Ever since starting to work on the Farnsworth from Warehouse 13, I have been very interested in making replica props. If you've played Bioshock you should recognize this scary thing. It's the adam syringe carried around by the frightening little girl in the game. Well, I tracked down some parts and put it together in a weekend. Now the paint job isn't perfect, and the needle may be slightly curved, but I think it turned out pretty nice. The bottle looks a lot better irl. For some reason I couldn't get a decent picture of it turned on. There are some other pictures after the jump.
Here's one of the in game screen grabs I used for reference.
I started out with this vintage gas nozzle I found on ebay for around $25. It isn't the exact one they modeled the in game version after, but I liked this one more.
It's nice being on the good side of the guys in the shop where I work. I had one of them show me how to use the mill.
The piece that holds the bottle in was cut from an old oil filter or exhaust for a lawn mower. Not sure exactly. Found it with some unused junk.
Interesting assortment of goods being purchased at target. Hair gel, red nail polish, hand soap, and baby bottle nipples. I chose hair gel for the liquid because of how well it holds bubbles. I couldn't find dark red hair gel so I went with clear and tried to make my own.
I tried nail polish first, but it completely ruined the transparency. I should have known though.
Turns out the perfect combination was what I tried next. I grabbed the nearest red ink pen I could find and squeezed out some red ink into the gel. I added more ink until I thought it looked right. It didn't take much, and look at that gel. Used hot glue to fill the neck of the bottle to keep it from leaking.
The LED was pulled out of a flashlight from the hardware store. I wired one lead back through to the bottom of the handle and wired one strait to the chassis of the nozzle.
I tried every adhesive and epoxy I could think of to get the bottle cap to hold to the steel but nothing seemed to work. The weight of the bottle was too much for anything to hold. What I needed was structure.
Structure is what I got. I cut a circle out of wood and inserted the bottle cap from the bottom. Glued it in using Elmer's wood glue and now it's not going anywhere.
Here I made the inside of the nozzle like a flashlight. Just insert the battery pack and screw in the cap. I also drilled out a hole(not very center) into the bottom cap to toggle the state of the LED.
I found something out I didn't know before this. Silicone rubber really doesn't paint well. That piece on the left. It was spray painted, acrylic painted, and dyed yet there it is still looks like it did when I bought it. the paint rubbed right off. So I made a plaster mold of the inside of the nipple and painted that instead. I may make an aluminum cast of the nipple eventually, but this will do for now.
Well there it is. Again not perfect, but I like it. I'm still young. I can learn to be closer to perfect later. Now all I need is a Big Daddy suit and a small child and I'm ready for a con.
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