Raygun Parts and Sapphire Plating
More raygun parts showed up today, an on-line purchase. It will give me enough to build a second raygun like the one that I'm currently working on.
I ran across the curved brass stock that I used for triggers yesterday evening. I'm still consolidating all of my raygun stuff into a single crate, which includes ziploc bags and boxes full of brass, copper, aluminum, plastic, costume jewelry, and wood that all are candidates for new rayguns. I found a partially fabricated trigger, a spare from the Cereza Negra, which I can use in the current ray gun, once I drill the right size hole for the pivot, and solder a brass ball on the end. I need to acquire a very thin drill bit for the hole.
As always, I need some type of finial for the business end of the raygun. Either that, or I could use a brass bead mounted on the end of a narrow rod or tube.
One of my co-workers is going to loan me a car battery charger, which I will use to try to anodize the stock of the current raygun. Anodizing puts a layer of aluminum oxide onto the surface of the aluminum, which uses a warm dye bath and boiling water to seal the piece. Crystalline aluminum oxide is sapphire, and saying that the raygun is plated in sapphire is way cooler than saying it has a coating of aluminum oxide. I suppose the raygun can be dyed a shade of blue or blue-green to play up the sapphire bit. There is a really intense dark blue that can be achieved on titanium at twenty volts or so that I have in mind.
I ran across the curved brass stock that I used for triggers yesterday evening. I'm still consolidating all of my raygun stuff into a single crate, which includes ziploc bags and boxes full of brass, copper, aluminum, plastic, costume jewelry, and wood that all are candidates for new rayguns. I found a partially fabricated trigger, a spare from the Cereza Negra, which I can use in the current ray gun, once I drill the right size hole for the pivot, and solder a brass ball on the end. I need to acquire a very thin drill bit for the hole.
As always, I need some type of finial for the business end of the raygun. Either that, or I could use a brass bead mounted on the end of a narrow rod or tube.
One of my co-workers is going to loan me a car battery charger, which I will use to try to anodize the stock of the current raygun. Anodizing puts a layer of aluminum oxide onto the surface of the aluminum, which uses a warm dye bath and boiling water to seal the piece. Crystalline aluminum oxide is sapphire, and saying that the raygun is plated in sapphire is way cooler than saying it has a coating of aluminum oxide. I suppose the raygun can be dyed a shade of blue or blue-green to play up the sapphire bit. There is a really intense dark blue that can be achieved on titanium at twenty volts or so that I have in mind.
posted by SquidgePa at 8:31 PM
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