Adam Savage's One Day Builds - Blade Runner 2049 Helmet Parts!
### Article: Building Sapper Morton’s Armored Cable Carrier: A Deep Dive into Adam Savage’s Machining Process
#### Introduction to the Project
Adam Savage, host of *MythBusters* and a renowned maker, is back in his workshop with a fascinating project inspired by the iconic sci-fi film *Blade Runner 2049*. The story begins with Dietz, an RPF member, who crafted Sapper Morton’s helmet for Dave Bautista’s character. After the helmet was sold to Adam, he decided to create the entire costume, starting with the armored cable carrier seen on the back of Sapper Morton’s suit.
Adam starts by complimenting the helmet, calling it “stunning” and “flawless.” His admiration for the piece drives him to take on the challenge of creating a matching armored pipe system. This project is not just about replicating something from *Blade Runner*; it’s about showcasing his machining skills and attention to detail.
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#### The Design Process
Adam begins by analyzing the structure of the cable carrier from the film. He notes that each section of the pipe is an octagonal shape, allowing for 360-degree flexibility. He takes screenshots and close-ups of the reference images to understand the design better. While he initially assumes the parts might be 3D-printed, he decides to machine them by hand using aluminum.
The process involves cutting 20 identical sections from a single piece of octagonal aluminum. Each section must be carefully measured and shaped to ensure they fit together seamlessly. Adam also plans to create a receiver port on the back of the suit, which will connect to the helmet. The neck ring is another straightforward part he intends to craft.
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#### Machining Challenges
One of the most significant challenges in this project is the precision required for each section. Adam explains that he needs 20 identical pieces, and any mistake during machining could ruin the entire design. He starts by cutting the aluminum into smaller sections using a bandsaw and table saw, but the latter leaves a larger kerf, causing him to lose some material.
He then moves on to shaping each piece, removing material to create tabs that will allow the sections to pivot. Each tab must be radiused and thinned to ensure smooth movement. Adam also faces issues with holding the parts steady during machining, as they squish slightly under pressure. Despite these challenges, he remains confident in his ability to refine the process as he gains more experience.
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#### Using a Parts Tumbler for Finishing
After machining all 21 sections (with two extra as buffers), Adam turns to a parts tumbler for finishing. He fills it with ceramic media and water, allowing the parts to tumble overnight. This method removes burrs and smooths out any rough edges, giving the pieces a polished look. While he initially fears the parts might be destroyed in the process, they emerge looking stunning.
Adam admits that this step is crucial for achieving the desired aesthetic. The tumbler eliminates the maker’s marks left by machining, leaving behind a sleek, professional finish. He also jokes about his excitement to open the tumbler, imagining the possibilities of what could go wrong—but luckily, everything turns out perfectly.
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#### Painting and Assembly
Once the parts are finished, Adam moves on to painting. He uses black lacquer and acrylic paint to achieve the desired texture, adding a subtle brownish tint for visual interest. The final touch is attaching the pieces together, ensuring they fit seamlessly and function like the one in the film.
Adam also mentions his admiration for *Blade Runner 2049*’s costume designer, Renée April. He reflects on her incredible work, including her early contributions to films like *Quest for Fire*, and expresses gratitude for the opportunity to create a piece inspired by her designs.
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#### Conclusion
After days of meticulous work, Adam successfully completes the armored cable carrier. He marvels at the complexity of the project, calling it “the most complicated mechanical thing” he’s ever built. The process teaches him valuable lessons about machining, including the importance of adaptability and careful planning.
As Adam wraps up the video, he expresses his satisfaction with the final result. Despite some minor setbacks and close calls (like a failed 39-hour 3D print), the project is a testament to his skill, patience, and passion for craftsmanship. He looks forward to continuing work on the rest of Sapper Morton’s costume, which will involve 3D printing and other creative techniques.
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#### Final Thoughts
Adam Savage’s journey through this project highlights the blend of artistry and precision required in machining. From designing intricate parts to overcoming technical challenges, his process is a masterclass in problem-solving and creativity. His finished product not only pays homage to the *Blade Runner* universe but also showcases his growth as a craftsman.
As he concludes the video, Adam leaves viewers with a sense of awe for the complexity of the project and an appreciation for the meticulous work that goes into creating iconic movie props. Whether you’re a fan of *Blade Runner* or simply admire detailed craftsmanship, this project is sure to inspire.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everybody uh adam savage here in my cave with some blade runner goodness back at the very beginning of lockdown rpf member uh dietz d-e-e-t-z uh started a build of sapper morton's helmet that is uh dave bautista's character in the beginning of blade runner 20 sorry in blade runner 2049 um the first time we see sapper he is uh uh farming nematode worms uh in the dystopic future of the blade runner universe and he's wearing this elaborate costume and dietz did a beautiful build it was a commission and later on that commission came up for sale and i bought it i have to first off just give the most emphatic compliment to this helmet i have crawled over this thing in great detail and i have yet to find anything that is wrong with it it is really really accurately built uh this this neck bellows this chef's kiss perfect um it is really rare when you get a piece and you like like i'm looking at photos i have from reference etc and i'm trying to find anything that's wrong and nothing's wrong even the paint job is just this is a stunning piece and so i want to make a whole costume what i want to start with is at the back of the helmet he's got this airline that connects to uh his suit presumably and we see on the back of his suit these two large vents so presumably those vents draw air in or they filter it and they filter it to the helmet something like that i want to make that piece so i did some screenshots i took the uh uh what did i do i bought it and i streamed it online and i did some screenshots and i did some close-ups and here here is where you can see the kind of structure of this it is a caged tube and the cage is composed of sections of octagonal material here is a super close-up of one section so you can see that there's like a pivot here and then that pivot turns 90 and now it's here and on the next link it turns 90 and then it's there so what it allows for is a 360 flexibility for a part where all the pieces are identical i will tell you i spent a long time thinking this was some sort of turnkey operation uh or some sort of product that i could buy i looked up armored cabling and stuff couldn't find it um so i'm assuming that that is a 3d printed part here's i get a lot of questions about why i don't use a 3d printer more often here in the cave i'm doing a work for hire right now and i sent a 39 hour print to that printer a few days ago and last night i checked on it and had eight hours left and it was going great and then this morning i came in and uh the uninterruptible power supply had failed the wall power was good my ups failed the extra insurance turned out to be my liability and this 39 hour print crap the bed with like four hours left look i know that my labor in that print is much lower than 39 hours but frankly in a mission critical job i can build what i was printing way faster i could sculpt it from scratch anyway that's just me complaining me working now will involve me making this armored pipe out of aluminum let me show you okay it's fine fine everything's good i went looking and i found one piece of octagonal aluminum with what i believe is a sufficient wall thickness for me to make hand make hand machine all 20 sections of this all 20 sections of this and then also i'm going to make the receiver port uh i'm gonna make the receiver port on the back of the suit eventually i'll make the other parts of the suit the neck ring etc there's the neck ring that's a pretty straightforward part um i'll probably make that out of red shape um so i've been making drawings now drawings here are not necessarily mission critical for the for the problem but sorry they're not missing how do i say this this is kind of how i i work through a problem and kind of understand it that's the goal here so these drawings are less engineering drawings than uh just a sort of a way for me to wrap my head around this and now i think i understand it i think i've got it um so i'm gonna start uh making some cuts yeah i've even drawn out my order of operations there um the main thing about this is i need 20 pieces out of this and it's only 36 inches long give or take um so i have to be economical economical also also there are some yeah anyway there are multiple multiple parts to cutting this um multiple arrangements there are a lot of steps to machining out 20 of these first there are these in cuts here that like cut this material away and down closer to the id then there is cutting them to the length then there's removing all the material except for the tabs on one side and then the same opposite 90 degree tabs on the other side then it's drawing the holes in the tabs then there's radiusing the tabs then there is thinning out the tabs both on the outside and the inside so that they can marry together then there's adding the pivot uh screws which i think are going to be 440 or 632 button heads i don't know what they have here actually it might vary it looks like it might even be rivets on this but i'm going to do buttonheads um there are a lot of steps to this and there's a lot of ways i could get this wrong so it's just a careful slow machining process here for this 1.25 plus curve all right i should be able to get six out of each one of these right one two three four five six great that's six so that's 24 total i need 20 so i'm making 24 so i can screw them up so i can screw a few up and get it working still so get up all right let's see if i can rescue this oh that bit is ugly i messed up see if i can get the gall off here so um i wanted 20 i wanted 20 connectors i ended up with 21. i thought i'd cut these on one of the band saws the only issue is the bandsaw wasn't cutting straight and i needed these to be nice and perpendicular in their cuts so i used the table saw but it was a bigger kerf and i ended up losing four pieces because of that and i screwed up a cut so i lost two more pieces i now have one buffer i have 21. i have actually two more buffers if i need them because where it comes out of the helmet i don't think it needs to be a full piece it could just be a half a piece and the same thing with where it goes back in so i could uh adjust with some of the off cuts i've ended up with but so right now what i'm going to do with these is i'm going to cut in and leave only the tabs they won't be rounded at this you'll see i'm going to make the next cut in all 21 of these freaking pieces yeah so one thing i'm noticing about my skills is that i'm getting better i'm getting better at holding on to stuff like knowing how tightly and these parts these parts are difficult to grab they squish and i have to accommodate for that and i'm experienced machinists can see i'm playing a little fast and loose with this because the tolerances are aesthetic um so like if the mechanical operation of this was completely mission critical i'd very likely be taking twice as long to do it but despite having made a couple mistakes i'm really pleased with how this is going uh i'm gonna end up with 21 good parts hopefully and uh and here by the way here's the um okay so here is the part as it stands uh so now what needs to happen next is that half of these tabs get half of the material taken out on the inside and the other half get the material taken out on the outside that's the operation i'm nervous about that's the one that's um yeah i still haven't figured out how i'm gonna i haven't figured out how i'm gonna hold on to it yet because i'm just moving forward with just getting this part done you know i now have enough machining experience to kind of it's funny the more experience you have the more you're able to cut corners where necessary that's really what experience is about it's a literally about knowing how to prioritize the decision tree and there's so much more than just the part is perfect on that decision tree there are all sorts of other considerations but only experience kind of gets you there and i keep my finger here um just to feel as i'm moving if i feel any movement in the jig i know i know i know i know but if you were feeling what i'm feeling you'd feel comfortable with this too this is a aluminum specific bit an alu power expensive aluminum end mill 3d flute and boy i love the way this thing chews up aluminum it is just it's a beauty and notice i'm not making a second cut on the other side i'm constantly turning these because the back side of your vice should always be your reference sorry that's what i've learned is that i do better when i use the back side of the vice as reference these things all squish a little bit and if they squish and i squish more on one than the other than when i make the second cut it could all go cattywompus i don't mean to get technical on this step of using a little brass hammer to seat everything oh my god it is such an important step we're on the home stretch now one more set of four after this and then i get to worry about how to hold on to these while we're relieving some material then i have to radius them all all right now uh so this spins this way and a climbing cut is that it is moving in the direction that it's cutting um not yeah okay then we're gonna secure it down tight hammer tight hammer tighten tighten pretty good all right here we go the inside tabs have been cut out on everything i think the next step is some hole drilling they're coming along still a lot of work to do still a lot of lines to see but it's too cold and old and subtle in its ways i'm leaving a little i'm taking out a little material i know it's not pretty it doesn't need to be uh and it doesn't even have to be exact i'm just trying to clear space so that this can actually rotate in there later i'll radius this we're almost there 21 parts and this these pieces they're together oh my god i know i know this side doesn't match that side i don't care i don't care this was quick and dirty this is 20 21 custom machine pieces each with one two three four five six seven eight 10 11 12 13 14 15. somewhere just shy of 20 operations per piece times 21 pieces it's 2 400 separate operations and it's a one-day build so i am okay with a little bit of slop so uh now i have a protocol i'm going to start uh rounding these and i'm gonna do do i'm going to do this the poor man's blue just because it's faster i'm going to use the magic marker and then i'm going to take the compass here there we go that's what i'm going to cut on that's what i'm going to sand on foreign all right all right they're pretty they are pretty i just drooled i literally just drooled i was making fun and i was having fun and natural a little bit a key moment in the machining of a bunch of little objects like this would be the deburring stage the final finishing stage and i'm going to streamline that by using a parts tumbler what yes hang on this is a fun build i know look i'm so aware that like people are watching this being like oh that's a c147 hose protector and there's others who are like why didn't you 3d print it and i've already said you know for me this is an exercise and it's a really fun one one i find enjoyable i've been thinking about it for weeks but i'm not cleaning up just yet so a parts tumbler is literally a vessel in which you put your part and you put some media with that part and then you roll them so that the part gets tumbled around in the media and the media that i am using today is ceramic ceramic there you go um the ceramic media bangs around with all of these and slowly just like takes the burr off it's um it's really lovely it also leaves a kind of you see i have a difference between the the asbot finish and my milled finish it eliminates all of that um all those maker's marks actually it's a lot of parts it's going to tumble all night long it's going to tumble all night long all night long here is my parts tumbler and this is ceramic media and in general you run it with a little bit of water i'm going to add a little more to this um two three four five six 20 21. and there's two bad ones in there um and unfortunately they're both bad on the same degree so they can't both end up being a mounting point look it ends up being that i might get 18 or 19 out of this but so um let's see here i had a little bit more a little bit more water yeah um then a gasket a triscuit a trasket triscuit a trasket my tumblr gets a basket a gasket for my basket um okay then a aluminum plate goes over it and we go and we tighten it down i i picked this parts tumbler up a few years ago on craigslist uh and i use it a bunch during the um hellboy samaritan build um i use it a lot off camera i must admit um and i have an idea for it that i've been meaning to do on camera but this will have to be your introduction ah to this face so in general hand tightened and it doesn't feed so then we put it in its carriage looks like let's this it in like this these rollers keep the uh the wing nuts from crashing and that's it i'm just gonna make sure it's super tight i actually built a i forgot about this i built a wrench for tightening these excellent oh much better all right good now i'm positive yeah there we go i'm very excited about what you get to see in a couple minutes all right i'm going to clean up okay it's the next morning uh and as you can hear the tumbler is going we're gonna turn it off and uh open it up and see what treasures are inside i always also kind of secretly imagine that when i open this up all the parts that i've made will somehow be destroyed in some way i'm like always half expecting that to be an outcome i'm going to go put on some rubber gloves because it might be dirty it's it's going to be dirty it's warm i can actually feel the temperature oh foamy i'm going to get out the parts washer all right let's um we'll take a look it's all very cool whoops i want to keep all the media oh man it's disgusting in there in a fantastic way three one two three four five six 21. the reason this is uh yeah that should be it the reason this is a bit blackened is specifically because uh at some point in the recent past i threw in some lapping compound sorry yeah the lapping compound is oily and disgusting but it lent a really neat finish is the parts fresh out of the tumbler very excited let's put them in the parts washer oh i already turned it on whoops hilarious oh i can't wait to assemble this all right we're gonna assemble here we go oh like little jewels foreign super exciting all right that's a fix for later i made the choice here to thread the outside of the two holes not the inside and then i don't have to worry about tightness right because it's just uh poking through right so i can tighten it on the outside yeah anyway oh man this is starting to be amazing my only fear is it's not long enough more dude that is freaking awesome i that is without a doubt the most complicated mechanical thing i have ever built all right i made one last little part for capping to the other end so this is the base and this is the top or vice versa and i'm about to attach this and we can call this project completed oh hey good morning all right i am a very happy camper this morning because because of this look at this beautiful thing oh yeah oh very satisfying sounds and i'm so sure i'm so sure that this exists right like there's a product and i just wasn't able to find it and as soon as this video goes up y'all are gonna point me to it either that or someone in doug harlocker's shop uh carefully 3d printed all these sections and then assembled them and thinks it's crazy that i machined this uh or somebody machine this that part i doubt this might be the first one of these that has been machined or it's the millionth and there was no need for me to go through all of that also my figures for the number of individual operations i don't know let's i mean there's 25 let's see one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen twenty two twenty plus the two ends and i need to make its interface here yes yes right is that an actual inlet it's oh so it is so we could get air up in through there if we wanted to all right so i'm going to make a little coupler tube that goes from here into here but first let's look at this a little more oh so so that's my asmr uh i've made this little coupler a couple of passes on the lathe um i'm gonna deburr it and then this is my uh this is my piece at the helmet oh i'm gonna have to actually pressure that on this fits nicely here in the back oh i want to radius that edge dammit yeah better looking yeah so then this piece where is it this piece which is the start of the chain press fits onto there and allows it to begin oh yeah look at that she's so pretty just doing a little ca glue to hold this on it's not going to be under a lot of stress just there so exciting i'd like this to be black so i'm actually going to try a little aluminum black some gun blocking all right so i'm going to clean first with some acetone and i may need some more oh so i see the anodized coating on the outside of the aluminum stock is actually not taking the black which is fine again i'll hit that with some black paint all right now i got this tiger stripe i'm going to hit this with a black lacquer and that'll be the thinnest paint yeah that'll be the way it is the way uh the paint i'm gonna use for this is a floquel engine black the reason i'm using lacquers is they're durable uh for stuff like this mechanically i don't love using spray paint because it's so dimensional it has such a thick coat and lacquer can go on exceedingly good i gotta build myself a painting area soon a real painting zone this is getting out of hand uh so has a coat of lacquer it all looks a little too new um yeah you see how smooth those are and if we take a look at the screenshots i can see some heavy texturing there so i'm going to add that and i'm going to add it with a little black acrylic paint sort of hand applied do i'm putting it on sort of dimensional so it's going to take a a little bit to to dry i just notice one line here we go with another one once i'm done with this i'm going to hit it with a little bit of some rust color just to give it a a little bit of visual texture it shouldn't just be completely black i want a little brown in there as well the nice thing about acrylic is when you put it on dimensionally it doesn't doesn't shrink as much when it dries so you do actually get some texture and we're back to the front so now i just spin it kind of looking for stuff that catches my eye or doesn't some of the screws are working their way loose a little bit just bringing them back in threading the outside of these two tabs instead of the inside was um it's not a common solution for me i'm really happy that i did it it's got a very positive grab but also you don't have to finesse every single screw in order to get it okay a little rust from archive x here look i shouldn't finish this video without talking about the incredible work of renee april i think that's how you pronounce her name the costume designer for uh blade runner 2049 she's an amazing costume designer in fact has worked on a lot of films i really truly love including way back earlier in her career working on quest for fire a super early ron perlman ray don chong movie with not a single line of dialogue in the whole thing and it was on hbo constantly when i was like 11 or 12 years old and we watched it all the time um so funny that she was a wardrobe assistant on that film but renee april has been around longer than seems possible her film career goes back uh 30 years um which is astounding uh still working still going strong doing amazing amazing work and the the the world of blade runner 2049 is that denis and his whole team built is really incomparable um and uh renee preel i am a huge fan of her incredible work for her and her team so i'm delighted to make a costume part for it okay um here i get to show you this cool part and i think this is where we wrap this up because there's going to be a whole uh there's going to be a whole costume video so here's the connector and oh with a magnet it connects in dude dude he pulls that out oh oh yes i know i still have to put something soft inside there as the actual cord but i view now yeah so i still have to make that part this is all going to be for the zephyr morton costume that'll be a whole separate build they're going to be some 3d printing in that and everything but for right now i have made the armored cable carrier of my dreams for my sapper morton helmet and i think it is now officially completed oh here we go oh it works with glasses hey everybody this is adam savage and i will see you next time oh here let me pull this out oh look at that i can totally reach it i have to admit i've spent a day now with this and um it feels good in a really like it feels sorry i guess what i want to say is 23 separate links each with 18 operations that's over 400 separate uh operations and i gang some of them up here and there but still i was able to complete this in about a day that feels like a real maturation of my machining skills and i'm very you know there are a lot of things i would have done if extreme precision was more necessary um i would have made a plug so clamping these was a lot more of a positive situation i didn't use a plug so some of them got squished and some of the dimensions changed i was aware of that at the time and i had enough adjustability that i didn't have to really worry about that and i built one link wrong i built one link wrong i came in today and i built one more link just because i wanted to see what it would be like to build a link from scratch and i built that link but you can see oh it's two yeah whoops yeah maybe i'll make that one of the last links anyway um oh that's a nice light there you go oh look at this thing it is just it's so beautiful and and the degree to which it like come on there we go right like we are like right in the blade runner world right there deeply satisfying see you laterhey everybody uh adam savage here in my cave with some blade runner goodness back at the very beginning of lockdown rpf member uh dietz d-e-e-t-z uh started a build of sapper morton's helmet that is uh dave bautista's character in the beginning of blade runner 20 sorry in blade runner 2049 um the first time we see sapper he is uh uh farming nematode worms uh in the dystopic future of the blade runner universe and he's wearing this elaborate costume and dietz did a beautiful build it was a commission and later on that commission came up for sale and i bought it i have to first off just give the most emphatic compliment to this helmet i have crawled over this thing in great detail and i have yet to find anything that is wrong with it it is really really accurately built uh this this neck bellows this chef's kiss perfect um it is really rare when you get a piece and you like like i'm looking at photos i have from reference etc and i'm trying to find anything that's wrong and nothing's wrong even the paint job is just this is a stunning piece and so i want to make a whole costume what i want to start with is at the back of the helmet he's got this airline that connects to uh his suit presumably and we see on the back of his suit these two large vents so presumably those vents draw air in or they filter it and they filter it to the helmet something like that i want to make that piece so i did some screenshots i took the uh uh what did i do i bought it and i streamed it online and i did some screenshots and i did some close-ups and here here is where you can see the kind of structure of this it is a caged tube and the cage is composed of sections of octagonal material here is a super close-up of one section so you can see that there's like a pivot here and then that pivot turns 90 and now it's here and on the next link it turns 90 and then it's there so what it allows for is a 360 flexibility for a part where all the pieces are identical i will tell you i spent a long time thinking this was some sort of turnkey operation uh or some sort of product that i could buy i looked up armored cabling and stuff couldn't find it um so i'm assuming that that is a 3d printed part here's i get a lot of questions about why i don't use a 3d printer more often here in the cave i'm doing a work for hire right now and i sent a 39 hour print to that printer a few days ago and last night i checked on it and had eight hours left and it was going great and then this morning i came in and uh the uninterruptible power supply had failed the wall power was good my ups failed the extra insurance turned out to be my liability and this 39 hour print crap the bed with like four hours left look i know that my labor in that print is much lower than 39 hours but frankly in a mission critical job i can build what i was printing way faster i could sculpt it from scratch anyway that's just me complaining me working now will involve me making this armored pipe out of aluminum let me show you okay it's fine fine everything's good i went looking and i found one piece of octagonal aluminum with what i believe is a sufficient wall thickness for me to make hand make hand machine all 20 sections of this all 20 sections of this and then also i'm going to make the receiver port uh i'm gonna make the receiver port on the back of the suit eventually i'll make the other parts of the suit the neck ring etc there's the neck ring that's a pretty straightforward part um i'll probably make that out of red shape um so i've been making drawings now drawings here are not necessarily mission critical for the for the problem but sorry they're not missing how do i say this this is kind of how i i work through a problem and kind of understand it that's the goal here so these drawings are less engineering drawings than uh just a sort of a way for me to wrap my head around this and now i think i understand it i think i've got it um so i'm gonna start uh making some cuts yeah i've even drawn out my order of operations there um the main thing about this is i need 20 pieces out of this and it's only 36 inches long give or take um so i have to be economical economical also also there are some yeah anyway there are multiple multiple parts to cutting this um multiple arrangements there are a lot of steps to machining out 20 of these first there are these in cuts here that like cut this material away and down closer to the id then there is cutting them to the length then there's removing all the material except for the tabs on one side and then the same opposite 90 degree tabs on the other side then it's drawing the holes in the tabs then there's radiusing the tabs then there is thinning out the tabs both on the outside and the inside so that they can marry together then there's adding the pivot uh screws which i think are going to be 440 or 632 button heads i don't know what they have here actually it might vary it looks like it might even be rivets on this but i'm going to do buttonheads um there are a lot of steps to this and there's a lot of ways i could get this wrong so it's just a careful slow machining process here for this 1.25 plus curve all right i should be able to get six out of each one of these right one two three four five six great that's six so that's 24 total i need 20 so i'm making 24 so i can screw them up so i can screw a few up and get it working still so get up all right let's see if i can rescue this oh that bit is ugly i messed up see if i can get the gall off here so um i wanted 20 i wanted 20 connectors i ended up with 21. i thought i'd cut these on one of the band saws the only issue is the bandsaw wasn't cutting straight and i needed these to be nice and perpendicular in their cuts so i used the table saw but it was a bigger kerf and i ended up losing four pieces because of that and i screwed up a cut so i lost two more pieces i now have one buffer i have 21. i have actually two more buffers if i need them because where it comes out of the helmet i don't think it needs to be a full piece it could just be a half a piece and the same thing with where it goes back in so i could uh adjust with some of the off cuts i've ended up with but so right now what i'm going to do with these is i'm going to cut in and leave only the tabs they won't be rounded at this you'll see i'm going to make the next cut in all 21 of these freaking pieces yeah so one thing i'm noticing about my skills is that i'm getting better i'm getting better at holding on to stuff like knowing how tightly and these parts these parts are difficult to grab they squish and i have to accommodate for that and i'm experienced machinists can see i'm playing a little fast and loose with this because the tolerances are aesthetic um so like if the mechanical operation of this was completely mission critical i'd very likely be taking twice as long to do it but despite having made a couple mistakes i'm really pleased with how this is going uh i'm gonna end up with 21 good parts hopefully and uh and here by the way here's the um okay so here is the part as it stands uh so now what needs to happen next is that half of these tabs get half of the material taken out on the inside and the other half get the material taken out on the outside that's the operation i'm nervous about that's the one that's um yeah i still haven't figured out how i'm gonna i haven't figured out how i'm gonna hold on to it yet because i'm just moving forward with just getting this part done you know i now have enough machining experience to kind of it's funny the more experience you have the more you're able to cut corners where necessary that's really what experience is about it's a literally about knowing how to prioritize the decision tree and there's so much more than just the part is perfect on that decision tree there are all sorts of other considerations but only experience kind of gets you there and i keep my finger here um just to feel as i'm moving if i feel any movement in the jig i know i know i know i know but if you were feeling what i'm feeling you'd feel comfortable with this too this is a aluminum specific bit an alu power expensive aluminum end mill 3d flute and boy i love the way this thing chews up aluminum it is just it's a beauty and notice i'm not making a second cut on the other side i'm constantly turning these because the back side of your vice should always be your reference sorry that's what i've learned is that i do better when i use the back side of the vice as reference these things all squish a little bit and if they squish and i squish more on one than the other than when i make the second cut it could all go cattywompus i don't mean to get technical on this step of using a little brass hammer to seat everything oh my god it is such an important step we're on the home stretch now one more set of four after this and then i get to worry about how to hold on to these while we're relieving some material then i have to radius them all all right now uh so this spins this way and a climbing cut is that it is moving in the direction that it's cutting um not yeah okay then we're gonna secure it down tight hammer tight hammer tighten tighten pretty good all right here we go the inside tabs have been cut out on everything i think the next step is some hole drilling they're coming along still a lot of work to do still a lot of lines to see but it's too cold and old and subtle in its ways i'm leaving a little i'm taking out a little material i know it's not pretty it doesn't need to be uh and it doesn't even have to be exact i'm just trying to clear space so that this can actually rotate in there later i'll radius this we're almost there 21 parts and this these pieces they're together oh my god i know i know this side doesn't match that side i don't care i don't care this was quick and dirty this is 20 21 custom machine pieces each with one two three four five six seven eight 10 11 12 13 14 15. somewhere just shy of 20 operations per piece times 21 pieces it's 2 400 separate operations and it's a one-day build so i am okay with a little bit of slop so uh now i have a protocol i'm going to start uh rounding these and i'm gonna do do i'm going to do this the poor man's blue just because it's faster i'm going to use the magic marker and then i'm going to take the compass here there we go that's what i'm going to cut on that's what i'm going to sand on foreign all right all right they're pretty they are pretty i just drooled i literally just drooled i was making fun and i was having fun and natural a little bit a key moment in the machining of a bunch of little objects like this would be the deburring stage the final finishing stage and i'm going to streamline that by using a parts tumbler what yes hang on this is a fun build i know look i'm so aware that like people are watching this being like oh that's a c147 hose protector and there's others who are like why didn't you 3d print it and i've already said you know for me this is an exercise and it's a really fun one one i find enjoyable i've been thinking about it for weeks but i'm not cleaning up just yet so a parts tumbler is literally a vessel in which you put your part and you put some media with that part and then you roll them so that the part gets tumbled around in the media and the media that i am using today is ceramic ceramic there you go um the ceramic media bangs around with all of these and slowly just like takes the burr off it's um it's really lovely it also leaves a kind of you see i have a difference between the the asbot finish and my milled finish it eliminates all of that um all those maker's marks actually it's a lot of parts it's going to tumble all night long it's going to tumble all night long all night long here is my parts tumbler and this is ceramic media and in general you run it with a little bit of water i'm going to add a little more to this um two three four five six 20 21. and there's two bad ones in there um and unfortunately they're both bad on the same degree so they can't both end up being a mounting point look it ends up being that i might get 18 or 19 out of this but so um let's see here i had a little bit more a little bit more water yeah um then a gasket a triscuit a trasket triscuit a trasket my tumblr gets a basket a gasket for my basket um okay then a aluminum plate goes over it and we go and we tighten it down i i picked this parts tumbler up a few years ago on craigslist uh and i use it a bunch during the um hellboy samaritan build um i use it a lot off camera i must admit um and i have an idea for it that i've been meaning to do on camera but this will have to be your introduction ah to this face so in general hand tightened and it doesn't feed so then we put it in its carriage looks like let's this it in like this these rollers keep the uh the wing nuts from crashing and that's it i'm just gonna make sure it's super tight i actually built a i forgot about this i built a wrench for tightening these excellent oh much better all right good now i'm positive yeah there we go i'm very excited about what you get to see in a couple minutes all right i'm going to clean up okay it's the next morning uh and as you can hear the tumbler is going we're gonna turn it off and uh open it up and see what treasures are inside i always also kind of secretly imagine that when i open this up all the parts that i've made will somehow be destroyed in some way i'm like always half expecting that to be an outcome i'm going to go put on some rubber gloves because it might be dirty it's it's going to be dirty it's warm i can actually feel the temperature oh foamy i'm going to get out the parts washer all right let's um we'll take a look it's all very cool whoops i want to keep all the media oh man it's disgusting in there in a fantastic way three one two three four five six 21. the reason this is uh yeah that should be it the reason this is a bit blackened is specifically because uh at some point in the recent past i threw in some lapping compound sorry yeah the lapping compound is oily and disgusting but it lent a really neat finish is the parts fresh out of the tumbler very excited let's put them in the parts washer oh i already turned it on whoops hilarious oh i can't wait to assemble this all right we're gonna assemble here we go oh like little jewels foreign super exciting all right that's a fix for later i made the choice here to thread the outside of the two holes not the inside and then i don't have to worry about tightness right because it's just uh poking through right so i can tighten it on the outside yeah anyway oh man this is starting to be amazing my only fear is it's not long enough more dude that is freaking awesome i that is without a doubt the most complicated mechanical thing i have ever built all right i made one last little part for capping to the other end so this is the base and this is the top or vice versa and i'm about to attach this and we can call this project completed oh hey good morning all right i am a very happy camper this morning because because of this look at this beautiful thing oh yeah oh very satisfying sounds and i'm so sure i'm so sure that this exists right like there's a product and i just wasn't able to find it and as soon as this video goes up y'all are gonna point me to it either that or someone in doug harlocker's shop uh carefully 3d printed all these sections and then assembled them and thinks it's crazy that i machined this uh or somebody machine this that part i doubt this might be the first one of these that has been machined or it's the millionth and there was no need for me to go through all of that also my figures for the number of individual operations i don't know let's i mean there's 25 let's see one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen twenty two twenty plus the two ends and i need to make its interface here yes yes right is that an actual inlet it's oh so it is so we could get air up in through there if we wanted to all right so i'm going to make a little coupler tube that goes from here into here but first let's look at this a little more oh so so that's my asmr uh i've made this little coupler a couple of passes on the lathe um i'm gonna deburr it and then this is my uh this is my piece at the helmet oh i'm gonna have to actually pressure that on this fits nicely here in the back oh i want to radius that edge dammit yeah better looking yeah so then this piece where is it this piece which is the start of the chain press fits onto there and allows it to begin oh yeah look at that she's so pretty just doing a little ca glue to hold this on it's not going to be under a lot of stress just there so exciting i'd like this to be black so i'm actually going to try a little aluminum black some gun blocking all right so i'm going to clean first with some acetone and i may need some more oh so i see the anodized coating on the outside of the aluminum stock is actually not taking the black which is fine again i'll hit that with some black paint all right now i got this tiger stripe i'm going to hit this with a black lacquer and that'll be the thinnest paint yeah that'll be the way it is the way uh the paint i'm gonna use for this is a floquel engine black the reason i'm using lacquers is they're durable uh for stuff like this mechanically i don't love using spray paint because it's so dimensional it has such a thick coat and lacquer can go on exceedingly good i gotta build myself a painting area soon a real painting zone this is getting out of hand uh so has a coat of lacquer it all looks a little too new um yeah you see how smooth those are and if we take a look at the screenshots i can see some heavy texturing there so i'm going to add that and i'm going to add it with a little black acrylic paint sort of hand applied do i'm putting it on sort of dimensional so it's going to take a a little bit to to dry i just notice one line here we go with another one once i'm done with this i'm going to hit it with a little bit of some rust color just to give it a a little bit of visual texture it shouldn't just be completely black i want a little brown in there as well the nice thing about acrylic is when you put it on dimensionally it doesn't doesn't shrink as much when it dries so you do actually get some texture and we're back to the front so now i just spin it kind of looking for stuff that catches my eye or doesn't some of the screws are working their way loose a little bit just bringing them back in threading the outside of these two tabs instead of the inside was um it's not a common solution for me i'm really happy that i did it it's got a very positive grab but also you don't have to finesse every single screw in order to get it okay a little rust from archive x here look i shouldn't finish this video without talking about the incredible work of renee april i think that's how you pronounce her name the costume designer for uh blade runner 2049 she's an amazing costume designer in fact has worked on a lot of films i really truly love including way back earlier in her career working on quest for fire a super early ron perlman ray don chong movie with not a single line of dialogue in the whole thing and it was on hbo constantly when i was like 11 or 12 years old and we watched it all the time um so funny that she was a wardrobe assistant on that film but renee april has been around longer than seems possible her film career goes back uh 30 years um which is astounding uh still working still going strong doing amazing amazing work and the the the world of blade runner 2049 is that denis and his whole team built is really incomparable um and uh renee preel i am a huge fan of her incredible work for her and her team so i'm delighted to make a costume part for it okay um here i get to show you this cool part and i think this is where we wrap this up because there's going to be a whole uh there's going to be a whole costume video so here's the connector and oh with a magnet it connects in dude dude he pulls that out oh oh yes i know i still have to put something soft inside there as the actual cord but i view now yeah so i still have to make that part this is all going to be for the zephyr morton costume that'll be a whole separate build they're going to be some 3d printing in that and everything but for right now i have made the armored cable carrier of my dreams for my sapper morton helmet and i think it is now officially completed oh here we go oh it works with glasses hey everybody this is adam savage and i will see you next time oh here let me pull this out oh look at that i can totally reach it i have to admit i've spent a day now with this and um it feels good in a really like it feels sorry i guess what i want to say is 23 separate links each with 18 operations that's over 400 separate uh operations and i gang some of them up here and there but still i was able to complete this in about a day that feels like a real maturation of my machining skills and i'm very you know there are a lot of things i would have done if extreme precision was more necessary um i would have made a plug so clamping these was a lot more of a positive situation i didn't use a plug so some of them got squished and some of the dimensions changed i was aware of that at the time and i had enough adjustability that i didn't have to really worry about that and i built one link wrong i built one link wrong i came in today and i built one more link just because i wanted to see what it would be like to build a link from scratch and i built that link but you can see oh it's two yeah whoops yeah maybe i'll make that one of the last links anyway um oh that's a nice light there you go oh look at this thing it is just it's so beautiful and and the degree to which it like come on there we go right like we are like right in the blade runner world right there deeply satisfying see you later\n"