I finally managed to finish the resin prop gun that I’ve been working on, and wanted to share it on here! It was a real labour of love that involved a pretty huge learning curve, because I’ve never done anything like this before. I wanted to turn the piece into a ‘working prop’, complete with lights, and that’s not something that I’ve ever done before. I’ve done some soldering, but not since I was twelve… I think my dad insisted that I go and help him with his projects in the garage rather when I was insisting that I wanted to help my mum in the kitchen. Looking back, I think my mum just needed some time free to cook Sunday lunch, and finally I can see what use that brief time soldering was!
So, here’s some pics of the ‘completed’ clay sculpt. It took a few hours to smooth everything down, using my usual cut-off chip brush, a soft small paint brush and a kitchen scouring pad/sponge, all with some white spirits/ mineral spirits… but only because I had to the spirits evaporate from one side before I could risk turning the piece over. I ended up making a few small changes before I was really finished; sorry for the lack of pics, but I was on a roll 🙂
For moulding the piece, I raised it up off my cutting mat on some old piece of soft EVA foam, so as to reduce the risk of the clay being damaged. I then built a base of water-based clay around the blaster, which came up to the halfway point with the gun lying on its side. The clay was smoothed out with a water-covered finger, a wet sponge, with the detail around the very edges of the piece made smooth and tight-fitting with a soft rubber sculpting tool. This was then surrounded by mould wall made from cut sections of A4 foam board, and the top half of this two-piece mould was filled in with silicone.
This was done in two layers; the first for detail, and the second thickened with some Polyfibre II so that I could ‘sculpt’ the silicone on in a half-jacket, which saves a lot of silicone compared to just filling the mould up to the top.
For a mother mould, I used just a couple of layers of Easyflo 120 resin; the first layers poured and then spread with a paint brush, and the second bulked out with more Polyfibre II, which saved resin and made it easier to adequately cover the curved and vertical surfaces.
The whole piece was then flipped over. the clay was cleaned out, and the moulding process repeated, using some silicone free mould release to stop the silicone from the first part of the mould sticking to that of the second.
After opening it all up and cleaning out the clay, it was then time for moulding. I poured some Easyflo 120 into each side of the mould, spreading it around with a paint brush. Once this had cured, I mixed up some more resin, poured it in one half of the mould, then closed the mould and sloshed the resin around. Feeling how the weight of the piece shifted as the resin moved, I tried to make sure that everything inside was covered evenly, making sure that the seems would be completely covered… and it worked!
Since I needed to make this piece ‘functional’, I needed to open it up; batteries, lights and wiring needed to be fitted inside, so I cut off the top section with my Dremel. I then primed and painted the piece, to make it look as if it was well-used.




Then came the wiring, and this was the real learning part for me. With help from my partner, I came up with a wiring diagram (which I won’t show you, because I scribbled all over it, and it’s a mess). I drilled out the barrel of the blaster, and the hole I’d marked for the ‘laser’ sight. I bought a couple of LED switches form eBay; a main power switch that would light up and provide power to two strips of LED lights for the sides plus the sight LED, and a moment switch to function as the trigger, which would light up the beam emitter when being fired.
There was a problem, though… the voltage for the LEDs embedded in the switches was 12V, and the other LEDs was 6V. Testing this out with four AA batteries left the switch LEDs a little dimmer than I’d wanted, but I was happy enough to run with things. I then soldered and wired everything up, drilled out the side panels and hot glued some cut pieces of opaque acrylic sheets over them and behind the beam emitter.
Everything was then re-tested before final wiring… the light on the beam emitter isn’t as strong as I’d like it and, thanks to getting too eager, the laser sight is actually slightly off target…. But I’m really happy with the results. Additionally, wiring up the LEDs for the side panels was a nightmare, simply because the connections were 3mmx2mm. This was extremely hard. My hands were shaking just from my heart beating, which I wouldn’t normally notice, but it was apparent at this scale.
The contacts on the strips are arranged in pairs, repeating between each LED. It doesn’t matter which contacts along the strip you solder on to, and in fact you can cut the strips to length. So, when working on the positive contacts, I put bluetac on the negative, and vice versa, to prevent any shorts. I then used hot glue over my soldering to anchor the connections in place; I don’t plan on opening up the blaster very often, but at some point I’ll need to change the batteries, and I need the connections to be physically secure. Because of this, I burned through a couple of the LEDs on the sides strips, making them non-functional. I think it works though. The piece is supposed to be well-used.
It was pointed out to me that there are designers that develop projects to be wired up, and that the process can take a great deal of time and effort. My results, on the surface, are great for cosplay, and I’ll know how to get a better result in the future… but inside things are quite messy, and although it can be used, I wouldn’t give this to a kid to play with. It just won’t stand up to their enthusiastic abuse.
So, here we go. Here’s the final product. 

The pictures don’t quite do the piece justice. It’s far more exciting to look at in real life! That’s partly due to my lack of decent photography skills, and also due to my phone’s camera.
