Steampunk Shotgun Part 4

Finally got the Steampunk Shotgun finished.  The barrels took longer than I anticipated but I'm pretty happy with the overall look of the piece. 



Here's a pick of the overall gun

 

 

Here's a close-up of the front of the gun

 

Here's the back of the gun with the pressure chambers

Here's a close-up of the pressure gauge

One final pic of the gun. 

Well that's all for now.  Onto the next project...

M-T-T







Steampunk Shotgun Part 3

Made some good progress on the shotgun over the weekend.  For the most part finished the "bottom" of the gun.  Now just need to add the barrels and some of the other "top" parts to get this one completed. 

Here is an overall pick of the shotgun so far.  Added a lot of brass bits to it.

Here is a close-up of the front part of the stock.  Yes, that is a mini-wooden barrel attached to the stock.  Rob wanted some sort of clip that would attach a line to a "grappling dart" in the gun's 3rd barrel.  I really liked the idea that the gun would have a grappling dart for getting up to an airship from the ground or for boarding actions, but I just couldn't get behind the "clip".  I ran across this little barrel at the Goodwill near my house and thought that it would be perfect to hold the line for the grappler.  The two brass pieces in front of the barrel will be the "line guides". 

Here is a close-up of the back of the stock.  I added a brass trigger guard and a leather strap with a brass clasp.  The clasp is for connecting to a belt or harness when you "use" the grappling dart.  I know in reality that the gun doesn't work (I'm not that far gone yet...), but I think it's the little details of "how would this really work" that make a project fun, and give it a level of realism. 

In the random musings category.  I saw this commercial the other day where a man proposes to his lady during a hot-air-balloon ride.  Since it's a 30 second commercial she with tears in her eyes nods "YES" (very touching, no idea what they were selling in the commercial...), so any way my mind jumps to "Well it's a good think she said yes, or that could be a very awkward 45 to 60 min trip depending on wind speed".  So that is my advice for anyone out there looking to propose, if there is even the slightest chance that he/she will say "NO" don't propose on a hot-air-balloon ride.  I have now potentially prevented an awkward social situation that may have required you to attend some sort of counseling, you can thank me latter. 

Stay tuned.  More posts on the gun to come. 

M-T-T

Steampunk Shotgun Part 2

Still plugging away at the shotgun.  Had a bit of a set back with the staining.  If there was truth in advertising the following product:

Would actually be called:

It really does not stain as well as actual wood and any wood it touches won't take stain well either, but after some grumbling and sanding I was able to get a good stain on the stock.

The next part was a bit fiddly but I wanted to fill in the open section on the bottom gun, so I cut out a piece of heavy brass to fill it in.

Here is another picture of the brass cutout and the trigger:

Here is a pic of the trigger "mechanism"  from the top.  I'm going to reinforce this to make it a bit more robust.

Well that's all for now.  Hopefully this weekend I have a few hours to work on this.  Pretty soon I'll be adding the "fun stuff" to this piece.  

 

M-T-T

 

Steampunk Shotgun Part 1

So I've been posting a lot of projects that I have completed, but I thought I would try something different and post updates of a current project as I work on it.

So this next project is a Steampunk Shotgun that my friend Rob started, but just didn't have time to finish.  So he asked me to step in and and see what I could do (did I mention that Rob makes really good beer and cider?).  So it appears that my maker skills can result in adult beverages, not too shabby...

So here is the stock for the gun.  Rob had some pieces attached to it, but I stripped it down to get a better idea of what I had to work with:

It's an old rifle stock, but it will work for this application.  There were several screw holes in the wood and a crack in the stock.  I debated how I wanted to deal with that, but finally took the plunge and sanded down the majority of the stock and filled in the excess holes and the crack with wood filler. 

I plan to use a dark walnut stain on the exposed wood.  I think it will give a nice two tone look with the grip sections that I didn't sand down. 

One of the things that has plagued me with building steampunk guns in the lack of good trigger to add to them.  My previous options have been:
        *Machine a trigger from scratch(a bit time consuming)
        * Purchase an old trigger casing from somewhere (usually have to fiddle with fit, and they can be a bit expensive, especially for something that is art piece/toy).

But in this case I found something that I think will work really well:
Behold the Brass Hinge Pin Door Stop:






What's that you say?  It doesn't look like a gun trigger? 





How about if we flip it around and take off all the plastic bits?

Starting to look more like a trigger.

Now just hand me that Dremel tool...

Here it is with the back part cut off and a notch cut in.

Here it is with a spring added.  The spring will mount against a plate I will add to the gun so that there will be tension/feedback on the trigger.  No one likes a floppy trigger.  Just sayin. 

Well that's where the project is for now.  I'll post more pics etc. as this one moves along. 

M-T-T