Vash the Stampede's Longcolt .45 from Trigun Replica

Here is my write up on my latest build, Vash the Stampede's Longcolt .45 from Trigun ! I have always wanted one of these since watching the anime, unfortunately, the only kits available that I could find are horrible, and most of them are recasts, So I made my own ! I started off by printing up a picture of the gun to scale and making patterns out of cardstock. I used mostly 1/4 MDF layered together for most of the gun cutting it and building it up in layers, kinda like an MRI scan. I sealed all mdf with shellac and sanded smooth before molding it and casting the frame of the gun in Smooth-on's Smoothcast 32 series urethane resin.

I used Fevereon prop's trigger/hammer design from a gun she built as the basis of my design for a moving trigger/hammer assembly. I built the barrel out of a top and bottom piece of wood, with the barrel heat sinks sandwiched in between. the heat sinks were made from various widths of styrene strips glued together. for some reason I cannot find any in progress pics of this step :(
I made the cylinder pretty easy, I found a pvc pipe that was already the right diameter. I found a nice selection of various diameter brass tubing at the hobby store and cut six pieces that fit nicely inside the pipe.

I filled it in with Apoxiesculpt and sanded it smooth. I have some brass pipe that fits perfectly inside the cylinder tubes to make some bullets with

Next up was the trigger guard, which I cut out of mdf with my tabletop scroll saw, sealed with shellac, and sanded smooth. Sealing the mdf with shellac keeps it from tearing up while sanding, and makes a nice smooth, non-porous surface for painting and molding I have seen where some prop builders paint on a coat of super glue for the same purpose

Vash's gun is a top break model, and reloads similar to a shotgun, there is a thumblever on both sides that open and closes a latch on the top of the revolver. I made this out of styrene, as I also did with the top rail which the latch attaches to.

For the grips, I used 5 layers of 1/4 mdf, I used double sided tape to keep them together while I shaped them by hand with a dremel, tabletop belt sander, and files and sandpaper.

The gip goes on in 2 halves and held on by screws, just like a real gun. I coated the grips with textured rustoleum paint,(a trick learned from Volpin Props), and then coated that with Plastidip spray on rubber.

So, here are a few more pics of the whole gun,

Thanks for looking at my build !