THE BEST HOMEMADE WOLVERINE CLAWS ON THE NET
THEY HAD TO RETRACT AS WELL AS DEPLOY
Now rather than give a full on write up of how these were made instead i thought i'd just give a brief description of my thoughts n thinking while making them as there is a comprehensive build video should you want your own.
The one thing these had to do first of is deploy and retract as ive seen some reasonable efforts of people making claws that go out and not back in or spring in but have to be swung out. They also needed to look like the real claws of wolverine and by that i mean they have to spread out as they come further out so 3 parallel bits of metal would not be enough in my eyes, and last i wanted to make them as slim and discreet as possible. So did i achieve these goals????
The one thing these had to do first of is deploy and retract as ive seen some reasonable efforts of people making claws that go out and not back in or spring in but have to be swung out. They also needed to look like the real claws of wolverine and by that i mean they have to spread out as they come further out so 3 parallel bits of metal would not be enough in my eyes, and last i wanted to make them as slim and discreet as possible. So did i achieve these goals????
Well i can tick the first one off the list as they do retract, working out how to do this was tricky as you could do this in a few different ways but you don't have much space to work with so some ideas get ruled out straight away. I could have used an air ram but to deploy 12" blades you would need a 12"-13" cylinder and it would have to be behind the whole set up so you would end up with elbow extensions "NO GOOD". I thought about using a cable a bit like those washing lines you get in between houses so you would real it back and forth but the cable route at the hand end would be tight and therefore quite stiff to wind and would most likely jam up "NO GOOD" Then i thought about a motor on a toothed track but finding a motor thats got the power to move them fast and fit between the rails is where that idea fell apart so the system which i have here is in my idea the best way i could do it but it does have its flaws to.
The main downer to this system is really the air tank and valves you need to carry to operate them which means you have a rucksack on all the time but the pros outweigh the cons as it works every time, costs nothing to recharge and can increase the speed by charging with greater pressure. The most complicated part of this was routing the hand end internal air passages but once figured out was very easy to repeat and 2nd claw. The system is just a few basic slots and holes drilled between plates so when clamped or welded together form an internal pathway, i gotta say i impressed myself with this.
The Blade spread was a must as parallel blades would just look wrong, If i wasn't bothered about this i could have made blades thicker and stronger but they would look rubbish so 2mm stainless steel had just the right amount of flex but still enough strength not to just fold on impact. When the claws are retracted they compress together into there housing which is what you can hear when there firing out as it gives that nice ring which was a welcome bonus.
So did achieve the slim design i dreamed of, well can not see many ways to make it any smaller as the blades if thinner would look out of proportion if not as long they would not be very impressive. The firing switches are very discreet so no improvement there, would have been nice not to have the plate coming over the top of my hand but without this the whole device moves around your forearm and then you have blades firing in odd directions and possibly into the back off my hand so it shall stay.
So thats my attempt at wolverine claws but who will i have ago at next......
So thats my attempt at wolverine claws but who will i have ago at next......
