guns

5 Articles

A Trove Of Cosplay Prop Making Tutorials And Blueprints

February 9, 2019 by 5 Comments

[CutTransformGlue] recently posted a build video for “Making Rey’s Star Wars Blaster“, embedded after the break. The construction uses layered MDF sheets to build up the blaster, and it’s a treat to see it taking shape, ending with an amazing paint job. It’s a good way to learn about the techniques used to bring such props to life and help you hone your skills. But digging deeper led us down an awesome rabbit hole.

[CutTransformGlue] got plans for Rey’s Blaster from the Punished Props Academy – a prop and costume making team from Seattle committed to “transforming passionate fans into confident, skillful makers”. These folks have built a wide variety of projects ranging from guns, weapons, costumes, props and more, and are obviously extremely skilled at what they do. But they aren’t keeping those skills to themselves and in a series of posts and videos they are sharing with us such varied skills as Foamsmithing (gotta love that coinage), Molding, Casting, Painting, 3D printing, Vacuum Forming and electronics. If you’d like more information about supplies, check out the Tools and Materials section. And if all of this has given you the itch to build a Skyrim Wuuthrad or a Halo4 Sniper Rifle, head over to the amazing Free Blueprints section for a treasure chest full of downloads.

Like we said earlier, if building such stuff is your thing, it’s a rabbit hole from which you’ll find it extremely difficult to extract yourself. Have fun.

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Rifle-Mounted Sensor Shows What Happens During Shot

January 23, 2019 by 81 Comments

People unfamiliar with shooting sports sometimes fail to realize the physicality of getting a bullet to go where you want it to. In the brief but finite amount of time that the bullet is accelerating down the barrel, the tiniest movement of the gun can produce enormous changes in its trajectory, and the farther away your target is, the bigger the potential error introduced by anticipating recoil or jerking the trigger.

Like many problems this one is much easier to fix with what you can quantify, which is where this DIY rifle accelerometer can come in handy. There are commercial units designed to do the same thing that [Eric Higgins]’ device does but most are priced pretty dearly, so with 3-axis accelerometer boards going for $3, rolling his own was a good investment. Version 1, using an Arduino Uno and an accelerometer board for data capture with a Raspberry Pi for analysis, proved too unwieldy to be practical. The next version had a much-reduced footprint, with a Feather and the sensor mounted in a 3D-printed tray for mounting solidly on the rifle. The sensor captures data at about 140 Hz, which is enough to visualize any unintended movements imparted on the rifle while taking a shot. [Eric] was able to use the data to find at least one instance where he appeared to flinch.

We like real-world data logging applications like this, whether it’s grabbing ODB-II data from an autocross car or logging what happens to a football. We’ll be watching [Eric]’s planned improvements to this build, which should make it even more useful.

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Hackaday Links: September 9, 2018

September 9, 2018 by 64 Comments

Octoprint is one of those must-have apps for 3D printers. All you need is a Raspberry Pi, an SD card, and a USB cable, and you can control your 3D printer from anywhere in the house. Of course, some people take it too far and open up their Octoprint to the greater Internet. Gizmodo reports thousands of people are doing so, with possible dire consequences. Choice quotes: “Imagine waking up in the morning to find that your 3D printer was used to produce a gun” and “Once again, 3D guns come to mind”. Yes, they referenced 3D printed guns twice in a story. Call me when you can 3D print bullets. Or when bioprinters can print airborne HIV, which was also suggested in the story.

ARS Electronica is going on in Linz this weekend, and it’s the largest new media art festival where cyber artists are recognized for their innovations. One of the more interesting exhibits is [Sarah Petkus]’ Noodlefeet. Its [Sarah]’s kid, that’s a robot, that’s made out of pool noodles. She’s talked about it at the Hackaday Superconference, and now there’s an entire exhibit behind it. You can check out her ‘making of’ post right here.

A mirror is a useful survival tool, if only for signalling people. Here’s a video showing long-distance mirror signalling, over a distance of 27.5 miles. The mirror used was 330 x 254mm, but the real challenge here is pointing the mirror in the right direction. For that, [Andy] used a bamboo pole a few meters in front of the mirror. By reflecting sunlight onto the pole, he knew it was going in about the right direction. Accuracy versus precision, or something like that.

Last week, a slow leak was detected aboard the International Space Station. The leak was quickly traced to a 2mm hole in the upper orbital module of a visiting Soyuz spacecraft. prompting call of micrometeoroid damage and plenty of speculation on what would have happened if this hole appeared anywhere else on the station. Now, it looks like this hole was put there by a drill, probably during assembly or testing, and was somehow plugged until the Soyuz was in space for a few weeks. Why this hole just magically appeared one night is anyone’s guess, but there you go.

CNC Milling Gun Parts

June 3, 2008 by 31 Comments


Gun issues aside, [Justin]’s been CNC milling his own gun parts for quite a while. We’ve been a fan of his work simply because of the technical challenge that this sort of milling presents. Even if you’re anti-gun, you should check out the work he’s been turning out. Pictured is one of his early projects: a 92fs Beretta frame in the process of being milled from a solid block of aluminum. Our friend the gun nut is insanely jealous of his AR45 lower project.