Great Lakes Garrison & Base

Hey gang,

Well I finally have some time this weekend to get back to the ol' Tusken, and I hope to finish up my Gaffi stiff this weekend. Tonight I plan on carving some tribal designs into the main shaft of it. Other than that, construction is complete.

Anyone have any advice on painting it? Up to this point, I've only really finished soft-parts. ANY hard-part paint finishing advice would be greatly appreciated! I obviously want to go with a weathered/rusty/metal look on the spiked end. Should I go with a wooden look for the rest? If so, how can I do this? Or should I make the club end look more like a rusted out pipe?

Close up pics of your finished pieces would be great.

Thanks in advance!

Here is what I used on my gaffi....


This is one of those pine craft thingys that they sell at Hobby Lobby (or other craft stores).


Two glued and clamped overnight between a one inch piece of pine that match the diameter.
I penciled in the criss cross lines, dremeled using a sanding disk, and then used a "V" shaped file to get the desired look.

The main portion of the stick is PVC as you can see in this pick.


You can also see the plumbing piece I used for the turn/elbow of the gaffi. It fit right over the PVC shaft and attached nicely to the wood club portion.

I did not end up using the plastic portion that you see on the end of the club because after painting in the browns and black that I used in my color scheme it looked like a giant acorn. Not good.

The sharp part a wood dowel (that too fit right into the PVC shaft) cut down in a jig I made for my radial arm saw. Multiple cuts and rotating the stick after each cut until close enough and then sanded it down.



The fins on the sharp part are just plastic. However, it is a plastic that will give a bit when under pressure hopefully reducing the risk of breakage. So far so good on that one. Been trooping a while with it and no breaks. My son Zane who has a child tusken also has a smaller scale gaffi just like mine and also no breaks on the fins.

The fins have an amount of plastic that fit into a groove that was cut with the dremel and the sanding disk. Glued them in with super glue.

As far as the paint colors I used...I went a bit different than most Gaffi sticks.
For the sharp/pointy end I did want the metallic but I wanted it to be dark or with dark accents. I painted it with metallic pants using gray, silver, and black. I did use the Krylon brand with the hammered finish to bring out that mettalic look.


When I got close to the color and texture I liked, I used the same paint on my gaffi that I used Krylon Fusion Textured Paint. This is the same stuff I used on my costume to weather it. It actually has sand in it which worked great for the costume. Kind of caked the sand right into the fabric.
I used black, dark brown, light brown , and a green that they had too.

Here is a pick of my gaffi...but I did end up changing the club part to make it look less like an acorn.



Here are some pics I used when I was building mine...




*Note the color of the club.



Let me know if you need any dimension or any other info on my gaffi.

I think most importantly, be creative! Stay within the costume standards here - http://www.kraytclan.com/forum/viewforu ... 19&start=0
but be creative.

Good luck!

Jerry