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Fallout Bottle Openers

May 3, 2016 1

DesignHere is a fun project.  A buddy of mine really likes the Fallout game.  So I thought I’d make a Fallout themed bottle opener with cap catcher.  I decided I’d do a Vault Boy image on the bottle opener and distress it so it looks like it made it through the apocalypse.

I used a standard cedar fence board for my material.  I cut it to 12” long and dog-eared the top.  I sanded down some of the rough surface, leaving behind a little bit of the rough sawn lumber.  I wanted it to still have that weathered/textured look.  I put it on my CNC and carved out the Vault Boy logo.  Since I was making these live on my stream, someone suggested I do a Nuka Cola logo as well, which I thought was a brilliant idea.  So I put that into my CNC and carved a few of those out as well.

I drilled a hole in the back of the board to recess a rare earth magnet.  It won’t be seen from the front, but the magnet is strong enough to catch the falling bottle cap through the wood and stick it to the board.  Very cool!  I plugged the hole with some cedar plugs I made with the CNC.

VaultBoy01I painted the surface with craft paints.  Then with my sander, I sanded away a bit.  This left a nice weathered paint look.  For Vault Boy, I laid down a layer of white paint as a base.  Once dry, I followed up with the colors.  Once all of that was dry, I used some sandpaper to scuff up the nicely painted surface to age it up a bit.  The Nuka Cola logos, I painted the recesses.

I spread a walnut stain over the entire surface and wiped away anything that didn’t soak in.  This really darkened the craft paint and aged the wood 30 years.  I used an old brush to pool in the stain into the recesses of Vault Boy, which made the awesome outline come to life.

FinishedOpenersI let the stain dry for a few days, then I came back over it with a furniture wax.  It gave it a nice satin sheen and made the wood nice to the touch.  Then I screwed in the bottle opener hardware and I was done!

In the end, I made 2 Vault Boy and 3 Nuka Cola bottle openers.  I really liked the way they turned out and my buddy was thrilled.

I made these on my Live Stream.  Every Sunday at 1pm, PST, I stream live from my shop.  Stop in and check it out and hang out with me.  Recordings of my live stream are available for 2 weeks if you missed the show.

 

Category: CNC, Geekery, Live Stream, Woodworking

Hodor

April 27, 2014 0

HodorHere’s a simple shelf sitter featuring the name of my favorite character from HBO’s A Game Of Thrones.  This was designed in Inkscape and cut on my scroll saw using a #3 scroll reverse blade.  Made from 3/4″ poplar I got at the home center and clear coated with a clear acrylic spray.  You can find the pattern here.

 

Category: Geekery, Woodworking

That of a Giant Sloar!

April 11, 2011 2

“During the rectification of the Vuldronaii the Traveller came as a very large and moving Torb. Then, during the Third Reconciliation of the Last of the Meketrex Supplicants, they chose a new form for him, that of a giant Sloar! Many Shubs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of a Sloar that day, I can tell you!”  -Louis Tully [Ghost Busters, 1984)

This is a quote from Rick Moranis in the movie Ghost Busters.  It always cracked me up when he said “that of a giant Sloar!” in a way that we would know what he’s talking about.  The phrase is ambiguous enough in its raw format to make it sound strange.  But those who recognize the quote (many of my friends certainly would) would get a huge kick out of it.  So I thought I’d do a little paper-cutting of the phrase.

I really wanted a primitive/folk artsy feel to the piece similar to the way Hans Christian Andersen’s papercuts would have.  I knew I wanted the internal bits of the letters to be solid.  I also wanted a rough feel to the lettering.  So I drew out the design quickly with a sharpie marker.  Then I scanned it into the computer and cleaned up the lines with Inkscape.  I  had to shift a couple letters to make it balance better, but for the most part, the design is the same as the drawing.

I could easily cut the design by hand, but I wanted to use my new Cricut cutter.  So I imported my Inkscape file into SCAL and let the Cricut do the work.  I ended up with a really neat piece of papercut word art.  What will I do with it?  Heck if I know.  Maybe I’ll bring it into work and decorate up my dungeon office.

 

Category: Craft, Geekery