Kid's Boba Fett Costume build WIP

[karateman]

So my son wants to be Boba Fett for Halloween this year and we’re getting an early start on the costume. He's been Han Solo and a FO stormtrooper before with some props I made but this will really stretch my model making abilities and I've found this forum is great for references and tips. I don't want to break the bank on making the costume so I'm working with stuff I've got around my shop for parts since he'll outgrow the costume in one year. Who knows, if it goes well I may decode to build one for myself on a bigger budget.

We started with the blaster last week. For references I'm using a review of Master Replicas Boba Fett Blaster screen replica review for pictures and some overall dimensions, and WOFs Weebly blueprints as patterns

I scaled the prints up to full size and cut a dummy profile of a Weebly out to see how it fit on me. Then I scaled it down for his 4’5” frame and cut out a dummy profile from some scrap plywood to see how it fit him. Once I was satisfied and he was happy with the fit I printed out the patterns. I ended up scaling it down from full size to about 75%

Here’s the start of the blaster. The handle is ½” plywood. The buttstock extension is a pice of ½” plywood resawed down to a little over 3/8”. The buttstock is two pieces of ¾” MDF glued together. The barrel is a piece of 1.25” sch40 PVC.



I cut the extension and the handgrip on the scroll saw. The buttstock was cut to rough shape on the bandsaw. I used a router with a pattern bit to cut the recess for the stock extension. Then I used a microplane rasp and power carver to shape the stock.



More to come as I get some pics sorted out and uploaded.

 

[Skyfire]

I like what your doing with that blaster! Are you going for for more of a ESB, ROTJ or a mishmash of the two?

 

[karateman]

I like what your doing with that blaster! Are you going for for more of a ESB, ROTJ or a mishmash of the two?

Going for the ROTJ look. He likes the cooling fins on the barrel and the more futuristic blaster looking tip on that version. The tip will be easy. I'm going to turn that on my father lathe out of wood. I'm scratching my head as to how to do the raised segments under the fins. Not so much the fin itself,I'll cut some thin strip from maple and glue them on. It's the underlying fin sections I'm puzzled about. How to get the raised, segmented look. I'm leaning towards using those thin flexible cutting boards sliced into strips and then glued to the barrel. They're thin enough they can be heated and formed to shape easily over the barrel and glued on. Then the actual fins go on top of that.

My other option is to score the surface of the barrel using a straightedge and a utility knife.

 

[Skyfire]

Windshield wiper blades are similar to t-tracks. For a long time they were thought to have used them on blaster shrouds and lightsaber grips until more info was found out.

 

[karateman]

That's what I had heard too. I thought about going that route. I need to change the blades on the vehicles anyway. lol. I may mock it up with some carpet tape and see how it looks.

 

[karateman]

Next up the barrel. I used a Vblock and drew a straight line down about two inches of the barrel and drilled out about two inches along the line with a forstner bit. then I clamped it in the vise and filed it to fit the handgrip blank.



Once that was done I put the barrel on the grip blank and drilled two countersunk holes for some #6x1.5" screws to hold the barrel to the grip blank. To give it s a bit more support Icut two pieces of3/4" MDF to fit in the empty space at the rear of the barrel/grip assembly and glued those in place.



With that dry fit complete I traced the OD of a scrap piece of 1.25" PVC pipe and cut two support blocks and shaped them similar to the curvature at the rear of the Weebly where the cylinder is.


There's the completed interior/exterior supports with and without the barrel.

 

[karateman]

For the cylinder I took a piece of thin wall 4" PVC, cut it in half and used a heat gun to shape it around the barrel to simulate the cylinder on the blaster. Once I had it shaped to my liking I drilled two small holes through the PVC into the wooden blocks. I spread epoxy on the barrel where the piece would lay, used a 18 gauge brad nailer and nailed the piece in place through the holes I drilled(if you don't drill holes in PVC before using a nail gun the PVC will crack) I clamped it in place and let the epoxy set.

Once that was done I used my power carver to shape the cylinder as shown in the picture.


I then cut two pieces out of some flattened thin wall PVC to mimic the hinge on the weebly cylinder and glued them into place on the blaster.

Now to apply some JB weld wood putty and shape the bottom portion to the cylinder.

 

[Snappy]

Always interesting to see scratch builds come to life. Those of us obsessed with the movies want everything as screen accurate as possible, but we're all putting on costumes pretending to be plastic space men. Kids get it, you get close and their imaginations take flight. I wonder what my daughter will be into.

 

[karateman]

Yeah. He keeps saying, "Let's go for screen accurate." I tell him "we'll get close buddy. trust me, this will be the coolest costume at your school next school year." I'll have to see if I can find the pic of him as Han Solo or at least the blaster I made for him.

Maybe she'll ask to be a sparkly Boba Fett ballerina. LOL ever seen the Darth Vader ballerina outfit a guy made for his daughter?

I've got some more pics coming soon and then I'll be ready to work on the ribbing on the barrel.

Always interesting to see scratch builds come to life. Those of us obsessed with the movies want everything as screen accurate as possible, but we're all putting on costumes pretending to be plastic space men. Kids get it, you get close and their imaginations take flight. I wonder what my daughter will be into.

 

[karateman]

Been slacking with posts so here's what I've been up to with my low/no budget kid's sized blaster. Next up is the barrel portion behind the cooling fins.


I started with a PVC coupler for 1.25" pipe. So it would slide on easily I used a round rasp in my drill press to enlarge it just a bit.


With that complete I needed to make the two rings on either end of the barrel section. For that I used a 2" dia piece of PVC cut down to 4" in length for ease of cuttingin the table saw later. (note what's in the pic was a spare piece I had for purposes of taking the pic)

I cut an MDF plug to insert in the PVC so I could find the center and keep the drill bit on track and then drilled out the tube so it would slip over the coupler.
Once that was drilled out I cut the rings to width on the table saw. Now for some assembly with some epoxy
Now I needed to drill out the recess in the front for the cooling fins to sit in so I repeated the same process above with the MDF plug and the drill press.


Unfortunately I forgot to add the small fins on the side for this piece so I had to do that after the fact. Using a small v-block in drilled holes through both sides at once and used my power carver to smooth ou the slots as best I could and cut two small fins from some flattened PVC and epoxied them in place.
And here's the whole assembly on the blaster.

 

[karateman]

Now for the pairs of fins on the cylinder at the rear. I cut some more flattened PVC to shape and glued to together. Once they dried I epoxied them in place on the blaster.

 

[MoogMan]

This is a really special thing you're doing for your son. He should feel proud to have a dad like you. Blaster is looking great so far! I'll be watching this thread

 

[ShortFuse]

Awesome job!

 

[karateman]

Thanks guys. He's pretty excited. He's excited to go to my dad's house to help me turn the cone for the tapered end of the barrel. Part of the deal was he needs to help me with the build. He's been doing a few things here and there with the blaster with some of the shaping and cutting of the handle and stock. He'll really get to help a lot with the jetpack which is next.

Next up is the scope and cooling fins.

 

[karateman]

View media item 8088Alright. Life gets in the way sometimes. We've been slogging away at the blaster and I've been thinking about the jet pack which is up next. I figured out a great way to emulate the cooling fins on the barrel with 1/8" MDF.

I wrapped a tape measure around the barrel an came up with the barrel diameter. Then I I figured out a decent spacing for the fins (If I remember it was about 3/8" of an inch) so I cut a bunch of thin strips for the base of the fin and then some 1/8"x1/8" pieces for the fins themselves.

In order to get a nice glue up I took a scrap piece of PVC the same size as the barrel and wrapped a piece of sandpaper around it with spray adhesive. I could then run the thin strips of the fin bases over this to sand a slight curve into the bottom of the bases. This will allow for a good surface to glue up to the barrel.

Next up, glue all the fins together

(yeah I've got a lot of clamps. LOL)

Here's the finished fins.

Now to make the scope and glue on the fins.

 

[karateman]

Now the scope. I used a piece of 3/4" PVC and two couplers (or eh eyepieces on the ends). I cut the scope to length and sanded down the couplers to give the ey pieces the taper at the ends.

The scope rings were made from some thin wall PVC I flattened with a heat gun and then heated up again to wrap around the scope barrel. I trimmed them up on the belt sander to make them a bit thinner once I got the round shape I needed.

The mount was made from some scrap wood I had around the shop. I cut it to size and drew a center line. Using the same technique as with the fins I sanded a contour into the wood to match the barrel. then I sanded one mount down to account for the thicker chamber at the end of the blaster so the scope was level with the barrel

The rings were glued with epoxy to the base.

gluing the fins to the barrel and putting eh cone on the front of the blaster are next.

 

[karateman]

I used a v block to mark a line down the barrel as a registration point so the fins would not be cockeyed. Then I sketched out where the scope mount went and the where the exposed barrel portion on the right hand side was. Then it was a matter of using 5 minute epoxy and superglue (a few dots between small lines of epoxy are great. You get the instant tack and can move on while the epoxy sets).
Here's the finished barrel.

 

[karateman]

I was thinking about how to shape the rocket on Fett's jetpack when I came up with this idea. I used some 3/4" hard foam insulation I had from a previous construction project and glued some small pieces together. Then I drilled a hole through the middle, stuck a threaded rod in it and clamped down on it with a lock nut and washer.

Pop the assembly in the drill press, turn it on, and use a sanding block with 80-150 grit sandpaper to shape what you want.

After some trial and error I figured out that the foam needs to be held in place better with prongs, otherwise you have to clamp down so tight it crushes the foam to keep it rotating when you apply sandpaper to it. So I used my nail gun and a scrap piece of plywood and shot a couple of nails through the plywood washer to act as prongs. Worked pretty well.

After some hand sanding and some bondo I have a damn good looking nose cone.

 

[karateman]

I didn't like the way the chamber at the end of the barrel looked so I beefed it up a bit to come closer to looking like a Weebly. Some plywood, JB weld wood epoxy and some sanding later and I've got something closer to the actual thing.

 

[karateman]

I mounted the scope, with some adjustment knobs, and reattached the rifle stock and it's ready for a paint job. I'll end up doing all the painting at once so I won't get around to it for a couple of months.