Hello all,

My fair lady is away for a month, and as work has shut down for the summer break (Southern Hemisphere) I am working on a few little projects to keep myself out of mischief.

One of these is the lightning gun, I'll be updating my public facebook album (here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3 ... bb7eedc17e ) with progress shots.

I started today, and have got the first "section" completed (I.E. the first layer of foamcore).

Feel free to offer encouragement or advice

I am not terribly experienced, but have been making a few bits of terrain here and there and made the Warlock Sword for my brother for Christmas (THANKS DENNY~!), so I think I have a fair idea of how it will pan out.

Cheers all!

*edit to fix link

Work in progress pics are always great! Keep 'em coming. I haven't built this yet (despite owning it) and this thread could change that. I am looking forward to development of this.

Do everyone a favour - post the progress here with linked images.... facebook is not for everyone.

I do look forward to seeing what you come up with. Are you a teacher?


Lord Abaddon of Wormwood

More pictures up: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3 ... bb7eedc17e is still the link

I didn't get as much done today, hit the beach and saw Tron so that took up quite a bit of time. I probably spent just over an hour all up today.

So second layer on the right hand side pretty much complete... cutting the interior chamber is fiddly.... and I am at the "need to find replacement blade" point for my scalpel... so time to clean the office a bit!

The facebook photos are open, so you don;t need an account to view them, but I know FB can be blocked for some... (I am loading them to facebook to get some friends watching and interested) so I might add them to my photobucket as well and link them through here, might not have time tomorrow... but soon

Looks like you're off to a great start. I suggest putting the trim pieces on when each layer is finished, rather than waiting until the end. There are several that would have been much easier if done that way.

Keep going, you will have really accomplished something when this is all done (it makes everything else seem easy by comparison)

Stick with it - the finished gun is wonderful, well worth the effort to build. Mine is on the wall in the gaming room

Looking great! Keep on moving forward and remember that edging and trimming are your friends on this one. Even if you make cutting errors you can erase a lot of that with trim/edge.

Camera fail So no more pictures, but I have got the both sides up to layer 3 and the edging done, will start on the trim tomorrow.

For the trim, I am trying to decide between printing on card or paper, card will be more durable, but less, forgiving with uneven surfaces.

I actually used label paper as an experiment on wooden trim on the second layer above the trigger because I printed the "wooden" panels on label paper, and the trim was included, it looks fine, but i suspect the stickiness will not be enough in high contact areas...

So what are the thoughts out there?

I actually switched from strong glues to using label paper for trimming out the edges. It seems to hold up/stick well actually (much better than I would have thought).

Ahhh, label paper it is then

More pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3 ... bb7eedc17e


Most of the trim and edging is done now, just the bits that need to be made of card and the "ammo" holders left (as I may need to adjust them once I have build the ammo cylinder to get the right fit.

I am about to head to Tauranga for a couple of days to hit the sun and catch up with my Lady, so there won't be much too see here for the next 3 or 4 days.
Sorry about no direct links to pictures, another thing I need to work on when I get back.

Hope everyone is enjoying the new year!

Lookin great! Have a fun trip in the sun....lucky bum!

Glad to see more pictures and definitely jealous of the vacation...

A couple of great days away, body surfing, rock hopping, waterfall swims, book reading and even some board games. Not a bad few days away.

But now I'm back into it.

Big day today, Started to get close to finishing but also a bit sloppy with my cutting, knowing when to stop can be the hardest thing some days.

Basically just the handle to go now, and some finishing touches... and them moving on to the display stand.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3 ... bb7eedc17e for the link again, from pic 25 onwards

You are in the home stretch! Well done so far. Great pics by the way. Keep em coming...you are almost there.

Pretty much done... I have decided not to add the focusing tubes for the time being... might change my mind later

Have a few little issues with cracking laser prints on the handle, thinking of re-printing some labels to recover the damaged sections.


Next steps are buy a small light up toy and gut it for the "lightning" and builld the display stand so it has a safe home.

Looking great!

Great job! Every time I see a finished lightning gun build it reminds me of a really well done Maiden build. These things make for great display pieces and you'll have them around for many years to come.

Thanks for sharing your efforts with us Malfet and don't forget to post pics if you ever do a light-kit!

Tools of the trade:


I love my FoamWerks cutter!


Starting to look gun shaped:


Time for some depth:


Entering the 3rd dimension:


Time for some trimming:


Starting to come together:


Pew Pew:


Cowling and barrell


Lower handle and lenses


Mad props! - Super glue is a must:


Transparencies added:


Getting it together:


Top Down:


Now to strike fear into the the hearts of my enemies:
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That's great
Thanks for posting the pics, Malfet

Looks fantastic! Yet another project to add to my list of things to build.... *sigh*

Other sets have been holding me back from building this. It has been tough to justify building something I can't use in game when I could build something more practical and useful. Seeing this makes me want to make up some DM rules for shooting players at appropriate times (at least times I deem appropriate, lol).

How well does that foamwerks cutter do straight 90* edges? I've tried like 3 other brands and NONE have done a good job.

that...looks...AWESOME!!

I haven't tried any, but would love to know this as well.

More pics, this time of the display stand:









This is just balanced, I actually need to mount it to a wall now



As for the questions about the foamwerks cutter, I find it awesome, but I havn't tried building a cube yet, which would be the ultimate test.

The best example from the pics I have would be this one:



those 4 "supports" are all cut with the cutter and were cut in a single pass on each edge.

There can be slight variations in cut placement (less than 1mm off my intended cuts normally) and cutting off thin strips (2mm or so) will almost always fail (the blade tends to track off towards the edge that close).

Sometimes the bottom level of paper isn't cut 100% but easy to fix with a craft knife.

Outside corners are easy with sight over cuts, inside corners also need overcuts (where this won;t show) or finishing off with a craft knife (because the cutting blade is angled so the cuts are "longer" on the top of the foamcore than on the bottom).

I love it, but really can only compare it to doing things by hand, and that drives me crazy - But this project has improved my freehand cutting of foamcore significantly, and I am glad of that.

Thanks for that. I may have to pick one up one of these days.