The tools and materials:
1 32oz. rubber mallet
2 rolls metal repair tape
1 tin snips
1 sheet of aluminum scrap
1 aluminum kickplate
60 washers
assortment washers, lock washer, nuts, bolts
A
closeup of the part that goes between the fingers. The little circle in
the drawing is where to drill for the hole that the bolt will go through.
Just
getting a feel for how the bolt will travel through the drilled holes.
I also used this to wrap my fingers around to help get a sense of how
to carve the part of the blades that wraps around the knuckles - a part
that was tricky, and ultimately turned out "just okay."
Here
are the two blade patterns drawn in the scrap aluminum. To get the bent
portions of the blades, I used a sophisticated process of holding one
end of the metal ruler with my right hand, the other end with my left
foot, bending the ruler with my left hand, and drawing the curve with
the pen held between my teeth. I really need a better workshop setup.
The
pain beings... Tin snips can really take it out of you if you aren't used
to doing anything more wrist-strenuous than typing and working the mouse.
Can't
wait to play - modeling the two patterns.
It
looks like they'll work pretty well! I'm excited at this point.
A
view looking straight down the barrel of my two blade patterns.
Here's
a view into the good intentions - how I hope the whole thing will work.
Imagine a bolt going crossways through the centers of those round tabs
and you can imagine the bar I'll hold onto when these are done.
Another
behind the scenes view of the magic.
A
shot for the three people who were just dying for a closeup.
Here
you can see the active dimensions of the two blades. The shorter blades
- the two outer ones in each hand - have a blade length of roughly 12",
while the longer one - the center blade in each hand - is about 14".
I'm sure there's at least one geek out there sweating for this answer:
No, I didn't take these dimensions from anywhere. I just made them up.
Seemed about right in my head.
Wow,
already red from just testing out the patterns. I hope the finished product
doesn't slice my fingers off entirely.
Yay!
My first actual use for the drill press I won on Ebay. I know, Ebay is
a terrible place to buy large machinery. You're right, the shipping did
kill me. Alright, enough, I've already promised - no more heavy shop equipment
on Ebay, leave me alone!
This
is just sad. I can't count, apparently. I cursed myself that I had layed
them out so poorly on the alumimnum kickplate that I had to put the last
claw off to the side and dig into what could've been a rather large rectangle
of good, usable scrap aluminum. If you can count, you'll notice
there were already the right number of blades traced from the patterns
before I added that weird extra one off to the right. Sigh.
Mom
has been having fun on HSC and QVC. She bought this thing on impulse and
sent it to me after she realized she had no use for it. It's a whole little
world of cutting utilities. I thought it would be perfect for this aluminum
stuff, but after trying 15 times (I counted) to cut through one line of
one of the claw patterns, I gave up and put it away. I'm sure it'll come
in handy when I'm not trying to cut metal sheeting.
The
knife that failed me. That point is dull enough now that I can jab it
into arm and nothing happens.
Still
unable to count, here are the 7 cutout claws, which I just tin-snipped
out of the kickplate. It was another 3 hours of cutting out all the blades
before I would realize I should only have 6 claws.
Carefully
cutting out the first claw, and trying hard as I did so to currect the
sloppiness of the pattern traces. This is the first claw, and my hand/wrist/arm
are already on fire from the overuse of muscles I've neglected for years.
Tin
snips make the most painful garland. My carpet is loaded with aluminum
clipping now that I keep stepping on and getting jammed in my feet.
In
an effort to combat the aluminum snippings problem, I moved to the cement
patio outside. All the claws are cut out now, including the vestigial
7th claw.
MAGNETO!
Stop it! You're HURTING HIM!!! Hahah. Oh man, if you're a geek, you probably
understand that. It's still probably not funny, I'm sure, but at least
we're on the same page.
Time
to straighten these claws out into something a little more Wolverine,
and a little less Bendverine: "Hello Zoobles!" If you're a geek,
you might get that, but regardless, that one was totally funny. I stand
by it.
There's
something awesome about owning a 32oz. rubber mallet. I know now that
that's one of the things that's been missing in my life. I feel like one
more puzzle piece has been placed into my happiness puzzle.
Alright,
NOW I finally get that there were too many claws. But the hardest part
is over. About 1.5 hours of hammering them flat on the cardboard and filing
off all the horrible little burs and I'm ready to drill. All the hammering
them flat, turning, hammering, turning, hammering, really made me feel
like I was crafting small swords. Cool.
You
can see the washers and a bolt in place in one of the blades. For the
record, on the bolt would go 1 locking washer, then a washer, the inner
claw, several more washers for finger spacing, the middle claw, more spacing
washers, the outer claw, another washer, a final locking washer.
For the record,
my fingers are about 9 washers wide. This was a great way to accurately
build the claws apart from each other. I tested by adding and removing
washers until it felt right. My left hand (aka sissy hand) has much smaller
fingers. I used 8 washers for the ring finger on my left hand.
Another
shot of the assembly.
And
here's how they look assembled! It worked! This is about 6 hours after
I figured out how I wanted to do it on paper. That time includes trips
to 2 hardware stores for the tools and materials. Not bad!
Justice
has a new name.
Here's
our little secret. All the washers and "grip bolt" give the
thing a very solid, heavy feel. The blades don't loosen and slide around
on the bolt, thanks to the lock washers at both ends, and the whole thing
kinda has the feel of brass knuckles. I couldn't punch anything with all
the blades sticking out the other end, but if I really had advanced healing
powers, I bet I could!
They
do have that "I made these in my living room" feel, what wigh
the innacurate rounded edges, the sloppy surplus washers, and the sharpie
trace lines, but if you've ever been on the set of a movie or tv show
(and I have a lot out here), you'd know that 90% of what you see on camera
is actually a real sloppy mess up close in person, so these are perfect!
Fingernails
of Death from the back/bottom side. As a cutting board, I used 2 (my only
two) issues of "Nuts & Volts" magazine, "Everything
for Electronics." I know, I know, GEEK!
Speaking
of geeks... My hairstyle and beard were very tricky. I kept ending up
looking like Paul Gobel, the TV Geek from Comedy Central's "Beat
the Geeks" game show. Here's the Wolverine Geek with his almost finished
claws.
Gotta
be reaaaallly careful going to the bathroom like this!
Don't
shoot! They're fake.
The
controversial and final step to the building was to disassemble them and
coat them in shiny metal repair tape. Then exacto the tape from the other
side using the blade as its own stencil. This made the blades much more
polished metal looking, but also made them look like they were made of
metal tape when up close. My hope was that in party photos, the tape would
be an added sense of realism. No way to know at this point!
I
know his hair was larger and more impressive, but his was makeup, mine's
the real deal. I'll leave it to the jury to decide who's more the "real
thing." Give me another month and I'll rival even the movie magic.
