Finally, here it is! This is my version of Marvin the Martian’s Ray Gun from Looney Tunes, 3D printed as a prop for a costume. You can look back at the process of 3D printing and CAD modeling the design in my previous posts by clicking on the links. You can also download the files needed to 3D print your own for free from both Pinshape or Thingiverse depending on your platform of choice. I’m just that generous đŸ˜‰
This definitely turned into a bigger job than expected with the size and quantity of parts required taking approximately 20 hours to print on my Up! Plus 2 printer. However by far the most challenging aspect was getting the glue and paint to dry in the hours before it was needed for the costume party! With it being the middle of winter, things just didn’t happen the way I expected, and I ended up using tape and clamps to hold things in place in front of a small heater right up until walking out of the door to the party. Note to self: don’t use super glue on paint that is still tacky, it just doesn’t work!
As you can see in this image, the surface flaws and layers really became obvious as soon as the undercoat went on. I instead bought a spray putty, applying about 3 coats to most of the parts before sanding them back to get a relatively smooth finish. A couple of the pieces even needed some filler just to hide some holes left from peeling away support or lifting slightly off the print plate, causing gaps when the pieces came together. Thankfully I had a helper on this one while I was busy performing the same process to my X-Men Cyclops goggles (which may be my next blog post – but you can see what they looked like just after printing in a previous post).
All-in-all a bit of fun, and great to add some novelty by having the moving trigger and dial on the back that determines the size of the KABOOM! Make sure you wedge these pieces into the body before gluing to achieve this movement – the exploded view of the parts in on both Pinshape and Thingiverse to see how it all comes together. Enjoy and remember, this is just a prop (we all know ‘3D printed guns‘ can cause a bit of a stir)!
– Posted by James Novak
edditive blog 
Wow wow wow!!! This might be my new favourite 3D print of yours, I’m a huge Looney Tunes fan đŸ™‚
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Hi James,
I stumbled across you and wanted to connect. I am a high school educator who teaches students about design and technology with a specialism in 3dprinting. I also run a successful 3dprinting community called the 3dfilemarket.com. We feature highly talented designers work and also bloggers. I wanted to ask if we could feature some of your 3dprinted designs and also invite you to write a guest blog. We just had a lecturer from RMIT guest blog for us and are keen to focus more on the education of the blog and also on expanding the database of designs with high quality content. I run the website on my own, no companies behind me, it’s purely off my own steam when I am not teaching in the classroom.
If you could email me back at philipcotton@hotmail.com that would be great.
Thanks
Philip
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