Build Plans: How to make a cyborg

POSTED BY , 09 July 2007

How to make a cyborg

by Erik Beck

Hey everyone and welcome to the technical blog for Episode#9 (cyborg). We had a lot of fun with this build and I think it shows. As with any of my "junk builds" you might not be able to find the exact pieces so be creative and improvise if you have to.

Shopping List

1. Large PVC connector .
   (You could really use cut up pieces of cardboard if you had to, a bit of plastic looks pretty much the same as bit of cardboard if they are painted silver.)
   
   
2. An old Rolodex.
   (I took this apart and used it as a shoulder piece.)
   
   
   
3. Some orange plastic cord.
   (It just happened to be orange and I thought that would look cool.)
   
   
4. A magnetic coin tray.
   (Again, just some piece of plastic crap I thought would look cool.)
   
   
5. Silver bubble wrap envelope.
   
   
   
6. Duct tape.
   (You can probably assume I will be using duct tape in all my projects.)
   
   
7. Old costume jewelry.
   (For the cyborg face implants.)
   
   
8. Nose putty.
   
   
   
9. Liquid Latex
   (I was having some trouble sticking my eye scanner to my face, so I used a little bit of this to help)
   
   
10. Old leather glove.
    (Just one)
    
    
11. Spray paint.
    (Silver.)
    
    

The face implants

So as I mentioned, I found two really cool pieces of costume jewelry at the East Bay Depot. Well all I really did is stick them to my face with a bunch of nose putty (to create a fake flesh build up) and a little bit of liquid latex (to help with the stickiness).

The cyborg super arm

In my opinion the coolest thing I've made so far. I started by cutting a large PVC coupler in half. This left me with two rounded plastic panels which I used for the bicep and forearm pieces. Glued to the top of each of these panels was a plastic ring I also cut in half. Now my plastic panels have a lip around the top.

Next I took apart that old Rolodex and cut a half circle in one end to help it fit over my shoulder. Then using a drill I made 5 holes in the base of the Rolodex (shoulder piece) and 5 holes in the lip of each plastic panel.

Now we are ready for paint. I knew I was going to be wearing dark clothes under my robo-arm so I painted everything straight silver. When I painted my glove I notices something cool. The paint really stuck to the leather parts, but only turned the mesh parts grey instead of silver. This created a neat two-tone effect that I wasn't expecting.

To put it all together I used the bright orange tubing I found at the junk store. I hot glued a length into each hole in the base of the shoulder piece, then through each hole in the bicep and forearm piece. Finally taping to the ender side of the magnetic coin tray, which acted as a armor over the top of my hand.

The last step was to make straps. I used duct tape and cut up pieces of the silver bubble wrap stuff.

Send us your cyborg movies!!!

Check out this build in action, from Episode 9 of Backyard FX