Construction of the SMG

I got a question about the constuction of the SMG.

I want to say, that it was not supposed to be a replica, but a prop for a halloween costume.
Still, I poured quite a lot of effort to it :)

Here is my building plans for the gun.

It was made by layering MDF board.
The bulk of the gun was 2 layers of 16mm.
The other one had space for an ejection port and the other one had the "accessory-ridges" on it (sorry, really don't know the terms).
I then layered two 3mm boards of the same material. I cut all of these with a band saw and a table saw.
The last layer (upper part of the nose area) was made of pieces of scrap polystyrene.
I got these pieces from a bin next to a CNC-machine.

The plan wasn't executed in 100% accuracy. The biggest change was probably that I dig the hole for the magazines in between the bulk pieces. I also had a space for the trigger between the bulk pieces. I had equal deep parts taken off from each side. There was also a small spring (from a pen) behind the trigger, so you could actually squeeze it.

The pipes (I think it's a foldable butt) I made from wood.
The finishing touches were mostly scrap. The switch for single/auto is a painting hook and so on.
The barrel is a metallic pipe that I drilled a hole for.

I put a small spring behind the hole for the magazines to hold the magazines in place.
I really wanted to have changeable magazines

The magazines had similar construction 16mm bulk with 3mm sides. The casing was made from brass pipe, the bullets from a steel rod.

Here is a more detailed picture, which shows the not so presentable side of the gun.

Hope you like this small article.

 

The finished product.

It is ready.

Here is once more the starting image:

And here is what I managed to do:

Photos courtesy of Pinja Sormunen

The lycra suit is made by my sister-in-law Heidi. It was quite challenging to sew, especially on the zipper area. The suit is intact - the "torn" part is an extra piece. I only have strength of 4 so the Vault Dweller in the original picture is a bit stockier.

The harness is made from mixture of surplus elements. The shoulder pad is made out of an old ice-hockey armor. 

I also "demilitarized" an old Czech bayonet to use as a knife.

The Pip-Boy 2000 is mostly mdf-board. The display is an iPod Touch with uploaded pictures. Pictures included automaps of the party venue from halloween. There is two working lights inside the structure. There is one extra missing button which got lost during the party.

The Pip-Boy logo was vectorized, then printed and painted on. The texts on the lower part are freehand. 

On the backside there is a worn off RobCo logo.

I made exchangeable clips for my gun. Both feature a bullet of 10mm AP and JHP accordingly.

The 10mm SMG is made from mdf-board, cibatool and metalpipes. The clips are exchangeable and you can push the trigger. 

I was planning to have a sound chip inside to make some noise. Also the really short stock could have been rotatable. 

The gun has a nice weight to it.

So what do you think?

Lycra is here

I got the fabric from mail today. Perfect!

The Plan

I am doing a Vault Dweller costume and props for a big scifi-themed costume party. From the original Fallout computer game.


PART I
The Plan


There is one high-res picture of the Fallout's protagonist Vault Dweller.
It is seen in the ending of the game:

This is what I base my costume on.


The game itself features Vault Dweller with a bit different outlook:

In the latter the jumpsuit has wide yellow rim around the waist and the boots are more shoe-like.

It's possible, that the rim would be under the belt of the first picture, but I doubt it.

JUMPSUIT


I decided to go with the following design:

I think that this is a reasonable hybrid of the two looks incorporating some features from the Vault Boy.
There is also a small number thirteen in the collar inspired by the suit in Fallout 3.
The lower part shows the lycra-fabrics that I'm going to use on the suit. I'm not as muscularly built as the Vault Dweller so the lycra suit will look goofy enough. 


First I thought I could find a ready made jumpsuit, but after a few days of searching I saw that I was wrong.
Gladly I found a good pattern for the suit: The Kwik Sew wetskin. And a friend who knows how to sew.


It takes about 3 meters of the blue fabric to make. The cost was around 10 euros per meter.

ARMOR

For the belt and harness I'm using an assortment of surplus items. Cost me 
The shoulder armor is made from an old ice-hockey armor. I had to remodel and bend it some, but after keeping it in boiling water it was quite easy. Some paint on and avót!

Then to the more technical parts.

GUN

In the high-res picture Vault Dweller has a cowboy-style revolver in his holster.
I decided quite early on that  I want a different weapon, which would be more iconic for the game.
My favorite weapon in the game was the 10 mm sub machine gun, so I that was what I wanted to have.

This is the only picture available of the gun scaled up:

The most problematic things in the design was the functions of the strange knob on top of the pipe and the pipelines going from the circular thin to the top of the gun.
I think that the knob is some kind of targeting device because there is no notch on the back part of the weapon. Strangely it is on the right side of the gun center. I'll look into it in more detail later on.
I looked into old SMGs and now I'm quite positive the pipe-thing is a rotatable stock. The artist has given herself some privileges concerning the length of the stock. Now it has only the length to the wrist.

Here is the design I made. It will be cut in mdf-board and cibatool. I made it in layers with Illustrator so I can just print it in layers and use them as templates.

Fallout 10 mm SMG design by Heikka Jämsä CC by-nc

The stock is going to work so that you can twist and pull it out of its hole and flip it to the other side. Maybe it will be easier to understand when it's done.

The magazines are going to be removable. I also played with the idea of putting in a sound chip with the same sounds as the gun has in the game.

PIP-BOY

Next in line is the most iconic piece of Fallout: the Pip-Boy 2000. The personal information processor electronic device.

There is some contradiction about the device. Is it hand-held or worn on the arm?

I don't see it in either of the reference pictures, so in my opinion it is hand-held.

I think that the Pip-Boy 2000 should be about the same size as the 3000 model. The first thing is of course the display. I decided that I want to have a working one. I saw some 3000 models with smart phones as displays and that's also what I'm going to do. Or actually I'm using an iPod touch.

This is roughly the design. The shape and size of the display isn't perfect but I'm ok with it. The size of the device is about 120mm times 135mm so it is a bit smaller probably than the original. It will be made also from mdf and cibatool with working lights. The metallic mesh and the buttons are a bit tricky because they are so small (The buttons are only 5mm in diameter).

I have also vectorized the Pip-Boy logo and I thought i maybe could use it also on the backside maybe done in laser-etching (my friend has a laser studio)

Pip-Boy is manufactured by RobCo industries. I'll probably put the RobCo logo also somewhere. I have it also vectorized.

I'm doing also some additional props including Nuka-Cola bottle and caps, a box of mentats and a bottle of buffout. For the Mentats I'm making a new design:

Mentats box design by Heikka Jämsä CC by-nc 

Thank you all that have contributed to the Fallout Wiki, my main source of information. Also the people of The RPF have been highly influential.

Please comment on my work.

If you want to use my design feel free but please tell me about your experiences. 

If you want higher resolution pics or vector-images please email me at 

hjamsa (ät) gmail (döt) com

Cheers,

Heikka

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.