Whiplash Arc Reactor MK II

I enjoyed making my iron man arc reactor i decided to make another one.

After watching Iron man 2 i decided i liked the idea of making Whiplash's MKII arc reactor.

here is how i went about it.

Tools :

- Cutting tools (knife, saw etc.)
- Files, sand paper
- pliers , wire cutters 
- i had acces to a laser cutter but alot of this could be cut by hand if you have the tools.

materials :

- Perspex 3mm, 5mm, 
- styrene 1mm , 2mm
- LEDs bright white  x 7
- EL wire 1m
- spray paints
- glues

I drew up some plans on my computer to mimic the the reference images I found online. 

I designed the arc to be made of a few main parts that were made up of layers of plastic cut out on a laser cutter.

Once I had all the separate parts cut out on the laser  I started to glue the groups together.

the parts that needed glueing together are the LED emitter rings, the outer beveled case, the inner arc case and the base.

I'm calling it the heatsink but it could be anything.

anyhow, I cut 25 little blades with three holes init so I could link it up and make the blade circle. 

I made a jig by cutting out a disk with slots that hold the blades in place while I fed in the thin 1mm styrene rod through the holes. 

Once I had fed on all 25 blades via one hole on to the rod I glued the end in place then started with another line of holes in a different starting place so the weak spot wouldn't be in the same place.

I etched a pattern onto the LED disk and inked the lines and polished off the excess to leave the marked lines nicely black while the rest of the disk is white. I fed 7 bright white LEDs into the holes.
 The third and fourth images just show what it will look like when finished. 

I took a sander to the outer case as it needed to be beveled I sanded the whole disk down then I filed the four insets down with a square file.

I primed all the parts with a flat grey primer. 

Once dry I split the parts into three groups.

The outer casing and base parts, dark metallic grey.
the inner arc casing parts, light metallic grey.
the heatsink parts, gold.
 

I painted the LED emitted rings a silver colour to make them stand out a little more..

i glued the rings to the white LED disk and then stuck the LED assembly to the read of the holed base.this forms the base of the inside arc case.

i wound 1m of white EL sheet round the inside of the arc casing and mounted it at three points of the case then glued the outer case ring to the base of the inner case.


The last pic shows what it should look like at the end.

i cut four T shaped brackets and bent them to form the brackets that hold th front bezel on.

i then painted them with the light silver.

I realised that I hadn't made the gold wires that go on top of the holed part on the base.

so I drew out the shape on my computer and printed it out and set about bending some wire to the shape. I bent 9 parts. 

I painted the wire parts gold and once they were dry I glued them around the base. 

Once those parts were glued on i stuck all the other parts together and glued the heatsink on the top of the LEDs in the middle and turned it on.

I let the glue dry and made sure everything was correct then I took some pretty pictures of the arc.