Ah, the Ninja Turtles. Or the Hero Turtles, if that's how you know them. I've actually got a number of items I'll be making from the 1990s movies, so stay tuned on those! First up, Mikey's 'chucks. This is a rather simple build, so it's a quick write-up. Figure it's a good one to start on though, since I haven't done a write-up in aaaaaaages..... Anyway, I started with some 1" dowels. Yes, there are 3 there. I was making 2 pairs of the 'chucks, and since that means 8 individual sections, roughly 12" each, that meant a lot of wood. Of course, the third one is for something else, but we'll get to that. ;) Since my bandsaw is only 9" wide, and I didn't have access to a chop saw, I ended up cutting each bit out by hand with a hacksaw. Monotonous, sure, but it got the job done. Since the wooden sections aren't actually round, but octagonal, I dragged my belt/disc sander combo out and sanded down the sides. Not too worried about uniformity here - these still needed to look used, and a little bit of bumps and jagged lines adds to the look. Once all the sides were angled, I started drilling the holes I'd need to connect the pieces together. In hindsight, the holes on top should have been a little wider than I made them and the holes on the side should have also had a trench to sink the leather I'd be using in a little bit more. I also didn't have a drill press at the time, so some of the holes are off-center on the tops. Still looked really close though, so I went with what I could. Holes drilled, now I started staining the wood. I could have painted them all with a solid brown color, but the stain made it look more like the movie prop, and won't chip off if they bounce into something. Some of the stain dripped a bit, but the glaring ones I sanded down a bit. I also sanded down the edges after staining, again to give them a nice "I've used these on the Foot for a while" look. After that came the strapping. This was a huge pain, given that the holes at the top were so small. Still came out great though! Why leather though? Most 'chucks have chains or rope, but from what I could find out for the originals they were strapped together with leather strips in most scenes, and the famous finger-twirl Mikey does actually uses a length of twisted fabric (and some hidden movie magic I won't spoil, not that you can't figure it out nowadays lol). For those of you interested in how I did the wrapping, here's a step by step. First, I put one end through one piece, poked it through an upper side hole, through the whole bottom side hole, then used some spare electrical wire to pull it back through the final upper side hole and through the top. Snug fit with the tiny hole on top. Then I pushed both ends of the leather through the top of the other piece, split them through either upper side holes, then threaded one through the bottom and tied them off on one side. I cut off any excess after setting the length, and secured the knot with some superglue just in case. Once I had all eight connected, making the full set of 2 pairs, I hung them up to let the stain set a bit more and stuck my hands in an ice bucket. They *hurt*! These ended up looking really great, and it's unfortunate I don't have any other finished pictures of them. I do have a few improvements I'd do if I made them again, but I'm still really proud of how they turned out. Hope you enjoyed!
3 Comments
raza
11/25/2014 06:33:48 am
Can u sell me a pair
Reply
Brad
10/13/2019 05:32:33 am
The handles are actually round in the first 2 movies and the rope is shorter, in the 3rd its octagonal
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