Wesley Scoggins
Indy Mogul
Wesley's Weekly HOW TO: Grenade Launcher
Grenade Launchers, what do I have to say? When you really need to have your hero blow something up, and he doesn't want to actually take the time to throw a grenade. Seen in classic action films such as Terminator 2, it's a classic "heavy artillery" weapon. Here is one I created for less than 12 dollars that you could make for your own film.
I started with a trip to my local Supermarket, and found this break open toy cowboy gun for 10 dollars. This one came with a "boom" noise when you pull the trigger, so if you found one without a speaker in it, it would probably be much cheaper. The reason I am going with this rifle base is because it's generally difficult to make your own locking and unlocking mechanism, and gun stock that looks like it was professionally made, so I thought I would spend a little extra money for this design, and get a toy stock, instead of trying to make my own.
I unscrewed the sides of the gun, and removed the barrel that was in it, then cut off the top with my handheld jigsaw. For whatever base you get, your going to have to modify your work to fit it, since not everyone is going to be able to find this same exact model. But the same general idea applies.
I got an approximately 40mm wide PVC tube, and I epoxied where the barrel was. I started with a silver undercoat on it (and started building up the handgrip section below it with some plaster, which i've already painted brown in this picture).
\I then went over the silver with a layer of black, and darkened the stock with alternating smeared strokes of brown and black to give it a more natural wood texture. And that is more or less it. I added additional darkened paint to the grip on the bottom, but the final prop is relatively unchanged. I was going to cut a sighting mechanism for the tip, BUT unfortunately my jigsaw blade snapped, and I don't have a replacement. So the launcher is not the finished design I had in mind, but I think it's "ok" as is, especially if you don't want to make a precise replicate of a real world grenade launcher (as this is just loosely inspired by the M79 that most people think of when they think of "grenade launcher".)
Next is the Cartridge. I got a wooden dowel that fits in the tube rather tightly.
And cut it about 2 and a half inches high. For the tip of the cartridge, I want it smooth, so I got a super bouncy ball from my local supermarket for 25 cents, and..
And I cut it in two (get help with this if you question your cutting skills, they can be tricky.)
Then I hot glued it to the tip of the dowel, and smoothed out the seam with plaster.
I painted the head a yellow gold (this is the color that American High-Explosive rounds are colored, so if you want SOME realism, just a bit of trivia for you), and the body green. The bottom of the cartidge is a flattened out bottle cap that I attached to the bottom with hot glue.
And you see it loads into the tube, and you can click it shut, then take it out after you've "fired" it. For the firing smoke, and explosion, check out Detonation Films for plenty of explosions and smoke trailers that you can composite into your film to finish the illusion.
If you have any questions or want me to expand on anything, just leave a comment below!
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