Iron Man's Arc Reactor Part 4

Well sorry for going AWOL. Have been busy recently. So anyway, back to the project!

So anyway, with the lighting part of the arc reactor settled, let's continue with the decor. First of all, is to poke some holes around the big hole in the middle. In order to do that, I decided to use this:

 

Not sure what it's called (I mean the metal rod thingy, not the plank), but it's some kind of rod with a hole in front and when you hammer it onto some material, the rod will poke a hole in it. So let's hammer away! :)

Now this is the end product. Looks okay. Not too shabby I guess.

So now, let's get back to the lamp thingy. In the previous post, there were two screws sticking out, and it looked kinda unreal. I mean, the florescent part of the arc reactor is suppose to be glass filled with plasma. Why would there be a screw there? @_@

So I decided, since we're shaving it down to 2 screws, why not hide the screws under the decor? So to do that, we'll need a second layer of card board.

 

So here we cut another piece of cardboard.

 

Then dig out two holes for the screws.

 

Now we stick some blue sticker paper on top of the thing to cover up the holes.

 

And voila! It's done!

But just that layer alone was not enough. The screws were still protruding above the level of the cardboard, so I had to do this:

Yea, dig in shallow holes under the top layer. This will ensure that the screws settle nicely inside the holes, so you can stick on the top layer nicely.

See? It's just perfect :)

Now with everything under control, let's try switching it on now...

Oh darn, the two screw holes showed despite me adding the blue sticker paper. Well silly me, one layer of blue sticker paper would just cover up the hole and produce blue light, but the other parts actually have 2 layers of blue covering them (the skippy peanut butter cover and the sticker paper), so it's a darker shade of blue. So it's time for plan B: cutting out the sticker paper to a size small enough to just cover the holes.

There! You can barely see the holes now!

I would like to remind you, this is may be a step by step tutorial, but it's a trial and error ones, so there are many unnecessary steps, like drilling four holes. If you just drilled two for the screws, then you didn't need to go through the previous step which I did to cover the holes.

 

So the arc reactor is almost finished. But I noticed that the sides were not that bright. This is because light travels in a straight line, and LED light travels forwards from the tip, so the light won't spread much sideways. So to solve that, we'll use foam to keep the LEDs further away from the cover, so that the light can spread around and the sides will be brighter

So this is the foam.

 

 

It's soft so you can squish it, but it's not too soft.

 

 Put the foam between the lamp and the cover.

Be sure to check that the foam can be covered by the decor in front, or you'll have the same problem as my previous screw problem and the foam will block out the light.

Ok, so it's not that much brighter.

Not sure why it's not much brighter. It was okay previously when I tried it with foam on (In part 3, I tested it with the foam as well. If you look closely you'll notice a black spot near the top left screw in the last post). Maybe it's a battery problem?

So here we go, an Iron Man arc reactor! Now all that's left is touching up the whole thing!

Iron Man's Arc Reactor Part 3

So I finally got them screws. Time to screw them on!

Looks kinda cool when you're handling this thing XD

Looks like this when it's not lighted:

Here is the back view:

Then I realized I didn't need 4 screws to hold it in place, so I only used 2, and I covered up the extra holes with some blue sticker paper. This is what the final product looks like:

Pretty neat eh? Except for the two screws there lol. I'll need to redo the decor so that they can cover the screws properly @_@

Just that and also the decor in the center left. Will be completed soon lol. I still haven't thought of what I can use for the center ring of the arc reactor...

Iron Man's Arc Reactor Part 2

So I went to this DIY store nearby to search for some materials, but sadly, couldn't find any screws that were suitable for my arc reactor, so I got myself some toothpicks for the copper wires at the side. They cost me around RM0.50, which is approximately US$0.15. So I had my sister mix some paint to paint them so they'd look like the copper wires at the side of the arc reactor.

That's the paint I used.

Painted them one by one >_<

Stick them on some sponge or something so they can dry.

Voila! This is just half. The whole process takes quite some time (including measuring and cutting). I suggest you cut them one by one, because it's much tougher cutting 6 toothpicks in one go >_<

So finally it was time to stick them on. I used what my sister called a "double sided glue", which is actually called a glue roller (or that's what it says. Not sure if available anywhere near you) and it looks like this:

Pretty convenient. You just roll it on and there's a thin layer of something like a double sided tape. So let the pasting commence!!!!

Took me some time here, had to do some trimming as well.

There, finished sticking it on. Doesn't look bad at all.

This is the unlit arc reactor.

Seems a bit like copper wires now that I got it lit up. Not bad at all :)

So all that's left now is to attach the LED lights to the case and make some decorations for the middle part and the jobs done! After that maybe I should think of some way to hold it in place under my t-shirt. Here's a pic of me and the arc reactor under my shirt:

Doesn't look bad for an arc reactor made by someone with limited electrical knowledge and no soldering abilities eh? There's nothing holding it in place under my shirt. Had to lift up my chest and try to press it against my t-shirt. That's all for today. Going to get the screws tomorrow, then something metal for the middle of the arc reactor. I found a big washer lying around my house but it was too small. But it would be too plain if I just put that washer anyway. Hopefully I can find something lol.

Iron Man's Arc Reactor Part 1

Well I decided to start a blog another blog, I don't really know for what. But guess I can put it to some use.

So anyway, cosplaying is my side hobby. Not really keen on it although the end is always kinda cool. But I've usually limited myself to robot costumes though. No need to dye my hair in some weird color and risk looking like a wacko or do much sewing. Just lotsa lotsa cutting and pasting and cardboard boxes. This is one of my previous works:

So far I've only done 3 costumes. One is that Optimus Prime one up there, made entirely from cardboard boxes in 2 weeks time (the helmet is from Toys R Us though), the other two were Bumblebees. The first bumblebee (made of foam and boxes, less that 40 hours time) wasn't quite a beauty (I don't have any photos, but it didn't look good so the photos aren't worth showing anyway) but the crowd loved it anyway (did it as a sports day mascot since I was in the yellow sports house). The second one was for a local Toys R Us event. My senior (who was working there) asked me to make a bumblebee costume for them. Don't have any photos as well, but the costume looked much better than expected (100% cardboard boxes, 3 days time, but I asked them to spray and color it themselves).

Every time after I make a costume, I would "puke blood" and "bleed through my eyes" and then say I would never make another costume again. But then I'd get an itch to make another one from time to time lol. This one came due to the Avengers movie which launched last month. I didn't really plan to watch it in theaters so I didn't do any props, but one fine day my friends came up with a grand idea of watching it the next day. So I tagged along. Too late to make any costumes. But the itch was really bad so I decided to make one for the Iron Man 3 movie which will come out next year.


So first things first, we start with the easy one - The arc reactor. This is what it looks like in case you didn't know:

Well, it may be small but the whole process of making it was far from easy. Had many references online and all of them require soldering, wiring and all those complicated stuff. There was even one where you had to buy thermo plastic and melt it into a self made mold. Far too complicated for someone who likes to keep things simple. So I decided to ditch the idea - until my dad chanced upon one of the main ingredients of the arc reactor I'm currently making, and so I managed to start my project and it looks pretty nice so far. Here is a bit of a log of my progress:

Yup, a tiny LED lamp, made in China. It's pretty cheap, around RM5.90 (Approx US$1.90) and works on 3 AAA batteries.

About the right size too. This is what it looks like outside of the package.

So since I had LED light thing, it sorta saved me a lot of soldering and wiring work. First, I took out the board of LEDs from inside it's casing:

With the casing on, it's kinda bulky and thick. But without the casing, it's much more lightweight and slimmer.

So it's got it's own battery compartment, so you don't have to make one yourself and measure how many resisters you need and all that calculation stuff. So with the LEDs and wiring solved, the next step was to look for the casing. Since the LEDs are white LEDs, I had to find something to turn the light into blue so it'll look like Tony Stark's reactor. So after looking through all the stuff in my house, I finally found something that could work:

Yup. A Skippy peanut butter jar cover. No I don't get money and I'm not advertising for them. But the cover is the best thing I can get in my house. It's made of plastic, so the light should shine through. Plus it was the right size for an arc reactor. This is what it looks like with the LED lamp inside it:

Really nice glow eh?

So next up is to make it look like an arc reactor. I found one of these lying around the house:

I think my sister must have bought it for one of her school projects. She's into craft making and quailing or whatever you call it and sells handmade crafts and cards online for cheap. She's been bugging me to make her a website but I haven't gotten round to making it, so she currently sells through her facebook. So since the decorative ribbons have all been used up, my sister is not going to need it anymore, so I'll just use it I guess XD

Had to trim the sides because it was too big. Well there's already a hole in the middle, so it saves me some work. Now to cut the sides.

Voila! Pretty decent looking arc reactor don't you think :)

After that it's time to get the LED lamp attached to the Skippy cover. Since there are holes where the screws were suppose to go through in the original lamp, I can just screw it on. So I drilled some holes in the cover:

And it was time to screw it on. But then I realized I didn't have any screws so I'll have to continue tomorrow -_-

Well, guess that's all for today. Have to drop by the hardware store tomorrow. And maybe get the rest of the materials to make it look like a decent arc reactor and not some Skippy peanut butter lamp...