I want to thank this week's sponsor, Raid: Shadow Legends. Hello, I'm Odin, and the prop I'm gonna build today -- it has been requested many, many, many times. It's the Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator, or Gravity Gun which is a lot easier to say. This is a big, complicated build, and I plan on explaining it in major parts even though I may not have built it in that order and as you can see, I started with a 3d object because I could scale it to the size that I wanted and I could actually get the dimensions that I needed. For the main body, I made a foam core mock-up first, mostly to be sure I like the size although it is still really hard to tell with just this part. I copy my paper pattern onto some 3 millimeter sintra plastic. This is a foamed PVC sheet plastic that is very lightweight and easy to cut. I'm making most of the walls from the thickness of this plastic. This front panel is 6 millimeters thick, and all the walls of the main housing will glue to it. I'm also going to add the front cage and barrel off the other side of this, so this one piece is gonna hold the whole gun together. Because this is PVC plastic, I can just use the same glue that is used for sprinkler pipes and one two three blocks are really useful to keep everything square while the glue sets. I cut bevels, or angles, on the edges of a lot of the panels. I can sand the corners down smooth later. All right. There are LEDs that I want to add later, so I make a battery door that goes in the bottom. [machine sounds] I cut a 175 millimeter circle from some 6 millimeter plastic on my band saw. Actually, I cut a lot of parts on the bandsaw. It's much faster and easier for me. And you pretty much have to use a bandsaw on the 6 millimeter thick stuff. You can cut it by hand, it just takes a lot longer. That 175 millimeter circle needs to be a ring 15 millimeters wide, and I can't cut the center out with a bandsaw so I use a hobby knife. [sighing, sarcasm] Yeah, this is-- this is fun. Oh, hey, we're-- we're over there. It takes a while. I sand the sides to smooth out the corners, and it should help the paint stick and then I can glue the ring to the front. There we go. Next, I make the acceleration disks and inertial drums. I have no idea what these things are called but for the center acceleration disks, I need to cut 6 circles of EVA foam on the bandsaw. [chuckles] The plan is to glue these together and then sand the curve into the stack, but it's still not enough layers. It's actually a little undersized, so I add one more layer of floormat foam and I use the center hole to align all the pieces as I glue them with contact cement. The rear of the gun will rest on these disks when it's on a table so I add a layer of white sintra plastic to bear the weight and not crush the foam. I run a 3/8 inch bolt through the whole stack and chuck it into my drill so I can sand the foam down to the shape that I want. Getting the inside edge was a little tricky, but I get the shape that I need with a couple of minutes of sanding. To make the drums, I started with a cardboard tube which I've cut on the bandsaw then I wrap them in a layer 4 millimeter HD foam. I stack them full of floor mat foam. These four layers have contact cement and gorilla glue to hold them in and the last couple of layers have holes in the center because there's some cutout detail that you can see. The top layer is 10 millimeter HD foam. This covers everything and hides the cardboard tube but it still gets a layer 2 millimeter foam to cover the 10 millimeter edge. Now, this also has a small cutout detail. Layering the foam makes a clean-looking square indent. I trim the extra 2 millimeter foam and sand the top like I did on the disks. All right. Okay, I'm gonna need some pipe. I cover a smaller cardboard tube with some 2 millimeter foam and a 1 1/2 inch PVC pipe with 4 millimeter foam. You want to scratch up the plastic pipe first to help the contact cement stick. The reason I'm putting the PVC into the cardboard is to have something strong for the rear handle because everyone who picks this up will want to hold it by the handle so it needs to have a good attachment place. And the drums are gonna hang off the end of this pipe so I set my drill press at a ninety degree tilt and drill out a diagonal hole for the pipe to slip into. This is why the drums were solid foam: it seemed like an easy way to attach them. I pull out the center of those holes, and the drums can hang on the sides of the pipe but the hole saw made a hole a little too big for the drums, so on the disks I just use my biggest Forstner bit which is 2 1/8 bit. These bits make a heck of a mess. So these rings actually have to fit into the main body a little bit so have to cut a piece off in order for that to work. I made a template out of foam core so know exactly where to cut on the bandsaw. [Music] Perfect. Super glue the disks over the pipe and hang the drums on. I'm gonna paint the parts separately, then glue them all together last. For the grip on the left drum, I use the side handle from an old drill, The handle comes off the back, I thought I would cut down this old saw handle, that should work just fine. The plastic is ABS so I can use the same glue that I've been using on the handle and to attach an end cap of 6 millimeter sintra. This PVC pipe is what will fit into the pipe that's under the disks. It needs to be solid but the glue by itself is not solid enough, so I pour in some casting resin to make it really solid. I also use some casting resin to attach the side grip. It's gonna take a minute for the resin to set up, so I've got a chance to tell you about today's sponsor. Raid is one of the most ambitious RPG projects that I have seen, and it can only be compared to the biggest PC and console titles only this one is free and you can play it on your phone! With just a quick look you can see why there are millions of players worldwide And look at all these champions! You can play any of these in player vs. player battles! Now, I wanted to pick a favorite champion, but how can I? Look at all these! I haven't even unlocked them all yet! That guy's really cool! I think the game looks amazing, and I'm not alone: with nearly 700,000 reviews, Raid has an almost perfect score in the Play Store. This game always has something new to do. You can play for 5 minutes or for 5 hours, whenever or wherever. So what are you waiting for? Go to the video description and download the game by clicking on my special link. You'll get 50,000 silver and a free epic champion on day 7 of the new player rewards program. Go ahead, download the game! Click the link, check it out! After the resin sets, I sand the edges of the cap and lightly drill in a detail with a Forstner bit. I'll add a screw in the center after is painted. With the major parts finished in the main body, I start looking at what I can use for a barrel. I cut down a shop vac extension tube. It's also ABS so I can glue it. If I only had a vacuum hose I could clean this up. I cut a hole in the main body and then glue the barrel in place. The front of the barrel has a disk but it's not a plain disc, of course. It has an outer ring, and a raised nozzle that wasn't the size of any pipe, and 16 little spoke pieces. The nozzle I made by stacking rings of the right size, and the 16 spoke pieces were cut in a crazy contraption of tape and scrap plastic. All the parts, even the discs, are cut from black sintra plastic, and I was really pleased when everything fit. There are six cage rails that hold the crystals in place. I cut 25-inch long strips of six millimeter sintra and then heat form them around a plastic guide that I made. And when the plastic cooled, I could cut the excess off and glue strips of styrene on the outsides. This hides the seam and makes them a little stronger. For the three claws that go on the front, I cut a number of parts in both 3 millimeter and 6 millimeter sintra. I ran out of black so now I'm moving on to my white. Two of the parts need to be heat formed and bent so instead of blasting them with a heat gun, I heat them on a strip made for bending plastic and then fold them around some half-inch acrylic. I had also scored fold lines to help get a straight corner. The top of the claw is tapered, so I had to do them by hand, and the scored lines really helped me here. I trace the pattern on the folded pieces so I could drill out the pivot holes that I need for all the claw parts and each claw has six main parts with eight holes, and it felt like I was drilling way more than 24 holes at the time. Both folded pieces have notches that are cut into them. The base piece I cut to have the right profile. The extra plastic keeps the sides in the right place. Only the notch in the top piece needs to be filed and cleaned up because the bottom one is going to get glued where it goes. While building something, you gotta check to make sure stuff works. [sarcastic] Really, I'm not playing around. Honestly. The tips of the claws have little pods on them. I bought some headphones from the dollar store. These have almost exactly the right shape. I cut the end down and remove the speaker and glue them onto some plastic washers. I give these a moment to set while I grind out the end of each claw so the earphones can fit. Now, this isn't a drill bit so my thumb is not in danger. I glue them in place. Each claw has a set of two rails that connect it to the main housing, so I cut six strips of sintra and glue small strips as spacers at the end, and one where the rail needs to pass through that front disc. Alright. Which also means I need to cut square holes in the front disc. [sarcastic] Yeah, no pressure here, this is just the front. Before I cut, I used a piece of paper to mark the spacing of the nine sets of things that go around the barrel. There's a three claws and then six sets of Xen crystals. Not the peace-loving type of Zen, but the anti-gravity with monsters that eat you type. I also heat formed a bracket that will hold the rail to the main housing. I go ahead and glue those in now. There are still more little pieces to the claws: metal rods that need bending and attached and odd places and I use little pieces of quarter-inch acrylic rod so I can attach the rods to each other. That neat neon color? It's all gonna get painted over later. I heat form some quarter-inch square acrylic rod for bent parts that go in the base of each claw Working with clear plastic like this always makes me think of Fraggle Rock. All those little parts will need to be sanded and painted before they can be assembled. To make the six zen crystals, I cut strips of polyethylene shipping foam. Now, this stuff is translucent so it's perfect for the LED strip light. I cut twelve for the sides and six for the tops (he top strip is actually a different size) and a set of six Sintra strips to build everything on. I bought a 16 meter strip of orangey-red LEDs and these I can cut to length and I cut enough to wrap around the center sintra plastic, and then cut a strip to go over the top. And I need to solder some wires to connect the two strips, and stick it to the top edge. Now thankfully, polyethylene is not bothered by contact cement. I still half expect this foam to melt when I'm putting cement on it. I stick the two sides on gluing the plastic and not the LEDs and then I can stick the top on, and the top ends up being wider than the base, but that's good because of the way they need to glue to the barrel. A quick test with my 12-volt battery to show the glow It's a bit redder than I wanted, but that's gonna work fine. All I got to do now is make five more of those. All six crystals are made, and I expect them to be hot to the touch. They're not, of course but they need to look the part, so I brush black craft paint over the foam in a real haphazard way leaving some areas untouched and adding extra along the bottom where the light will glow less, anyway. The real trick is getting paint mashed into the open cell of that top edge. I want the black marks to look uniform-ish on all the sides and I really like the way the crystals look when they're all painted. And I made an additional piece. This will go at the far end of the barrel so it can glow. And I made a cover for it and there's a bit of plastic on it so it has some extra texture. I made a couple of internal supports that will glue to the inside walls. This will give me more surface area to glue on the tube that's under the acceleration disks. I make sure everything lines up properly. and I made the raised side panel that goes in the main housing. It's made from more sintra with a little styrene and six LEDs so the panel can glow orange. I check that the LEDs are working and then I can glue it into place and I stuff a little piece of craft foam just inside to protect the translucent plastic from being painted. Last thing I need to do is the gauge that goes on the secondary handle side. I found an object that's going to be just about right. I'll take one of these plastic napkin rings and cut it down. I cut one in half on the bandsaw and I cut a piece of polycarbonate sheet for the glass of the gauge. It's actually a clear plastic, there's just white film protect it. And I cut a piece of sintra for the back, printed a label of the gauge and stuck it in place. To make the needle, I used an aluminum shaft from a pop rivet and hammered it flat. I cut it into a needle shape and then painted it red. I push a nail through a pilot hole that's in the back and superglue the needle on. Before I can glue any of the plastic parts, I have to scratch off the chrome plating on the inside of the napkin ring. Then I can glue the clear cover on and glue the base in. The nail at the back of the gauge will let me stick it into place on one of the drums. I have all the plastic parts painted with a couple of different primers, and the foam I primered with black PlastiDip and then everything is sprayed in various shades of silver. I wanted different silvers to start with because I thought would help with the weathering. and I start covering everything with a watered down liquid black shoe polish, getting more on some areas than on others. Having all the pieces separate sort of makes this easy, but I have to remember what parts interact with each other, and then paint them correctly. I sponge paint a little black to help darker areas, and I sponge paint some rust on a lot of pieces. I do a darker brown first, and then go over that with a lighter orangeish ochre color. When I finish the rust layer, I seal all the parts with a clear flat spray sealer, and then I can start putting the pieces together. Inside, I glue the glowing part to the end of the barrel. Now I regret cutting the wire so short and fight to solder the wires inside the main body. The sintra base that's inside the crystals glues to the outside of the barrel, and I also drilled holes for the wires and then I can glue the rails over that, and I glue on the three claw rails, and the detail panels that go on the front. One tiny screw will connect on the battery cover, and I cushion the battery inside with some foam so it doesn't rattle around. Everything works, so I glue the rear panel on, and then I use a six inch lag bulb to securely attach the handle. It's kind of surprising to me that a lot of tape back here is actually canon. This is way it is in the game. It's got a -- it's got a huge wad of like tape or leather or something back here holding it all together. Okay. Screw the acceleration discs to the main body. The drums are glued in place with contact cement. It's still wet so I can move them little bit and I start assembling the claws, which are super glued in some places and have tiny screws so they can still move. So many little parts. I add the two tiny little pipes and the gauge that goes on the back, and that all-important piece of duct tape that goes over the gauge. It's kind of hard to believe I managed to build this thing in one very long, sleepless week. [Music] Most of the materials I used to make this project I picked up locally. I put a part list and links in the description. To make this guy, I planned, measured, and cut over 300 parts and pieces. They were glued, they were soldered, they were swore at and I still simplified parts of it, like there's no trigger I put a power button in it because the gravity gun needs to glow, and I'm really happy I was able to get the claws to be articulated. I've been a Half-Life fan for years, I've enjoyed the games as they've come out, and I really like Portal so I'm very happy that I have, say, Rick and Morty's portal gun, I have the Aperture Science handheld portal device and now I have the Black Mesa Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator, or Gravity Gun and as you can see, it doesn't weigh much, because I made it for mostly foamed materials because This is how Odin Makes. So, the two pieces that are leftover? Robot claw! [robot noise] Do not look into the operational end of the device. And thank you again to Raid: Shadow Legends for being this week's sponsor. And you can help, too! Download the game using my special link in the description of this video. I want to thank Robert M Davis, KOMakesThings, and all of my Patreon supporters. You guys really do make this show possible. If you liked the video, don't forget to subscribe! Have an idea for something for me to make? Please leave a comment below. And if you make any of these projects you can send me a picture.
