Monthly Archives: October 2017

How I made a Wynonna Earp Peacemaker

I recently made a couple of guns based on the demon killing Peacemaker featured in Wynonna Earp

Image from Autostraddle – goo.gl/yrEbfT

They ended up looking like this:

Note: The yellow coloured LEDs are significantly less bright than every other colour and barely show up in daylight. So unless you’re dead set on it being yellow or can find some brighter LEDs than the ones I link below, I would recommend a different colour. Perhaps blue? That’s in the show, looks pretty cool and is brighter:

If I’ve missed anything or you have any questions, get me on twitter @LizzipFish

 

Materials List

An alternative to the perspex rod is a hot glue gun stick: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Glue-Sticks-Ankier-100mm-Melt/dp/B074ZKFCB2?th=1 – generally cheaper and works almost as well

 

Tool List

 

Process

I started with the Toy Cap Gun

Removed the red stopper from the barrel and unscrewed the handle

Applied the first coat of paint to the two plastic handle sections and left them to dry (the paint I used took quite a few hours to dry)

The detailing and sights on the barrel made the barrel too wide for the stainless steel tube to fit over, so I filed down the fake screws (two of them)

Sawed off the front sight

And filed down the whole pattern on the barrel a little

For the new barrel I used a 13mm x 220mm x 0.5mm thick stainless steel tube, cut down to size with a saw and filed the ends to get rid of any roughness

I measured 70mm up from one end. This is the length of the bit attached to the underside of the barrel

And drew a straight line to the end of the barrel. A slot will be cut here to fit over the bit attached to the barrel on the gun

I drilled holes along the length of this marking using a 1.5mm drill bit, then expanded them with a 2mm drill bit

I used these holes as a guide to cut along with the saw

Tidied up the holes a bit with a mini file (these holes are mostly hidden on the underside of the barrel so they didn’t need to be too neat)

Then slid the tube onto the barrel of the gun

All the way down to meet the base of the barrel

I needed to remove the cylinder from the gun. In order to do that I had to cut off the stopper keeping the cylinder on

On the first gun I only filed down the stopper slightly, just enough to remove the cylinder. On the second gun I removed it completely. Filling it down slightly was a better option, as the cylinder tends to fly off when you open the gun if you remove the stopper completely

Then I drilled a 3mm hole into the barrel from the cylinder area

And fed two lengths of wire all the way through the gun

Firstly through the just drilled hole and down the barrel, then through the hole above the trigger

So that the wires came out into the handle

Then I put the cylinder back in and closed the gun, and pulled through any excess wire so it was mostly hidden under the cylinder

I stripped the wires coming out of the barrel

And added a small bit of heat shrink tubing onto each wire

Then I soldered the legs of two LEDs together, soldering the positive (longer) legs to each other and the negative legs to each other

Then soldered the LEDs to the wires, ensuring they did not stick out too far from the barrel, nor too little. They needed to be able to reach the end of the perspex rod in the barrel, but not too far so that you could see them through the symbols carved in the barrel

I moved up the heat shrink tubing to cover the bare wires

And used a cigarette lighter (because I don’t own a heat gun) to shrink the tubing

Then I moved onto making the symbols on the barrel. For each symbol the process was to:

A) Draw on the symbol with the sharpie/marker

Some symbols I took from images of the series, some I just made up. They don’t seem to be entirely consistent in the series anyway

B) Drill over the pattern with a 1.5mm drill bit removing as much of the material as possible, expand these holes with a 2mm drill bit

The more material removed with the drill, the less I had to remove with the files. The filing is the most time consuming and tedious bit of making this gun, it took hours

C) File away the rest of the material with the mini files

I used the round file to remove most of the material, then the half round and flat to get edges and corners

D) Neaten up the symbol a bit

I didn’t bother getting the symbols perfectly neat as you’re not really going to notice the imperfections when waving around the glowing gun

I repeated the process for each of the symbols, making sure I didn’t go past the point where the LEDs sit in the barrel – On the first gun I made six symbols in total, on the second gun I made ten

I marked a purple line where the LEDs reach in the barrel and made sure not to do any symbols past this

To make the symbols glow I inserted acrylic into the barrel to cover the symbol area (or a glue gun stick for the first gun)

When using the acrylic I had to first sand the rod to diffuse the light

This is the difference in how the light is dispersed between the sanded and unsanded sections

Then I sawed off the sanded section

And pushed it into the barrel. The acrylic was long enough for all symbols to have the acrylic behind them, and reached the purple line I had made earlier to indicate where the LEDs sat

Then I used a CR1220 battery on the two wires in the handle to make sure I hadn’t accidentally damaged the wires or LEDs

Next I added the slide switch and another piece of wire (roughly 100mm long)

This involved cutting a hole for the switch in the bottom of the right handle section (the section on the right of the gun as you hold it and point the barrel away from you, the section which did not have the screw hole)

And ensuring the handles still fit together with the switch in place

I placed a piece of heat shrink tubing on the new bit of wire and attached it to one of the outer legs of the switch. I also placed a piece of heat shrink tubing onto one of the wires coming out of the handle, and attach that to the middle leg of the switch. The other wire coming out of the handle was not yet attached to anything

I soldered the wires and shrank the tubing

I reattached the right half of the handle and ensured the switch could comfortably sit in the previously cut hole. This required some bending of the wires to make it fit and sit correctly

I now had two wires sticking out, one coming directly from the switch and the other from the LEDs. I trimmed these wires down a little as they were too long

Next I attached the battery holder

It was important to solder this the correct way around, so I put the battery in the holder, turned the switch to the on position, and pressed the wires against the holder to find which way illuminated the LEDs. Then I soldered the wires onto the holder in that position

The holder was too thick for the handle to properly fit back together, so I removed a small section of the handle where the screw is housed with a knife

Now I could close up the handle and screw it back together

And I had a Peacemaker!

I gave the handle another coat of paint, and this time painted the switch too to make it blend in

On one of the guns I also added a chunky extractor rod collar on the side

This is made from 9mm x 81mm x 0.25mm thick stainless steel tube. I have attached it by drilling two 1.5mm holes in the side of this tube and two on the gun, then threading a bit of wire through the holes and twisting it to attach the tube to the gun

Though the wires are not really noticeable I still did not love this approach, so I only did this on one of the two guns I made. At least it looks good from the other side