One of my all time favorite movies is Aliens. And what is more iconic from the movie than the M41a pulse rifle. The movie was such low budget that they couldn’t afford VFx for muzzle flashes so the gun is an actual working Thompson 0.45 SMG with the barrel sawed down and a sawed off Remington 870 12ga shotgun as the “grenade launcher” and the grenades Riley loads are 12ga blanks. And around this was an aluminum frame. To avoid this seeming as janky as it sounds the set is super dark and the guns are weathered to the point to absurdity. So I built a 3D printed version that a prop maker had posted. The display runs off an adafruit feather m4 (I know absurd to drive 2 digits). I heavily modified the guts to get that inside. There is a reed switch in the lower where a magnet in the magazine tells the feather to activate the display). Fun fact: a congressman asked after seeing the movie if the M-16 could have one and the military declined as glowing red LEDs are a poor idea on the battlefield. Additionally fun fact in aliens 3 you note the rifles are totally black which was because the frames were lost between the movies and the plastic replacements didn’t look right but solid black hides all sins!
Finally getting to the Glowforge part. I wanted to wall mount it so of course needed mounts and a sign. This is Rowmark brushed aluminum 2-color acrylic from Johnson plastics. This stuff is THIN (I used a paper cutter to crop it to fit the GF). The weathering is silver rubnbuff with burnt umber oil paint to add that greasy grime and Vajjelo rust pigment. And yes the M3 screws are real and functionally cosmetic. If you use this stuff you need to drop the power waaaay down and speed way up or your engrave cuts. Did I mention it was thin?
