#4848263
TWO PAGES!

Well, I decided to scrap my blower's gun and rebuild it more accurately, based on ThrowingChicken's measurements.

I started with the U-handle.

Here's a picture of the original:

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Here are the changes I had to make to the Multimedia Mayhem one:

1. Round out the corners on the U's sides.
2. Make a new mounting plate beneath it. This must be duel-leveled as shown in the picture, where it steps up just behind the hose clamp.
3. Cut the sides off the bottom of the "U", and weld them on, as opposed to just having a bend. (This will likely be done in the future)

Here is a picture of mine, as it stands now:

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I cut the mounting plate out of my old gun's body to ensure it is round and about the correct diameter. A new body is arriving shortly, which will be thicker and much more accurate.

I also painted up the old strap hardware:

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Updates to come!
#4848286
Drive on! I'm watching this thread like a hawk....and collecting pieces and parts!
#4848289
Sweet build!
#4849139
As many of you might already know via Facebook, I have officially ID'd the correct green lights used on both the slime blower gun as well as the larger project box which sits to the right of the main tank.

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I will soon be selling mine below market value, as I want to make my investment back.

Details to follow!

I'll be updating this thread with all of my recent purchases for the blower within the next week. I just got excited about this one, as it's been a long search for these.

Up next, some accurate strap clips! ;)
#4851232
The build continues!

It's been a little while since I posted an update, but that's because it's all been boring little things.

First of all, I finally made my money back on those lights. I bought a big lot of them, as they were the only ones available on eBay and have been waiting to get my money back on them to post their part number. Drumroll please.

They're Arcolectric LHM628G panel mount lamps.

Second of all, I created a facebook group called "Slime Blower Builders". It's supposed to mimic the R2-D2 Builders Club, and I hope it will act as a quick way to ask questions and discuss things without having to make a big forum post about each individual topic. Join us! https://www.facebook.com/groups/SlimeBlowerBuilders/

Third of all, here are all of the nifty parts I've been gathering:

Accurate strap clips:

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Accurate 5/16" Legris straights for the red hose and a "milky" neoprene hose that will be painted red!:

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An accurate-shaped ball valve: (EDIT: THIS PART IS INACCURATE)

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An aluminum cone with the correct angle as the screen used nose cone (pictured with MMM's steel nose cone):

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An 4.5" OD aluminum tube:

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And to top that all off, I even received and installed the accurate elbow and reducer on my red ball finally.

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I also ended up printing out my own modified blueprints courtesy of Throwing Chicken. He did all the leg-work. I just tweaked a few things to make it more accurate. I'd show you the full image, but it has all of his measurements on it.

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I ALSO made up some blueprints on the screen-used "pump boxes"/OEM power supplies. (EDIT: THESE PLANS ARE INACCURATE)

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Now that I've got about everything I need, I'll start building. I'll make sure to update this thread as progress is made.
Thanks for looking!
Last edited by KoCo on March 7th, 2018, 12:42 am, edited 2 times in total.
ESpengler84 liked this
#4852900
Blueprints outdated and removed from post

I just got done blueprinting out some accurate blower heat sinks for the Oeco "pump box" power supplies!

I intend to 3D print these and add them to my blower at some point this year.

Blueprints outdated and removed from post
Last edited by KoCo on December 6th, 2017, 12:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
#4852922
Blueprints outdated and removed from post

After studying the heat sinks, I'm convinced that both boxes are the same size, with only discrepancies in perhaps the bends on the strips you mount them with, as well as misalignment of holes causing one to look bigger.
The bends on the bottom right and left are kind of complicated. The dotted line is where the bend starts and ends, the solid line represents where the most bent point of it is. Do not cut there.
I plan to print these out full scale and etch them onto some brass, so I really only needed one measurement to get the scaling correct.
Everything is to scale though if you want to go in and measure everything.

Blueprints outdated and removed from post
Last edited by KoCo on December 6th, 2017, 12:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
#4884477
Updates coming soon (finally).

In the meantime, here's this cool little image. These parts were made by Heavy Props (Crix here on the boards). Mash that "like" button on Facebook if you haven't already. https://www.facebook.com/HeavyProps/

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Next up, a ball valve handle and cutting up my main gun tube.
#4890374
Well, finally some progress has been made! I'm gonna try to get this gun done as soon as possible so I can start refurbishing the slime blower, itself.

First, I cut down the 4.5" pipe on the bandsaw. The two caps fit nicely after some grinding.

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Then I decided it was time to paint the back end cap and get the matte finish I wanted on the nose cone.
I painted the end cap with some black semi gloss paint, masking off areas I wanted chipped. I was going for a worn look so I hit it with some steel wool afterward.
The nose cone, I polished with a brillo pad and some lubricant.

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Next up, I drilled out all the holes on the sides of the slime blower gun. I haven't had the chance to pick up the hardware for them yet. That'll have to wait until the next update.

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I then decided it was time to face my greatest fear: cutting the trench for the ball valve handle. I also wanted to see how those little green lights looked on the gun, so I drilled that hole as well.

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That little "ON ->" sign is present on at least one of the screen used guns, to remind the actors and prop master which way to turn the valve to activate the spray.

All my measurements on the ball valve handle and the trench for it will be available in the near future.

Thanks for looking! More updates are on the way!
#4890386
Love this build!
KoCo liked this
#4892071
Time for an update!

I've been preparing to build the internals for this project. It's gonna be a heavy beast, but it'll mostly be for display, so oh well.

I went ahead and started on the nozzle. I ordered two small steel tubes, one slightly shorter and thinner than the other. I heated the large one, and was able to expand it just enough to hammer the smaller one inside. Once cooled, the two became inseparable. I wanted to go with steel, as I want to eventually replicate the rusty look of this tube.

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I then took a 1.5" disc of aluminum, and drilled all the holes needed. I created the notches with a dremmel sanding drum. This was done sort of haphazardly, as none of the notches on the real deal are symetrical or evenly spaced. Finally, I tapered the whole thing toward the back with my disc sander.

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Here's the evolution of my blower nozzles over the years. The left is an old MMM one, the middle is a styrene one I made, and the far right is the latest and greatest.

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I couldn't find a flanged castle nut that looked right to go on the end, so I made a "close enough" one out of a metal skirt and a normal castle nut, which I ground down a bit.

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And here it is assembled and test fitted into the front of the gun!

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I'm pretty satisfied with this part. It's something I've been wanting to get right, and I think I have.
Hanotron, Kingpin liked this
#4896664
robandliv wrote:Do you remember were you bought your bollards? I am starting to collect parts and that looks the best way to make the Tanks.
The main tank was found on eBay. Sadly, they sold out shortly thereafter. I want to say the larger side tank bollard cover is readily available on Amazon. I want to say it was 5" ID. They're not cheap, but they're worth it.
PeteVenkman1996 wrote:This is...this Is beautiful!!! Im definitely using this thread as reference when I build my own!
Thank you for the kind words, I'm glad I could help!
Hanotron wrote:Hey mate do you still have the file you used to make the stamps for the pump boxes?
My laptop is sadly still down. I haven't forgotten about your request.
#4900749
Hi gang, I'm new to the whole Slimer Blower build. I finally started to take on the project.

I'll just say that this thread is amazing, there is a ton of great I go do here alone.

My question for everyone, do you know the proper green and gray colors for the 3 tanks for the proper screen accurate look?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

James
#4900884
Hello James,

Thanks for the kind words.
The absolute correct paints have never been researched or ID'd (thirty years after the fact, this may be an impossibility), but what I did was opened an image on my phone much like this one, and went to the hardware store. Rustoleum fern green looks perfect, and any medium hue gray will work really well.

http://www.cylandprops.com/images/11.jpg
#4900965
That was probably two or three years ago, but I think I used a Krylon something or another.
Honestly, I have no idea. I think your best bet is to go into a hardware store with reference photos. There's probably a ton of paints that would be almost exact to the blower main tank.
#4903864
How is this gun not finished?!

I aim to fix that soon. I'm nearing the end of fabrication, and will soon be able to assemble this beast.

A couple years ago, I was able to get some good reference photos of the gun handle. Unfortunately, I'm not able to share those images with the community. I am able to show everyone my findings in the form of blueprints and replicated parts, however. One of the main pieces I got reference of is the ball valve handle.

There is one photo I was able to find in the public showing the handle. Here it is:

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From this image, you should be able to verify that the general shape of my build is correct. It's hard to extrapolate much more than that from the above image, but it gives you a grounds to trust that what I'm saying is relatively accurate.

Here are my plans for the KoCo Slime Blower Ball Valve Handle.

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(Direct link here: https://i.imgur.com/6VfXeKd.jpg )

The next part is derived from the wonderful plans that ThrowingChicken sells. His plans are what my build is based on. He did an amazing job with the limited reference he had. One thing that was not quite right however was the trench that the ball valve handle swivels through on the side of the gun. With his permission, I altered his blueprints and am able to share this information with everyone. (Thank you!)

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(Direct link here: https://i.imgur.com/2OLBgwx.jpg )

Here's my build!

I started off by cutting the appropriate parts from a 14 gauge sheet of A36 mild steel. Not a lot to say here other than a file is your best friend when cutting that hole in the middle.

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I then bent it into shape with the ol' vice (not liquor, the metal one).

After that, I sent it off to get welded by a family member. Post welding, it's not perfect, but it's looking pretty good! There's some hard grinds on there, so we gotta smooth that out. There's also some bevels that need to be done.

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Here it is cleaned up a little bit. I could have gone further with it, but that's alright. I wanted to take photos to post. I'll do more on it later. I also cut a 3/4" dowel in half, painted the end red, and stuffed it into the classic AME bike grip. In the first photo in this post, you can kind of see that the handle is mounted like this on the original prop.

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I mounted the ball valve in the gun body temporarily with some wire so I could take some shots and help line up the handle and reshape where necessary.

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That's all for now! I have to figure out how to fit this larger 1.5" ball valve stem onto a smaller .75" ball valve, then the updates will continue, as I don't really want to use a reducer to go from .75" to 1.5" inside the gun. For now, enjoy! I'm excited for what's to come!
#4903887
Before I forget, I have another small update.
I've been trying to find either heat shrink tubing or gaffer tape that was a light brown to go on the end of the smaller Parker fitting on the back of the gun for quite a while. I finally was able to find some heat shrink tubing at a local electronic store that was the right size and just about the right shade of brown.

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Thanks for looking!
#4904250
This past week I worked a lot on the blower's internals. I originally wanted to make them out of steel conduit/fittings, but that ended up not working due to the small space available within the blower. So I went with PVC. If a fitting ended up being too large to fit inside the body, I could just cut it down and cement it in place.

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First I jotted down a rough diagram with all the measurements I needed on it in full scale. I took that to the hardware store and tried laying out all the 3/4" PVC fittings I would need, keeping in mind that some of them would be trimmed.

I then assembled it all, and began cementing everything in place.

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There's a couple things to note in the above image.
First off, you'll see that the threaded rod that comes out the front with the castle nut actually goes all the way through the PVC until it comes out through the back side of the first elbow behind it. This keeps the plate on the nozzle secured tightly to the rest of the blower.
Second, on the Parker fitting that is sticking up in the air, you can see a lock nut for conduit a little further down on the pipe it's attached to. one of these:

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That nut is going to be just behind the hole on the bottom of the gun, and be what all of the weight from the internals rests on. Basically everything will be largely balanced on that spot.

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After that, I got some 4 1/4" acrylic discs which I made into supports for the pipes. The steel nozzle is pretty heavy, and it was putting a lot of stress on the cobbled together elbow behind it. I made sure to make room for the threaded rod from the nozzle to pas through as well.

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These supports also ensure that the nozzle and the nose cone are always centered.

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The next update should be coming in the next week. I'll hopefully be attaching the two halves of the slime blower gun together and fitting the cosmetic pieces on the outside. it's just about time to wrap this project up.

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Thanks for looking.
#4904704
We're so close!

A week ago or so I drilled and tapped 44 holes on the blower! Yay!

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I then added the U-handle with the lock nut I sourced about a year ago. Lookin' nice.

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The biggest thing I wanted to cover in this post was the strap. In the film, the straps are attached with rivets. Very thin and oddly sized rivets. They are so thin that the strap being pulled up over time caused them to bend and become concave.

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I tried to replicate this by modifying the same type of large bolts that you attach a proton pack shell to the motherboard with.

I basically ground down the edges to make them smaller, then ground the tops down to make them much thinner.

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I then riveted the straps down and pried up on them to warp the rivets. It's a very obscure detail, but definitely something I wanted to replicate.

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That's basically it. I just need to install the three static LEDs. Here are some shots of the (nearly) finished product!

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After lights are installed, I'll start refurbishing the slime blower pack itself. More on that later.
robandliv liked this

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