Harley Quinn’s Hammer–The Batsmasher

 

It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog update.  I’ve been busy, I promise.  Just too busy to sit and write a build log.  So, in the spirit of playing catch up, here is The Batsmasher.

This is the second of, what I hope to be, many commissions from the talented ~RedxHarlxoxo.  Harley has many weapons, and one of my personal favorites has always been her huge hammer.

When I was asked if I could build that, well of course I said yes (I always do, don’t I).  How hard could it be?

The core construction was easy enough.  A large concrete forming tube and a section of pipe running through the middle.  This pipe was to guide and secure the wooden handle.

The handle slid right in and simply screwed onto a bolt at the top.

This kept the whole thing light. 

I sealed the whole tube with a few coats of fiberglass resin.  This helped to hide the spiral running down the tube.

There was some confusion with the paint, that led to the first of several set backs.

Please not the color says Kona Brown.

Opening the can revealed:

PURPLE?!?!

Turned out this was one of those voodoo/witchcraft paints that goes on purple and dries brown.

To cap the ends, I used EVA foam that I carved a wood like pattern into and glued them in place.

Now for more purple/brown paint.

 

And I now have a giant Tootsie Roll.  Great.

Several hours with the airbrush later, I was getting something that looked more wood and less candy.

After a while, I finally got the paint right, only to screw up parts of it later.

Next we have the tension bands and rivets to hold it in place.  This was a fun little trick that turned out better than I expected, but the glue ruined some of the paint.

Some touch up and repaint, and it looked much better.

And I really need to get a better shop camera.  Sorry.

The next set back came for the ^$%@&$*$%^!!! handle.  It was too long to ship in one piece.  Making a sectional wooden handle is not something I’m good at, and proved again when I busted the wooden handle trying to fix it.

I didn’t want to, for various reasons, but I had to go back to my old friend PVC pipe.  It could be sectional easily, but I had to keep it from looking like pipe.

I took one section and permanently installed it inside the hammer, leaving a coupling section out for the rest of the handle.  The other two pieces were also joined with a coupling…a heavily modified coupling.

In the end, I am really pleased with how this turned out.  Yeah, I’d do some things differently if I built it again, but that’s true of almost everything I build.

Did I mention I came in just under 6 feet tall?

Harley Quinn’s Popgun

 

A while back, I was approached by ~RedxHarlxoxo over on Deviant Art asking if I could make a series of props for her Harley Quinn cosplay, which is amazing.  Seriously, click the link above and go check our her Deviant Art page.

The first thing she requested was Harley’s popgun.  You know me, so of course I accepted.

Now, just in case you’re not familiar with Harley Quinn, she’s the Joker’s “girlfriend” in the Batman universe.  She’s a really cool and messed up character.  If you want to know more, here’s her Wikipedia page.  If you’re familiar with the Joker, or “Mistah J.” you might remember images of him holding a smoking gun with a “BANG!” flag coming out it, like this:

Well Harley has her own joke gun that looks like a simple cork popgun.

Her gun is pictured in either black or silver, and we decided to do the silver variant first.  Yes, that does mean I’ll be building a second one of these in black later.

This also continues my trend of comically oversized weapons.  I don’t know.  I just attack that kind of crowd, I guess.  AND I LOVE IT!

The base of the build would be my old friend PVC.  A couple of connectors cut to the right length, a rounded cap, and a bit of Dermel work and you’ve got the main body of the gun.  Sorry I didn’t get any pictures of this process.  It was fast and messy with PVC dust and debris flying everywhere.

The grip, sight, trigger, and hammer were made from MDF and Poplar laminated together.  The final result was pretty cool.

What’s up with the copper bit in some of the pictures you ask?  Well, let’s just say when you’re doing a lot of painting, always put the lid back on the cans and if you don’t, test on something before assuming the color will be right.

There were some gaps and other issues, but my other friend Apoxy Sculpt helped me with those.

I know.  I know I said we were doing the silver one first, but there are pictures of the black one up here.  Well, I painted on the black first, then silver over it, and used steal wool and sandpaper to weather the silver by pulling the black back out.

Unweathered

 

Weathered

Some hand painting and more weathering and you get this.

 

Time to add the cork.  How do you get an comically oversized cork?  Well, I made one.  I took the cork panels that you can glue to a wall and cut them into a series of circles.  Then I just laminated them together and kept them under a clamp for 24 hours.

Once the glue dried, I sanded it down into shape.

All that’s left is to stick the cork in the gun and get it to it’s new owner.

Next up will be Harley’s big hammer!