Metal Chest (2015)

This is a renovation project.

 2nd hand I got my hands on a free chest. I thought it was a relative small chest, but it used to be an old army chest of 1 meter width. Luckily it fitted exactly in my car.

Finished chest

The man I got it from used it for his children (well to store their toys, not the children themselves). It was bright green and covered with stickers. On the inside there was adhesive foil.

What it was before

Nice decoration

Perspective view; I'm still unsure if this is the color they used in the army.

First off I took out the foil and all the metal/ wood pieces (except the handles on the side)

After that, I sanded all the metal and painted it chocolade brown and black.

Halfway during the paint process. Everything it taped for the black lining.

What it looked without the tape.

I used some new wood which I stained + I added a bottom rim with feet. Which I thought was a nice addition.

Then there was this problem with the locks. There were some pieces missing.
I took out the remaining lock and I made some new hinges, since I wasn't able to find new ones and the ones somewhat similar were really expensive.
Because their main purpose is decorational, I made these from plywood. I used a Dremel to sand out the inner bits.

Everything was sanded, painted black an got a gold finish.

Front and back view of the lock hinges in process.

Everything was hammered back on; I even had to make a bunch of nails (60+) to reattach the edge pieces on the wood and the locks. There were made from long iron nails which I ground to size and give it a tip again.

Finished front view

Finished perspective view

Note: I forgot to make a picture of the inside. I put a piece of hardboard to the floor. The walls inside are really uneven so I couldn't put hardboard against it. Therefor I decided to sand it down the best I could.

Steampunk Hat (2015)

For this years EFF theme I've chosen Steampunk. This is a fantasy sub-genre which takes place in the Victorian era were steamturbines, mechanics, gears, copper, leather and brass are the main components.

With such an outfit it is quite regular to wear a hat. Top hats aren't that cheap, but there's a cheap way to create one using crafts foam.

For this projects I used some help from "Lost Wax"on Youtube, who does some more handy tricks with crafts foam.

These are the 2 video's I watched to get an idea on how to make it.
-How to make a Top Hat, DIY Steampunk Fashion Pattern Tutorial
-How to make a Mini Top Hat! Mini Top Hat patter and Steampunk DIY Instructions

First measure up your head (Circumference), then try to figure out the depth/ width of your head. You can cut half an oval out of paper and put in on your head to see if it fits. If it doesn't fit, make it bigger.

With the depth/ width you can make a cross. Use the outer points to draw an oval. With measuring tape you can see if it is close to the circumference of your head.
Cut it out of a piece of paper and see if it will fit.

If it fits: Good, go to the next step, if not; Keep cutting until it does fit.

Make the rim:

I used 2 layers of foam and some thin cardboard in the middle. Looking back, this cardboard might not be necessary.
Glue the cardboard to 1 layer of foam. Trace your head oval and draw another bigger oval around it.

Tip: Do the drawing on paper and trace that on foam. Drawing on foam will create dents and lines, so you want it to be as neat as possible.

Cut out the big oval (Leave the middle one. Now glue it to another sheet of foam and cut the outer line with a cm extra space. This extra bit of foam will be folded over the rim, making a cleaner edge (Watch the video).

Cut out the inner oval and see if it fits. If it doesn't fit:
To small: Make it bigger.
To big: No worries, you can glue an extra band (or more) of foam to the inside making it fit snuggly around your head.

Making the pattern.
-Think about the amount of parts you'd like. I've used 14 parts of which the front part is slightly bigger (and has 2 flaps)
-Measure how tall your want your hat to be.

Calculate the bottom part of the parts by retracting the size of the front piece from the circumference of your head.
F.e.: Your head is 52 cm, the front piece is going to be 6 (making flaps 2cm)
52-6 = 46 cm
Divide 46 by 13 (the amount of parts) = 3,54 cm (It's better to be slightly bigger so make it 3,6 cm; this way you're sure to cover the hole for your head.

Now a bit of a tricky part; the 3 parts of the back have a smaller bottom measurements than the ones on the side; I did this to have a nicer curve all around.; meaning the other parts need to be a tiny bit larger. So instead of 3,6 cm we'll make those 3,8 cm.
3,8cm x 10 = 38cm + 6 cm = 44cm.
52 cm - 44 cm = 8 cm / 3 = 2,7 cm

So our measurements are going to be:
1x Front part: 6 cm
2x Flaps: 2 cm
10x In between parts: 3,8 cm
3x back parts: 2,7 cm

The top part is going to be bigger. You can make that f.e. 5,5 cm
And let's say we want it to be 12 cm tall.
This gets you to a pattern that looks a bit like this:

These are examples of how a pattern could look; these are not on scale!

Tip: Always start with a line straight up or outwards. Never go inwards with your pattern, it will make it look goofy and may not fit your head anymore.

The front part (6cm) get's the same curved line as the back one.

Trim the edges. Because the hat is round and your parts are straight, it looks better to smooth this out.
I folded the top edge over, this isn't necessary but it creates a bit more sturdiness.

Glue your top part to the rim and glue a new oval in place. It's a bit difficult to calculate as there isn't a 100% accurate formula.
You can roughly measure the width/ depth and try to make a nice oval the same way you did with your head + you can measure the circumference.
Try it out with paper. If you think it's correct: Glue some foam to cardboard (you can do without, but I like it to be stronger), cut it out and glue it in place.

Time to add some detail.
There's a lot of things you can do from this point to make it to your liking. I only added some edge straps.
For the rivets I used adhesive pearls from a discount store.

When you're done you paint it all black. I've tried many kinds of paint to see if there's a different, but they all stick to it fine. Spray painting wasn't a favorite. It takes a while to get it covered; it looked more like it got burned or something.
Cheap acrylics are great.

After the black coat I used brown silky shine acrylics and used the dry brush technique to get that old worn leather look. The rivets are highlighted with some gold paint and some black silky shine acrylics are used for the edge straps.

Down below you can see the steps taken:

Front side 3 steps

Side 2 steps (I forgot to take the black painted picture)

And the 3 steps in perspective view

  

After the paint job I added eyelets and some laces.
Also I bought goggles from Ebay to finish it all off.

Finished hat front view

This has been my first hat, so there's room for improvement. In the end it turned out quite nicely (Too big, but nice)

Tardis Mirror Frame (2015)

To complete the previous Dr. Who Tardis post; I've created a mirror frame for my Whovian Friend.

The Finished Tardis mirror with the doors open.

I don't have all the pictures from beginning to end. Mainly because it's the same process as the Tardis from my previous post

To start I first made a 3D model. This way I knew what the measurements were. I did change the depth of the frame during the proces (making it a bit more deeper)

3D model of the frame; I used some basic coloring to give myself a quick view of what it would look like. (No lights, fancy backgrounds, accurate coloring etc.)

From that model I made all the wooden pieces and glued them together.

When you've got all the pieces you can start sanding.
I used plywood which edges always need a bit extra care. I used wood filler to make it smooth.
2 Layers of grey primer were added and finished off with 2 layers of "Tardis-blue"

After the 1st layer of primer and some sanding.

The backside was left open, so the mirror could be glued in place. In the building plan I  left a small rim (0,5 cm) so the mirror would stay in place no matter what.
 

3D model of the backside; note the rim for the mirror + the extra space in the top part to fit in the electronics.

Backside with the mirror in place.

The mirror is glued with contact glue and the rim with wood glue. To this the back plate was attached.

Just as the miniature Tardis I added some light to this one.
The top part is hollow making some space to put in the wires, LED's and batteries.

Small lid with the battery pack.

Front view with the lights on.

Some hinges were added and details were glued on and there you have it: A Tardis mirror frame.

Finished Tardis

Side view of the Tardis

This frame is able to stand on its own. I added some anti slip feet to it.
If you like to hang it you can either drill 2 holes in the hollow back part or use 2 hook with eyelets.