Wesley Scoggins
Indy Mogul
Wesley's Weekly HOW TO: Retro UFO
It's been a long time since we last covered the intricacies of space vehicles here on Indy Mogul, but you guys still wanted more. We've gotten lots of requests for a Classic 50's Style UFO, and thought I would show you how to make one really easily.
The great thing about a retro-style UFO is that it has a very simple shape, the saucer shape is pretty much one of the easiest to replicate by using paper plates or pie pans just stamped together. For this build I got a couple of thick paper plates...
Then just painted them with a few layers of silver craft paint. If you want just a basic shape like this, then you can stop now, glue them together, and just string them up, but i'd like to go a little further and get some little lights for the craft.
Instead of doing some custom wiring (that'd take a bit longer), I got this 8 dollar module at Hobby Lobby a few months ago. It is just 10 LED's attached to a box and a battery. You hit the button on the box and the lights turn on, hit it twice and they blink, three times, and they alternate blinking. So you get some neat blinking options, and you don't have to worry about wiring them all up manually.
I started by making a hole for the lights with a pencil, then using a stick I marked off the opposite side, and made another hole.
Then did that 6 more times.
Then I just pushed the lights out of the holes, and taped them in place.
Then I taped the module in place.
Then, using a pin, I just made 4 holes in the top of the disk.
Then string fishing line through them. I used string for this, so it would be a bit more visible, but thin fishing wire would be stronger, and way less visible. Although, if you're going for a purposefully cheesy flying saucer, go ahead and use string.
How to close the disk presents an issue, because I would like something secure, but if I used Hot Glue or Epoxy, it would make the module harder to reach, and require me to poke a hole to hit the button everytime I want to turn it on or off. So instead, I went with these little clips, they are really strong, and if you don't want to poke holes into the disk, you can loop them through these things.
Finally, for the legs, I am going to use some Q-Tips.
Then just cut the cotton tips off of both ends, so I end up with four, hollow plastic tubes.
Then I pushed brass paper fasteners into the ends of them to act as little padded feet, and hot glued them in place.
Next, I poked holes into the bottom, and stuck the legs in. For the "extended" mode, just pull them out, and tape them into place. Then you can just remove the tape, and push them all the way in for the "retracted" mode.
Now, just put it on the end of a pole, and you can be making fake UFO sighting claims in no time.
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