Hello! Everyone and welcome to Backyard FX, the only show that teaches you how to make your own special effects for cheap. This week, I’m building a really cool movie prop made famous by taxi driver. I am of course referring to the hidden quick draw rig.
Erik Beck is a trained professional who know the tools he’s using. You could easily explode, dismember, or kill yourself while attempting to recreate these projects if you misunderstand and or don’t follow our instructions exactly. If you don’t know what you’re doing find someone that does to help out and if you’re under 18, get the supervision of an adult. Be as safe as you are creative, and enjoy the show.
Here on BFX, we have a long tradition of recreating blockbuster special effects for less than $50.00. Batman effects, Star Wars effects, Indiana Jones effects, Matrix effects, and more. But this week, we are creating a little gizmo that scraps to your wrist and pops up a little gun that could be hidden beneath your sweep. This was made famous in movies like Taxi Driver, Alien Resurrection, and Desperado. And now to determine our budget, let’s hear for Gary. You know sometimes, just sometimes, I feel like Gary doesn’t love his job.
Shopping List
Two Velcro straps $8.00, a drawer slide $20.00, a spring $1.00, some scrap rubber mat from the light saver build, miscellaneous nuts and bolts $4.00, miscellaneous mending plates and L brackets $5.00, some left over copper tubing from the hell boy gun, an old key ring, about two feet of metal wire $1.00, and some scrap foam.
Super Time Lapse
The first step is to take a part of our drawer slide. This type of drawer has three sliding sections and we’re going to use the small and middle size pieces. But first we are going to focus on the middle size slide rail and the cut down version of the little ball bearing slide that goes inside it. Basically, what I did here was attach a small mending plate to the slide for added strength then slid it back into the frame rail but upside down. This way, the back of the ball type clearance for the whole thing to slide but the stable slide mechanism isn’t complete. Now we have to figure out how to attach a spring into the firing mechanism.
The key to the spring and trigger system is a costume plate. I cut out of a thin mending plate using my rotary tool. It looks like this. Here is the part that holds the back of the spring and here is the part that will click into the trigger release. The other end of the spring attaches to a little tab on the front of the slide railing. Now onto the trigger system, it looks like this and all you need is two mending plates, an L bracket, some nuts and bolts, and a little spring, and you’re set.
The triggers activate via thin cable that runs through a copper tube and then attaches to an old key ring. At this point, we’re ready to put everything together under the slide rail with the big old mending plate as the bottom. When you bolt this mending plate and place, you can use the back bolt to attach your trigger system. Now take your costume cut plate and the smaller metal slide you set aside in the beginning and bolt them to the ball bearing slide itself. When everything is in place, it should work like this. Slide it back, it locks in the place like so, you put the ring on your finger and flick your wrist, the triggers releases and the slide shoots out. The last step is to glue some extra padding, add some extra grease, and of course, screw on the toy gun of your choice.
All right, so now you know how to build this awesome rig but before you go building it or even using, it we need to talk safety. First of, this is a spring loaded rig so depending on how strong as spring you use, this could easily hurt your self or someone else. Second, this rig is to be used exclusively on a close and secured set, not out on the street and attach the end is for props only. Be careful.
[Demonstration]
All right, that wraps up another build episode of BFX. Make sure and check this out tomorrow for the original short featuring, the Quick Draw Rig. And if you want us to keep making this awesome and free content, you got to subscribe. Somewhere around here is a button click it and if you’ve already subscribed, then tell a friend to subscribe because this boat don’t run on dreams. Actually, it’s what it does.
One of the most common video mistakes is making constant moving and adjustments to the camera. Be—everyone in making an adjustment. Don’t make changes without reasons.
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