Magic Rose

 

 Turns out I never shared instructions for my rose. After being pressured by a whopping one request, I've decided to share this abomination of red cards with the 3 of you who actually look at my blog. I actually posted this tutorial on a site that shall remain nameless, where it was equally unused and found absolutely useless. Here's aiming for 1 out of 2!

(Open the images in a new window for full view)

 

If you attempt this, please share your results. I'd like to see how they turn out and what you chose as your "most hated abundant red card".

This Weekend's Project: 1:6 Scale Pancor Jackhammer MK3A1, Version 2

This weekend's project is part of the continuous improvements tasks, where I blatantly don't try to build anything new and revisit older projects since I have little incentive to go forwards. A little under two years ago, I built a 1:6 scale model of the defunct Pancor Corporation's Jackhammer automatic shotgun. That model was pretty good back then. But that's like saying "You did a great job there building that hovel with those rocks and twigs, but you could have used this shovel if you knew how to back then and make it suck less."

So, with Disappointment Depot behind us, let's move onto another Bad Tutorial! Last time, I attempted to teach you how to build a TF2 shotgun. Now I'm going to semi-attempt to tell you how to build your own Pancor Jackhammer. Chances are if you can't build the first one, you sure as hell aren't going to make it far on this one! With the demeaning taunts done (or am I), let's get to the schematic.

For this task, you'll need the following tools:

• Stack of Magic: the Gathering cards (or structural equivalent, Yu-Gi-Oh! cards need not apply.)
• X-Acto knife and a cutting surface, and regular scissors
• 110lb cardstock and regular printer paper
• ruler
• Sandpaper (coarse grit at a minimum)
• Tweezers (by Yawgmoth almighty, you'll want these badly)
• Elmer's glue (any strength, but not a Glue Stick), and Super Glue of any type
• Paper clips, and preferably a 1/8" diameter rod
• Dial calipers (oh hell yes you need this unless you're a savant)
• This excel spreadsheet from this explanatory post explaining how to make cylinders out of paper
• Guide to building with Magic: the Gathering cards (optional)
• Pliers (recommended unless you're a badass)
• 1/16" hand drill (highly recommended, but completely optional)

 That's a lot of tools, no? You'll need every single tool here unless you're a badass. I'm not a badass.

From the schematic, you'll need to make a few templates out of cards or 110lb cardstock to trace out sections of the gun. I've drawn some diagrams of how some parts need to be assembled, but you'll have to fill in the gaps. It's like woodworking, or shop class, except my shop class experience was a lot of New Yankee Workshop episodes on PBS and no actual building.


I've fortunately done most of the hard work for you, mapping out all the major components. We'll break down the gun into regions to work on. We have the following zones and sub components:

• Magazine (1x 9mm outer diameter, 2mm inner diameter 110lb cardstock cylinder, 12.5mm long; 10x 3.175mm inner diameter, 4mm outer diameter printer paper cylinders, all 12mm long)
• Grip/receiver (Magic: the Gathering cards, to be documented later))
• Pump (2mm diameter rod, 75mm long, made from a paper clip and covered with a roll of printer paper glued with loc-tite super glue; lots of MtG cards)
• Magazine housing (13mm wide x 32mm long MtG strips glued together to form a 10mm radius half arc; 2x MtG card covers built to schematic specs, 4 cards thick)
• Stock (2x 8mm outer diameter, 3.175 mm inner diameter, 16mm long 110lb cardstock tubes)
• Carrying handle/sights (MtG cards, to be documented later)
• Barrel and muzzle (45mm long, 3.175 inner diameter, 7mm outer diameter tube; compound tube with a 13.5mm long, 8.5mm outer diameter first section; transitioning to a 10mm outer diameter, 3.5mm long second section, uniform 7mm inner diameter throughout; 100lb cardstock)

Good Galacian, that was a lot of stuff to build. Here's what most of that junk looks like:

If you thought that was hard, well, the rest is more of the same. Time to explain the receiver/grip and the pump. For this model, we're going to make the model have a sliding pump to release the magazine like the real one supposedly does. You can skip parts of this if you wish, and it'll make the job obscenely easier. I'll note the options you can skip if you want a static model and describe anyalternate steps in italics.

The top part shows the template for the grip/receiver. Trace out this on a 4-card thick lamination of Magic cards.  Cut a 2mm wide groove along the receiver, above where the trigger guard is, but only cut it 3 cards deep and not all the way through to the 4th card. Glue two of these together to make a 8 card thick block of Magic cards. Add two 3-card thick panels of 33mmx13mm to the sides of the receiver to thicken it to 5mm.

The pump needs a template too. Of the 9mm tall section, you'll need just 6mm of height, as the center region will mate with the barrel's underside. Do the same as the receiver and cut a 2mm wide groove on the bottom of two 4-card thick sections of the pump. Roll printer paper around a straightened paper clip until you reach a diameter of slightly under 2mm. Glue this rod to the pump groove, and only to the pump groove. Highly suggest using loc-tite or super glue to coat the rod to enhance durability. Make 16 cards thick worth of the center part of the pump, then another 3 card section of the full profile to do the side grips. The additional 3mm will overlap the barrel, and needs to be bent outwards slightly. Tweezers helps a lot with this task.

The magazine.

I want my magazine to be removable and to be able to have ten 12 gauge shotgun shells be loaded into the chambers. If you're making this model static, simply build a 18mm outer diameter tube with any reasonable inner diameter and a height of 12mm, and skip the rest of this step.  Glue 10 of those 3.175 ID/4mmOD tubes around that 9mm tube. Fill in the crevices with some wedges made of MtG cards or anything handy. I offset the 10 tubes by 1mm from the center one so the shotgun shells sit flush with the cylinder face. After this, sand the outside smooth and cover the outer perimeter with printer paper.

The Magazine housing.
Didn't take a damn picture, so here's what you're ultimately trying to get:

It's a hollow section made of two walls and a half circle arc made all of Magic cards. Trace the front profile of the magazine housing from the schematic and make it 4 cards thick. With two 13mm wide, 32mm long strips of Magic cards, glue them together to form a half circle and glue that to both halves. You want the bottom open area to be the side that is completely circular and not the side with the weird dome. Fill in the top dome with 110lb cardstock and sand flush with the sides.

At this stage, you'll want to make the grooves on the side of the magazine. Make some right triangles with 7mm height and 5.6mm width for the side facing the barrel. Make a series of "L's" 6mm tall and 5.6mm wide for the other side. Printer paper works fine.

Barrel and stock assembly: 
Barrel's just two tubes as described earlier, but you'll need to cut the muzzle at a diagonal. Join the muzzle with the barrel and leave 40mm of the barrel in length unobstructed. To attach the barrel to the receiver, go nuts with the super glue or add a 3.175mm diameter rod to the receiver to support the barrel.


For the stock, you'll use two of those 8mm diameter, 16mm long tubes. Flatten the sides of one of them by shaving off material with a sander/knife. Glue the two to the oval looking shape from the stock's drawing. That section needs to be 12 cards thick. Add the little details for the stock at this point. Should be trivial at this stage.

If your gun looks remotely like this, you're doing great! Time to make heat dissipators!

To make these, I used two 8mmx33mm cards glued together, and curved slightly. I drew a 18 hole array onto the sides and drilled them through with a 1/16" hand drill. You can simply poke a crude hole or make a dimple with a ball point pen. To glue these to the gun, glue three 2mm wide strips of MtG cards to the sides of the upper receiver, and stick these on those. See the photo for a reference.

Carrying Handle.

 Trace the template but leave just a 1mm tall section above the holes instead of tracing the full template. Make two identical 2-card thick sections with that template, then glue those to another set of 2-card thick sections. This time, leave the bottom 3mm hanging off, so that the part with holes lines up with the edge of the Magic cards. This will need to be bent outwards with tweezers. I recommend scoring the fold first.

Glue both halves together and rejoice! You've completed the hard parts. Complete the handle by making two 3-card thick rails and gluing them to the upper 1mm wide section above the holes. Should make sense if you look at the schematic. Now it's detailing time!

 The muzzle isn't cylindrical, apparently. I added some flats using 110lb cardstock, and cut slots with a knife to represent the flash diverter things. You can add the trigger and the oval handguards now. I cut a triangular groove in the pump handle sides which may be noticeable in the photo above.

This part sucks no matter who you are. The stock has a separate region that tapers off. I made it using about 22 cards worth of thickness, and cut it to shape using an X-acto knife. Then, I added the little ridges using tweezers. There's a little circle at the bottom of that end piece which I'm uncertain about the purpose of, but it's there on the photos. Have fun doing that.
 

 So, after a whole week wasted for you guys later, you'll have a 1:6 scale Pancor Jackhammer! Since no company makes a 1:6 scale model of this, this is currently one of few ways you have to obtain one. If you opted to make the moving pump version, go celebrate by buying some 1:6 scale shotgun shells or make your own! You now have the most badass 1:6 scale Pancor Jackhammer model money can't buy (or if you built it poorly, the most crappy model ever!).

 

 Now go equip some infantry and enjoy using excessive force.

J.Norad Refuses to Pay A Man in Singapore $3 For Ammo

After an hour wasted looking for 1:6 scale shotgun shells to buy for cheap, I was pretty disappointed. eBay did turn up some listings for 12 shells for $3. $0.33 per shell. I'm not going to pay $3 and wait two weeks for something that I can have now for fairly little cost. So I decided to attempt to see if it's possible to build my own shotgun shells.


Initial development tests used printer paper rolls to achieve the proper thickness. The resultant product deformed significantly to be used, and wasn't replicable by the average person. Subsequent attempts using whittled bamboo sticks with paper rolls produced good results, but subpar capability to reproduce the results.

The goal then became to provide a consistent means of producing a 1:6 scale shotgun shell that YOU, the reader, could feasibly do in the comfort of your own desk, given the same tools I have. You probably have better things to do than make your own bullets, but it's always good to know you can save a bit of money for other things. Like more guns.

Using an existing Dragon shotgun shell as a model, I measured the dimensions and found that I'd need a 7.5mm long 3mm diameter cylindrical rod, and a 3.175mm diameter end cap about 0.5mm thick with a minor depression in the center. Those dimensions are mighty convenient... A 1/8" hole punch on two Magic: the Gathering cards glued together gets me the end cap dimensions. As for the 3mm diameter rods, I happen to know the perfect source!

GUNDAM runners. I ended up keeping my runners from my Airmaster, Aegis and Blitz Gundam kits. I got a few more from the Obitsu Multi Purpose Clear Stands I bought. They both have diameters of 3mm for the runners. Excellent. And there's also runners that come in red! There's enough runner from one kit (or in this case, one Obitsu stand) to just cut down the smooth sections and ignore the sprues and gates. You only need 7.5mm of material and there's enough material to make about 40 rounds or more. I chose to smooth out the runners to form relatively smooth clear plastic rods, sand them lightly, then trim them down using a Dremel. A saw or knife works fine, but Dremel's for the impatient builder. Can't be bothered waiting 2 weeks, nor 5 minutes of sawing. Got to have my results in 3 seconds.

I found the tip of my beadmaker's pliers had the right diameter to make an indentation into the card face for the primer. You'll need something about 1mm in diameter. Press hard into the card face and you'll leave a minor depression. Use a 1/8" hole punch to punch out the disk and set that aside.

With your 7.5mm long rod sections, use some non-Elmer's glue like Loc-Tite to secure the disk to the end of the rod. The diameters shouldn't be flush, to simulate the rimmed edge of a shotgun shell. Lightly apply a coat of glue over the rim to thicken and seal the card edge. Your shells are almost done. On the other side, you can use a 1/16" drill tip to bore a small hole into the other end to simulate the packaged end.

 Here's a photo of the completed shotgun shells on the left, and Dragon's shotgun shells on the right. Not quite the same, especially with the primer. It's only an issue if you really scrutinize the details up close. Far away, it's sufficient to work with for dioramas or piles of spent casings.

 The front tips don't match very well, but comparing the results with other shells I've seen, a simple small 1/16" hole in the front is acceptable. My shells rather glow due to a lack of primer on the clear rods I used. They rather resemble red gummy bears right now. As a proof of concept, I think the results are acceptable. In terms of effort spent compared to just buying pre-made ones with more detail, if you're going to just toss them around, it's worth it. You won't need the extra little detail in your photos unless you plan on taking up-close images of piles of ammo.

Sewing Some Ushankas

First off, all credit goes to the boys over at The Sixth Division for their in depth tutorial on sewing a 1:6 scale ushanka. If you follow their guide, you'll get some cheap and decent looking ushankas. I'd just like to add that you might want to consider browsing the kid's hat section instead of looking for fleece gloves. I found a kid's fleece baclava for $6 that has enough material for about ten ushankas. Gloves were priced at $9 with enough material for about 3. Of course, there's always thrift.

They kinda look like bad afros. No wonder why it's not supposed to be solid black.

On a side note, I'd suggest making a star and gluing it to the cap. Embroidering one might be a bit tricky since the thread sinks in if you pull the thread taught. Mine look like crap. But hey, not bad for about 10 minute's work apiece. I might try painting the outer cap grey to better resemble the in-game model for the Officer's Ushanka, since the guide does mention painting it to get the right look. A solid black appearance makes identifying the flaps difficult.

Maybe after crafting a few of these things, I'll finally get one in game.

J.Norad Makes Paper Ball Joints

This post is more for personal reference than of possible use to any of you. Today, I'll be covering some parameters for designing a ball joint. A ball and socket joint provides excellent movement capabilities but isn't an easy element to build with paper.

The key to building a robust ball joint with paper is to have the appropriate materials needed. A good ball joint should provide adequate joint stiffness, but it may vary on your application.

Designing the Ball and Socket
You'll need to know a few things first:

• Figure out how big your joint is going to be.
• Figure out how much mobility you want.

Here's some calculations to help assist you in figuring out the dimensions of your ball and socket joint.

Figure 1: The Ball Joint Schematic

There's four design parameters that dictate the performance of your ball joint:

1. Ball radius (r1 in Figure 1) (You'll hopefully know this value first)
   
2. Socket depth (Hl in Figure 1) (somewhat adjustable, has a lower limit)
   
3. Support rod diameter (2P in Figure 1) (adjustable, has a lower limit)
   
4. Range of motion (phi in Figure 1) (defined by values 1-3)
   

For a given set of construction variables, r1, Hl and 2p, you can figure out how much motion your ball joint will provide. We'll use some trigonometry to solve for the angle phi, and use this to determine the total angle your joint will provide.

First, we must acknowledge that the support rod diameter 2P and the lower socket height Hl limit our angle. This is because the rod hits the edge of the socket, defined by how deep (Hl) the socket is. Second, we'll define the angle the joint provides as the angle that the center of the support rod makes with the line parallel to the bottom of the socket. This angle will be phi.

From Figure 1:

1. The red angle Beta formed from the point of contact with the socket edge (Hl) and the support rod walls is less than our desired angle, phi. Since it's a right triangle, we know from the pythagorean theorem that the length of from the center to the tip of Hl is the square root of r1^2 + Hl^2.
2. The angle formed from the line OP to the support rod centerline is the difference between angles phi and Beta. We know the thickness is 2P, and that OP forms the hypotenuse, and half the rod thickness P forms the opposite wall. Therefore, the angle Phi- Beta = arcsin(P/sqrt(r1^2 +Hl^2)).
3. From trigoneometry, the angle Beta =arctan(Hl/r1)

Solving for the angle phi, we get Phi = arctan(Hl/r1) + arcsin(p/sqrt(r1^2 +Hl^2)).

The angle we actually want is the complimentary angle to Phi, since that determines the angle relative to the null position. So we take twice the compliment to Phi (two directions) to find the angle of our joint.
Total angle range for the ball and socket joint = 2(90° - Phi)

Where Phi = arctan(Hl/r1) + arcsin(p/sqrt(r1^2 +Hl^2))

This equation tells us some obvious relations, which help support the validity of the result:

1. If Hl is longer than r1, the angle decreases
   
2. if p increases, the angle decreases
3. increasing r1 increases the angle.
   

Now for the actual construction!

The Socket
The socket should ideally consist of a durable material. 110lb cardstock will not work, as it wears out fast and easily over a few cycles. The smooth varnished surface of a Magic: the Gathering card is an excellent material. It will withstand more cycles and is fairly strong. Since paper (and Magic cards) does not have "negligible" thickness anymore (you're now working with a system that will requires a few thousandths of an inch in terms of tolerance to work well), you need to account for the overlap of paper. Magic cards have a thickness of 0.30988 mm (experimentally measured), which translates to 0.0122 in. This is enough to make your cylinder a slight oval if there's overlap. (If you consider that the accuracy of hand building has a tolerance in the range of half a millimeter anyways, it might not matter in the long run. And you can always correct for it later...)

Figure 2: The socket.

By acknowledging paper overlap, we form our socket by cutting out a strip of Magic card of a length equal to our projected ball diameter so that when we curl it up, both ends sit flush with each other, thereby eliminating the overlap. Once you have your cylinder, you can freely complete the cylinder with additional layer of Magic card without worrying as much about overlap. Removing overlap helps reduce wear of the ball and socket over time, since the raised edge is most likely to wear first.

Remember: paper is not incompressible. You'll lose a few thousandths over time. Adjust accordingly.

The Ball
The ball part is perhaps the most difficult part to build. Not also do you need to have the dimensions as close as possible for a tight fit, it needs to be built well and uniform.

First, you'll need a decent support rod to use. 1/8" (3.175 mm) diameter bamboo sticks are a good choice. They're usually $2 for a pack of 100. Pick one with low eccentricity if possible, and look for non-slivering/splintering ones. Those will snap first over time.

Next, you'll need to use the excel sheet for making cylinders. I suggest using 110lb cardstock for the ball, since it's easier to work with and tears less than printer paper. However, printer paper glued together with superglue will provide a nice solid sphere. I like to sand the ball after it's made, so I use 110lb.

Figure 3: Tapering the strip. Note the 5cm allowance before tapering.

To make the spherical shape, you need to taper the strip to a triangular shape. If using the 1/8" rod method, start the taper from 5cm from the starting edge and taper it linearly to 3mm to the other side.

Roll the paper around the rod as tight as possible. Any gaps or loosely bonded sections will result in failure in the rod axial direction, meaning it will start to deform and separate as you push it in the socket.


After you've finished, your sphere will be somewhat octagonal in cross section. Break out those calipers and sand that sphere down to as best as you can to a uniform diameter throughout. Irregularities will result in uneven performance, where certain positions are looser than others. You ideally want the ball to be a few thousandths (0.003-0.010 in) larger than the socket for a nice snug fit.

Adjusting the Fit
Your ball and socket joint may be loose or come loose over time due to thermal expansion, humidity, wear or other factors. You can easily adjust the joint to regain stiffness. Options include:

1. Adding some additional material to pad out the socket to reduce the inner diameter. I suggest using a small section of paper (printer or 110lb works, depending on the looseness) inserted into the joint
2. Thickening the ball with superglue. Make sure the ball is dried completely before re-inserting.

Miscellaneous
If there are any other adjustments or updates, I'll add them as necessary to this page.

J.Norad's Random Sewing Technique

A quick technique I came across in a sewing book for tying off thread ends. Most of you might find this useful if you're learning to sew and are sick of making knots to tie off your thread.

First, you need to thread your needle through an existing stitch where you want to put the knot at.
Follow the needle paths as depicted in the image




After you thread that through the last loop, just pull the needle out and the loops will close in and form a knot.

Whee. Precise knots where you want them!

J.Norad's Tutorial for Making a 1:6 scale Shotgun

Time to bust out those junk Centaur Veterans, Rock Jockeys, and Mudholes! It's gun making time! Today's agenda: I'm going to try to show you how to make a shotgun out of 110lb cardstock, bamboo sticks and Magic: the Gathering cards. Refer to this guide if you want to work with Magic cards as building material. This is going to use a few techniques most paper model makers might find handy, but it's mostly going to be knifing, bonesawing and Dremel-ing.

First, we need a stock image.This is the shotgun from Team Fortress 2. Simple model, compared to other things I've built. I'm going to show you how to get from this deceptively simple image to a solid model. For your convenience, this full size image is the exact size of the finished model.

Once you've obtained an image of your weapon in question, preferably a side view, you now need to formulate a plan.

From the above image, we can find three main components:

1. The grip/receiver assembly : This is largely an extruded object: the part we need to make looks exactly like this from the side view, but pulled out so it's thicker. Think of what a cube is compared to a square. You'll be making it like a block shaped like this section.
2. The Barrel: This is going to be one of the easiest, yet annoying parts to make. It's just a hollow tube, followed by a shorter, hollow tube, connected with some small rectangular spacers. Not to mention, some bracket thing on the front.
3. The Pump: You're going to hate this part with a passion. Especially if you have the tooling capability of an Amish man with a metal allergy. Look no farther, ye of little machinery.

Once you've formulated what parts you need to make, it's time to draft some plans!
I've taken care of the hard work of figuring out how to measure things with a ruler for you. All dimensions specified are in millimeters, and are basic: meaning no tolerances attached to the dimensions. On the top right, that's my original plans for the shotgun. If you haven't caught on by now, I'm going to make the pump move. Static models are boring!

For part 1: the grip/receiver, you simply need to trace that section onto paper, cut that out, then trace it onto some 4-card stacks until you have 4 parts. This will be approximately 5mm wide, which is the width of our shotgun.

You can simply glue these four pieces together now and sand down the edges flush. Advanced methods involve notching two 5mmx3.175 notches to receive a 3.175mm diameter bamboo stick, as indicated in the lower image:

For the barrel tubes, you'll need to use this reference on making tubes, or this Excel file for making tubes and cones out of paper. That is, if you want to precisely make 4.5mm outer diameter/3.175mm inner diameter tubes. I like my tubes to be as close as possible to the desired dimensions. Cut them to length, and make some 1mm spacer blocks to hold the two tubes together.

Now for the hard part: the pump. This part involves the lower half of the schematic. The lower left covers the dimensions in third angle projection. The lower right covers the concept and upper assembly to hold the pump in place.



If you draw the leftmost figure in the above image to the specified dimensions in 110lb cardstock,then roll around a 5mm diameter rod, you'll get the shape of the shotgun pump. the dimensions were calculated using my cone frustum calculator. It uses the same principles listed in the tube making reference, but with some fun tricks. If you roll up a triangular sheet, you'll form a cone. If you roll up a sheet that has a lot of triangular sections like the one I drew up, you'll form a shape that looks like the shotgun pump, if revolved around the magazine tube axis.

After you've made this solid, you'll need to use your cutting tool of choice to cut out a V shaped notch on one side of the pump. This is shown in the bottom right of the schematic. I'd suggest cutting 2mm wide and flaring out to 5mm. Next, you'll need to cut out that U shaped rectangular piece shown below and fold it to form a U shaped trough.

This will form the upper part of the pump and also serves to hold the pump together from the top. I suggest using two layers of Magic card for this part. For those of you who added the notches into the handle, you can stick some bamboo sticks in there to hold the barrel to the receiver together.

Now all you need to do is add details. The trigger is made from a 3mm wide strip of Magic card, three layers thick. I simply curved the part to fit the drawing and glued it in place with some Loc-tite for extra quick adhesion. To smooth out the pump, I sanded mine down until it was relatively flush. I then used the cone maker formulas to create some cover parts to wrap around the pump sections. This took care of the major surface irregularities.

All you need to do now is add the little details, which should be easy compared to the pump. For the side ejector port on the left, simply cut out a 12mm x 3mm rectangle on the side as depicted on this screenshot:
Screencaps are great for video game model replicas. I took several in the course of making every item from Team Fortress 2. Use these to figure out what details you need to add. If you do a part analysis, they should be easy to make once you figure out of you need a block, tube or a strip of material to make it. when you're done with your model, coat it with some paint primer and finish it off with some nice paint. Then assemble your model, since it's easier to paint parts that move before assembly.

Remember: if you managed to get as far as a rough form, you've done pretty well. A static model was perhaps what my capabilities were limited to a year ago. If you managed to pull off this model and get the pump working, or even understand the schematics, you've done quite a good job. You deserve a medal, if they weren't all gone.

J.Norad's Guide to Building Stuff With Magic: The Gathering Cards

Time to gather all my development notes and techniques all into one post.

First a primer:
Magic: the Gathering is a convenient, abundant work material in some cases, despite the steep initial material costs. A card costs anywhere from $0.26 from a booster pack to $0.13 from a tournament pack. Found in many a gaming shop and teenager's closet, you can secure large quantities of "chaff" cards for little cost. I shall be dealing with non-foil cards, as I have yet to find a use for the foil "premium" cards.

If the idea of cutting up common and uncommon rarity cards scares you, lands are cheap and practically free from most shops and post-tournament gaming. I use anything that I deem "unplayable" or in gross excess, except lands, which I find useful. I particularly have a hatred for Centaur Veteran, from Torment.

Preparing the Cards:
Magic: the Gathering has a nice sheen/varnish to each card. It is slightly waterproof and resistant to some paints and glues. You'll need some sand paper, about the 80 grit range, to get rid of the coating. Once the card has some white showing, you've sanded enough. You may in some cases leave the surface on one side unsanded to take advantage of the smooth surface. Two unsanded surfaces have a drastically lower friction and wear rate than two sanded surfaces in planar shear. I take advantage of this property when making hinge and pin joints with Magic cards.

Elmer's glue is sufficient for working with Magic cards. Loc-tite can be used for emergency "quick drying" jobs or plastinating sections of Magic cards. That involves applying a thin layer of Loc-tite and letting it dry, forming a hard layer of glue on the surface. This is useful for increasing part thicknesses for joints. If you use Elmer's glue to form boards, they will require 2-4 days of drying time to fully stiffen. While they dry, they are relatively bendable and easy to cut.

I've experimentally determined a few ideal card thicknesses for use in construction. A minimum of 4 (four) cards is needed for a rigid structure of small size. For larger components like doll joints, 8 (eight) layers is recommended. Four layers conveniently is the thickness where you can still manage to cut the stack of cards with regular scissors. If you wish to cut cards with a tool, I would suggest cutting four layers at a time, gluing the stacks together, then work on the part as one solid piece for sanding/finishing purposes.

Material Properties- Thicknesses
A Magic card is approximately 0.012 inches thick, or 0.27mm. Depending on how well you apply glue (a thin coat spread evenly is recommended: excess will cause warping when drying), the thickness of the glue is negligible. With the sanded cards, I like to glue four cards together to form Magic: the Plywood. I keep a stack of these boards around for quick access. I do most of my work in increments of four cards for simplicity. Less variance in stock materials.

I have a chart to assist in gauging how much material I need to use for making a solid object.

With this, I can quickly gauge how many times I need to trace a part out before I achieve the required thickness. Keep in mind: Magic cards are not incompressible, nor are they static in thickness. You can easily thicken the edge of a 4-card board with aggressive Dremel sanding by up to 0.5mm. Significant, considering it's 1.2mm to start with. This occurs by delaminating the card's individual layers with frayed edges. This is why you should Dremel AFTER gluing laminates together.

Tooling and Cards
Now you have some 4-card boards, you're ready to make stuff. Treat these boards like wood. Really bad wood. Do not inhale the dust generated from cutting. The dust is a fine particulate.

For making holes, hole punches work for 2-3 layers deep before you encounter significant resistance. This allows you to make 1/4" and 1/8" holes with ease and precision. For other holes, you'll need a drill. Start off with a manual 1/16" drill to make a pilot hole. Don't bother making a hole in a material deeper than a couple millimeters by hand, otherwise it won't be perpendicular to the plane. A pilot hole is key to prevent edge fraying. With a Dremel, use your desired drill size and drill halfway through the material using the pilot hole as a guide, and repeat for the other side. Going straight through causes the other side to flare up like a volcano.

Material Properties: Stiffness
You may find yourself making something longer than the card is. In this case, put the necessary length of cards together and alternate the break between cards with a solid card, like a brick layer. Except, in this case, you want to alternate where the breaks are so they're not all stacked near each other. This weakens the structure significantly. Refer to the figure below for proper stacking.

Material Properties: Bend Radius
A 4-card board can be bent to some degree to form a curved surface. For smaller bend radii, you'll need to roll the card around a dowel first to prevent cracking. You can achieve small cylinders with Magic cards, but anything smaller than 1/4" is difficult. Magic cards are not recommended for tube making, unless the surface finish must be smooth as possible.

This post will be edited as necessary.

This Weekend's Project: Button Making

Sometimes, you need to sew on some buttons. Hopefully, you won't need to sew on doll buttons for 1:6 scale clothes. When you do, you have to end up buying these for 5 for $1.30 at a clothing/fabric store.

Unfortunately, they only sell 5mm diameter buttons of this color. What if you need something that's not... a clear plastic circle?

Being the general nature of how things are made here, you can guess what we're gonna use! Magic! The button thickness is roughly 4 layers thick. Five or six layers can also work, but I don't need the extra thickness. If you wish to try to waterproof these, you can consider covering them in a layer of Loc-tite glue or varnish/epoxy. If you were smarter, you would have some spare plastic lying around to make these with. The only plastic I have handy is a lot of CD jewel cases and some VHS tapes. Not quite ideal to work with.

For the shape, you're gonna need to work on your X-acto skills. Or find a nice hole punch that is the right size. Conveniently, a 1/4" hole punch is about the same diameter for these buttons, but they might be a bit large. I'm making triangular shaped buttons, so I'm going to have to use lots of imprecise cutting and eyeballing. I could have measured these out, but that's too late.

The holes for the buttons can be drilled out with a 1/8" drill bit. Magic cards don't have a lot of strength to them against drilling, so go slow. Or if you used a real stock material like PLASTIC, you'll be fine using a hand drill. Dremel users will want to make the holes first before cutting their final shape. Nothing like drilling a hole and suddenly finding out that the buttonhole is bleeding. Space your button holes 1mm apart.

Ideally at this point, I'd have something to show for my task. I'll highlight the results in the next post, even though the result will be very small.

Construction Techniques: Belt Buckles Out of Paper Clips

Sometimes, you need something now and can't be bothered buying something to gut and harvest for parts. Today, I'll highlight making belt buckles out of regular paper clips. First, you'll need the following items:

• Any paper clip (This was done with regular uncoated non-hex clip paper clips)
• Jeweler's needle nose pliers (rounded tips for bending coils and stuff)
• Small regular pliers (flattened gripping surfaces)
  
• Lots of determination and a steady hand

First, you'll need to straighten out the paper clip. Don't worry about accuracy, as long as it's bent straight. Try to minimize cold working the paper clip (bending it back and forth). The more you bend the paper clip, the weaker the clip will get as you will easily get to the state of fatiguing the metal.

The above image shows roughly the belt buckle shape. You want to take your jeweler's pliers to do the bending, by holding the region where you want the bend to be with the tips, then bending the paper clip around it. You want to form a shape that looks like a window, as illustrated by the top drawing. It should look like a window, or a blocky "8". To cut off the excess material, you simply need to score or notch where you want it to break off, then simply cold work that region. The notch will grow as you cold work it, eventually leading to a fracture.

The trick to getting the buckle to work is to bend the two halves at an angle, illustrated by the bottom part of the drawing shown above. With the buckle bent this way, the belt strap or whatnot will have to overcome more friction to become undone. This will allow you to put belts around curved objects without needing the little pin and notches used to hold a belt in place.

Here's a demonstration of the paper clip belts in use on the Kris Mage.

I've used paper clips to do the loops on the dress where I fed the ribbon through. Below that, there are two belt buckles that hold pretty well by themselves. You'll need to sew or attach your belt to the middle section to complete your belt.

I'll be experimenting with more belt buckles as I upgrade my TF2 dolls with better belt materials. Cardboard isn't cutting it, nor are they up to standards.