lead to problems at the con where it simply would not stay connected to the tank or the back of the pump. And speaking of the tank, I did have a back-up tank, a pump lawn sprayer, for use at cons and to be much lighter. With the metal tank the whole assembly weighs ~25 - 30lbs, without it weighs around 10lbs. Either variant is sturdy enough to do the overhead taunt with.
The tube with fabric
Nearing Final Assembly
Final assembly with metal tank
Finishing Touches
Last but not least, you have to somehow mount the tank to your body, and well, the pyro doesn't have eyes, just soulless black one way eye pieces and the gas mask leaves the eyes very visible. To mount the tank I screwed in four eye hooks into the back of the tank and used salvaged luggage straps to make it like a backpack. The eye pieces were hard at first, I had thoughts of using glass paint to tint them, but that might leave me with no vision at all. I luckily found a better solution at an autoparts store using window tint sheets.
Using three pieces held inside the mask with double sided tape left me with enough vision to navigate but let nothing in so my eyes could not be seen at all. However, initial attempts lead to much rage, first because I couldn't wrap the lens due to the tight seal, and the first time I put the tape directly onto the lenses, it did not completely dissapear, luckily I could use the O-clamp on the inside as a grip point for the tape.
So much rage and so many wasted pieces
Nearly complete tank (notice the incomplete paint job)
The end result is this - eventually I found a way to remove the duct tape holding the guard onto the back-up tank and was able to use a sufficient amount of hot glue to secure it.
Fuck-Ups and Things To Change:
- Remake the Grenades
- Redo the Nozzle on the end of the flamethrower
- Touch up the jumpsuit to look more worn
- Mold plastic to the guard to make it fit flush with the ancillary tank
- Use smaller hose to better secure it to the tank and to the back of the pump
- Paint W on one boot and M1 on the other
Pyro Suit:
Red Jumpsuit
Patches - Sparky's Stitches
Boots are standard rubber work boots
Bandolier
Back part of mask to cover entire head
Gas Mask is an Israeli surplus, readily available on Ebay
Belt & Suspenders cheap work clothing from Farm & Fleet
Grenades are PVC Couplings, any hardware store will have them
Automotive window tint
Gloves
Flame Thrower:
Gas pump nozzles are easy finds on Ebay
Shelving Unit Legs - Salvaged from my Uncle, don't have a link
Oak Dowel Rods 1 large, 1 thin
JB Water Weld
Red & Grey Acrylic Paint
6 Pipe Clamps, 2 small, and 4 large
Heavy Construction paper
Friendly Plastic and Wonderflex
Tank:
Floral Styrofoam
Styrofoam Ball
White Glue
Friendly Plastic and Wonderflex
Misc:
Red, Black, White, and Yellow Spraypaint
Tools Needed:
Electric Carving Knife
Heat Gun or Hair Dryer
Pot
Spoon
Saw
Hot Glue
Sewing Kit
Double Sided Tape
Sander
Workbench
Beginning Assembly
After receiving all of the parts I started by painting the tanks and the shelving unit legs that would become the barrel. Not even one step into the process and I already encountered a problem, the paint was not sticking well to the rubber covering for the gas nozzle, and continued to be oddly sticky even after several light coatings. This was later corrected by adding another layer of red acrylic paint on top that provided a much better finish and did not stick to anything it touched.
Tank, Barrel and nozzle Drying
Close up of the nozzle covering
Close up of the barrel
After everything was painted I assembled the base of the flamethrower. The Shelving legs are hollow and fit around the end of the pump after removing the metal nozzle, so to add strength a dowel rod is threaded through the middle, this will make the overall prop heavier, but give it the strength and durability needed for the pipe clamps later on. Initially I merely hot glued the dowel rod in, and the plan was to use the JB Water Weld to hold the legs and the dowel rod together. The hot glue ended up coming off and I ended up using the apoxy inside the handle as well.
To hold the dowel rod and plastic together firmly, I wove a line of apoxy around the dowel rod, this would spread much more thinly after putting the full unit together. Make sure to thread the plastic nozzle covering back on before gluing everything together or it will be much harder to get back on.
Handle with new covering
JB Weld is messy, so you might need touch-up painting afterward
Full Assembly
Working With Wonderflex or How to Easily give yourself 2nd Degree Burns
To make the nozzle, I used a drinking glass as a base to wrap a base of construction paper around and taped that together with simple scotch tape. On top of that I melted small pieces of wonderflex together, after drying the mold will pop right off the drinking glass, just make sure to trim back any excess cardboard.
Beginnings of the nozzle
Finished initial piece
To make the guard that's on the tank, I made a cone out of heavy construction paper, temporarily taped it together and used wonderflex pieces to lay down a basic structure. After making the shape I cut away the excess paper and used a sharpie to mark places to make the holes in it, when re-heated the wonderflex becomes soft and easily cut. After cutting away sections, I used thin strips to reinforce the holes I made.
The cone, and yes that is a real propane tank, its called a 'Naval' tank for use on recreational boats, more on that later.
Before trimming away excess cardboard
Allow the cone to cure while still soft in the spot its going to fit
Drawing lines and cutting out pieces
Finished Initial with holes cut
Working with Floral Foam - IT GETS EVERYWHERE
To make the back tank I used blocks of dense floral foam glued together first with spray adhesive, but when that failed to hold, elmer's white glue. When you work with this stuff, it gets everywhere, so have a shop-vac ready to clean everything up. After the glue had set I measured out 8" in diameter for the size I wanted the tank to be and took to the large block with an electric turkey carving knife, which worked surprisingly well and reminded me of a big hunk of gyro meat when I was finished carving.
After being carved down to size, I cut the foam ball in half and glued one half on either end to round things out, once that had dried, I jury rigged a hand sander into the work bench because I lacked a proper belt sander to smooth out the foam. Even with the shop vac set up and on underneath, get ready to have a thick layer of floral foam dust on anything near where you are working.
Wonderflex is layered on after an acceptable level of smooth is achieved, due to the time I had to make this I left it somewhat bumpy, you can smooth things out later when applying friendly plastic and leaving it a little bumpy can also give it a bit of a battle-damaged look.
Giant blocks of foam
Ready to carve
It looks like Gyro meat
Compensating for my lack of a belt sander
It kept falling apart from vibrations while sanding so I let it sit with a paint can on it over night
Cutting the ball in half
Clamping the ends in to dry
Putting on wonderflex
Completed & Bumpy tank
Friendly Plastic or How to Also Easily Burn Yourself
Unlike wonder flex which when dry has a very rough texture, friendly plastic dries smooth and white so its easily painted and makes a better surface. It melts in 150 F water so you can burn yourself if not careful. Use water with a bit of cooking oil in it so the plastic doesn't adhere to the pan. I used small handfuls at once and a spoon to get them out, the pellets will turn clear and stick to each other, just swirl them in the pot and they will all clump together like a katamari ball.
I covered the guard, nozzel cone, and tank with a layer of friendly plastic to give them a smooth look. The unfortunate part is, like the wonderflex, this stuff dries horribly, despite all your efforts, it will not be smooth. However, you can later remelt the plastic with a heat gun and roll it out to smooth it. The only surface I found that the melty plastic would not immediately adhere to was the plastic lid of a storage bin, so I used that as a surface to roll the bumps out of anything I had put the plastic on. After making things sufficiently smooth they can be painted.
Spoonful of melted plastic
Remelting the guard
The guard and the rolling surface
Remelting the tank
Making Grenades
Making the grenades was fairly simple, just a paint job then tying them to the bandoleer. Given more time I would like to go back and make them out of a differnt material, probably large plugs of balsa with a layer of the plastic over them.
Grenades Drying
Unscrewing the cap to thread in twine
Finished with Cap on
Final with grenades tied into bandoleer
The most delicate piece and How I broke it
The pilot light is by far the most delicate piece, its pieces of thin oak dowel held together with balled up JB Water weld, I threaded the piece through the end of part of a PVC link. One errant mishap setting the prop down led to the lowest joint breaking and having to emergency repair it with more JB Weld and duct tape to hold it in place.
Wooden Piece threaded through the cap
Final after drying
Oops, I broke it
Final Assembly & Why It wouldn't be allowed in cons
One thing I wanted to do for the initial build was to use a real propane tank like in the model, but these tend to be made of metal and hold (normally) volatile gas and thus would be frowned upon by hotel staff and such at cons. I did drill a hole in the bottom to make the tank nonfunctional and completely vent it (it still smelled horribly after a week of "airing"). One large problem I found is that the pipe clamps tear the paint job up, very easily, I eventually got it down to minimal damage with several re-paintings and being more careful, but damage would always be done.
After mounting everything I used clear plastic tubing for the gas line and wrapped it in plain black fabric, while the concept is right, this later lead to problems at the con where it simply would not stay connected to the tank or the back of the pump. And speaking of the tank, I did have a back-up tank, a pump lawn sprayer, for use at cons and to be much lighter. With the metal tank the whole assembly weighs ~25 - 30lbs, without it weighs around 10lbs. Either variant is sturdy enough to do the overhead taunt with.
The tube with fabric
Nearing Final Assembly
Final assembly with metal tank
Finishing Touches
Last but not least, you have to somehow mount the tank to your body, and well, the pyro doesn't have eyes, just soulless black one way eye pieces and the gas mask leaves the eyes very visible. To mount the tank I screwed in four eye hooks into the back of the tank and used salvaged luggage straps to make it like a backpack. The eye pieces were hard at first, I had thoughts of using glass paint to tint them, but that might leave me with no vision at all. I luckily found a better solution at an autoparts store using window tint sheets.
Using three pieces held inside the mask with double sided tape left me with enough vision to navigate but let nothing in so my eyes could not be seen at all. However, initial attempts lead to much rage, first because I couldn't wrap the lens due to the tight seal, and the first time I put the tape directly onto the lenses, it did not completely dissapear, luckily I could use the O-clamp on the inside as a grip point for the tape.
So much rage and so many wasted pieces
Nearly complete tank (notice the incomplete paint job)
The end result is this - eventually I found a way to remove the duct tape holding the guard onto the back-up tank and was able to use a sufficient amount of hot glue to secure it.
Fuck-Ups and Things To Change:
- Remake the Grenades
- Redo the Nozzle on the end of the flamethrower
- Touch up the jumpsuit to look more worn
- Mold plastic to the guard to make it fit flush with the ancillary tank
- Use smaller hose to better secure it to the tank and to the back of the pump
- Paint W on one boot and M1 on the other