Han In Carbonite

After millions of questions and pre-planning I'm finally getting started on my HIC. I am going to build a wooden box with 1x2s so it's a little lighter, and some thin pvc tubing for the rounded edges. I'm going to build the box 1/4" shorter than the blueprint to compensate for the 1/8" Sintra I am cementing and screwing on top of the wood. After it's all built I'll spray Han with some Pactra Indy Silver spraypaint and then Rub N Buff the Sintra for a metallic look. I took Friday off and I'll be building this thing all weekend, so expect a lot more posts and pictures soon. Thanks again to everyone here at DH and the HIC Builders Club, especially miqt and Stormrider, who helped me out and answered all of my questions. Just getting started but lots more to come after this weekend.


I cut the extra rubber around the edges of Han with a pair of scissors
making sure that the measurements matched up as close as possible
with the blueprint.




Then I cut the 5 pieces of Sintra with a Stanley utility knife according to the dimensions of the blueprint.

Im doing some research at the time being. Trying to determine some things. One is whethere my copy of the HIC is too trapezoidal (wider at the bottom). So you may want to trim it square.

I would do the entere thing in the same color. Either all black, and then rub and buff the entire thing. Or all primer then silver, but I wouldnt do two different things on two places. It will not work out the way you want it. The entire prop should have the same color, just smoother on the outer box.

When I cut the extra rubber off I trimmed along the outer edge that was visible. I measured the top and bottom and they matched the slight trapezoidal dimensions of the blueprint. The main sheet that I'll mount Han on is still rectangle right now but I'll probably trim it to match the blueprint. Kind of a weird shape though. I bought four 3oz. cans of that Pactra Indy Silver, that's all they had at the Hobby shop. Do you think that will be enough to cover the whole thing after I prime it?

Yes I think so. If I were you though, id take some extra sintra, some extra rubber, and some primer, and do a mini mockup to make sure you get the effect your expecting.

Im not saying you wont, its just nice to be sure

Also, some expandable foam would work well to firm him up.

Maybe buy a can of that, and spray a little spatchala it onto some of the spare rubber, and see how it works out.

Im sorry to say, my rubber didnt show up again today. So the three people that have paid, and are waiting, it will be monday at the soonest before I can start on them.


Im sorry for the delay.
Mike

Right On! You've started -thats great. Looks like you're off
to a good start. I'll watch this thread like a hawk. If you
use some 'great stuff' foam or what not -let us know how it
works with this rubber. I'm thinking about taking some RE
magnets and scrap styrene, drilling a couple big holes in the sheet
plastic (to allow for the low expansion foam to escape).
Magnet the plastic (with tin foil layer) to the HIC, spray the
areas to be filled and remove the plastic after a few hours.
Cant wait to see your continuing progress!
Mike

Got some work done on this over the weekend at my Dad's new garage he built, he just retired and I'm envious . It was cool for me to work on a father & son SW project, and I could tell he was excited about helping out with it. Surprisingly all the supplies only cost me about $65. Started off with 3 1x10 8', 4 2x4 7', 2 2x4 6', 4x8 sheet of masonite, some 2x8 flat wood screws and #10 3.5" flat wood screws, Great Stuff expandable foam-yellow lid not the red, 3 8' pieces of 1/2" quarter round, a bucket of Natural colored wood filler, and some Liquid Nails.





We pre-drilled some holes in the 2x4s that we cut to line the tops and bottoms of the 1x10 frame so that they could be set up to add the quarter round. The frame has a weird shape since it's shorter on the top than on the bottom, but it will be nice and sturdy...and heavy too haha.







Then I measured the spacing for Han to lay on the sintra sheet I had cut before. Surprisingly when I cut the excess rubber off I followed the outside line or frame edge that was semi-visible and it was almost right exactly on size with the blueprint. I centered Han on the sintra and then traced a line around him so he would lay perfectly inside it. Then cut that out to make a frame for him. I also cut the sheet of masonite to size too. Here is a pic of the sintra frame, Han, and the masonite setting unmounted on top of the box. Making sure everything lined up good, I don't even think I'll need that much filler since he fits so perfectly in the frame. The 1/4" sintra is almost the same height as the rubber mold too.



Next I taped the templates I posted in the Building an HIC thread to the sintra side pieces. I cut them out along the top and bottom edges that are included on the templates and just aligned them across the top. This way they'll all be along the same line since the bottoms of the pieces may have to be trimmed or sanded a bit. Just a note too on the panel sides if you are building a rectangular HIC instead of the ESB trapezoid remember to come in 5.25" from the side to start the first panel shape, then go 1' 7" from center to center. This compensates for the extra inches for the trapezoid angle shape.



Then I cut the shapes out with my Stanley craft knife and used some medium grit sandpaper to smooth all the inner edges.





And last we used Liquid Nails to glue the sintra pieces to the frame. I am getting some panels to put on this thing too but didn't want to bore out the shapes on the top and bottom. I thought it would look cool to at least have the shapes cut out where they would be and then paint over it. Here it is drying with some 2x4 scraps weighing it down.



So really all that's left is attaching the quarter round for the rounded corners, mounting Han and drilling holes to let the foam escape, and then painting it. It's funny what you said about the expandable foam Mike, we both had the same idea about it. There is a little gap we'll have to fill on the face of the HIC to meet the quarter round but other than that it all matches up and lines up good. I should hopefully have this thing done by Thanksgiving, I'm going to an MU game on the 21st and then I'll be back home for Thanksgiving. Should be able to get it nailed down in a couple of weekend trips to Missouri.

Thats some impressive progress for a weekend!
Tell your dad -Nice Workshop! I think Ill be having
to build my HIC in our bedroom this winter.....I
wonder what wifey's going to say about that?
Mike

Got my panels and greeblies from Angela and Dung today, and all I can say is
WOW . These are absolutely amazing, the details are awesome and it came with a perfect side by side comparison of the panels and individual envelopes that hold each panels set of greeblies. It even came with the decals too!! Now it's time to get started on painting these guys and maybe a trip to RadioShack to fit and research my electronics. I'm wondering if I'll need to bore out an angle inside the wood where the panels will be mounted. I couldn't tell if specs were mapped out on the blueprint or not. I know I'll be using an old light table's opaque white plastic top for the underside of the hero panel. Then I'll probably buy some sheets of reflective, mirror-styled material to line the insides of the other panels.

ill take 2

Looks great so far Do you mind passing on the info on where to get the side panels from? I'd like to buy a set.

Cheers,
Rob

Wow, Im impressed. They're even prioviding a set of Glen's excellent
alien script decals! I have those panels too and I love them....of course
mine didnt come with decals :-)
Really looking forward to your progress Jacob!
Mike

I'll be watching this one from here on out.

Email dnanguyen@yahoo.com for the panels. I was surprised how quick the turnaround time on these were for me.

Holy **** that's cool. I don't know why I am continually amazed by TDH members skills, but I am. Nice work.

Outstanding work. Keep us updated please!

You beat me to it PFB, I haven't logged in for a bit. The panels were made by Angela and Dung Nguyen and you can inquire about a set from them, they are very reasonably priced for all the stuff you get. Here is their email dnanguyen@yahoo.com again. Hope to have some more progress done after this weekend!

Got a little bit of work done on the rounded corners this weekend. We did the short corner pieces that will meet the face of the block with Han on it. They didn't meet up exactly, but really close, so we used some sintra scraps to fill the extra space so the corners are as smooth as possible. We used liquid nails to glue the sintra pieces and the .75" corner wood pieces to the frame. Then we pre-drilled 3 holes in each piece of corner wood and nailed them down with finish nails that were countersunk slightly. Once everything is roughed on there and glued and attached I'll go back and use filler, sand, trim, and probably use a black primer on all the sintra sides and the frame around Han before I paint it all silver.

Over Thanksgiving we got some more done on the HIC. We started by using a belt sander to round off the edges of the quarter round and the sintra pieces.



Then we used finish nails to nail down the masonite base and the quarter round on the front on the box. We countersunk the nails again so we can use filler and paint over it to ensure that it's smooth.






Next we mounted the sintra frame for the rubber Han with Liquid Nails. I traced the inside of the frame with a red sharpie so I knew where to glue, rather than glueing on the floppy sintra frame itself.






Finally we mounted Han on the masonite inside the sintra frame with Liquid Nails that we applied a ton of directly onto the rubber. He was a pain to get to stick on there perfect so we put a lot of weight on him to help him out haha. There were a few areas on the edges mainly that we had to periodically go check and re-glue that were coming up a little bit. All in all he stuck on there pretty good though. Almost perfectly even with the sintra frame height in most areas.






Last we measured the length to the head, hands and arms, chest and knee that needed to be filled with expandable foam. We marked the spots and drilled holes, then filled the holes with foam. It will probably take you a few times with the foam to get it completely filled and solid. I will probably get some more done in the next month. Don't want to rush things though. Final steps will be the bondo in the gap areas and sanding and painting.

Nice progress! geez thats a nice big prop is'nt it?!
looking forward to more. Looking great.
Mike

Great progress! I just need to sand, drill holes, and attach my panels and I'm done. I didn't go 100% accurate, but I am definitely going to have a nice looking han carbo. You have done a great job so far.

Jawafive, do you have any progress pics of your HIC? Thanks for all the kind words too guys.

Awesome work! I like full scale props!!!

I see reference to "Panels" does this mean that someone out there is pulling the HIC on a sheet of plastic?

The panels are the side panels, the control boxes. There are some very nice ones being made.

The HICS's are pulled in rubber to make it affordable to ship.

Originally Posted by jacob4581

You beat me to it PFB, I haven't logged in for a bit. The panels were made by Angela and Dung Nguyen and you can inquire about a set from them, they are very reasonably priced for all the stuff you get. Here is their email dnanguyen@yahoo.com again. Hope to have some more progress done after this weekend!

Thanks for compliment on the panels! Your HIC is coming out nicely and thanks for the step by step. It's gonna help me when I have time in the near future to build mine. Thanks again and happy Holidays! Cheers,

D.Nguyen, ive heard a lot of nice things about your panels. I didnt epect this many people to take my rubber HIC's this far, but its good to know they have other quality parts to add to this project, to make it great.

Very true SR. I couldn't have made any of this without you and Nguyen's awesome work! I'll be doing some more work on the HIC over Christmas vacation this week, I'll keep everyone posted.

Well over Christmas I got snowed in at my Mom's house for 3 days during a blizzard so I didn't get as much done as I had planned. The foam really solidified the body and head perfectly. We had to add a little more to the head and body to completely fill it in, but it's good to go now. The bottom part of the rubber by the feet also started to peel up a little so we reapplied Liquid Nails and then put two small screws through the boot tips from behind to really make sure it was on solid. The only thing I really got done was using a wood rasp to smooth the rounded corners out, and they turned out very nice. I hope to get the panels ready to mount in the next few weeks and I'll post pictures as I go when I build those out.

ok y? what are u going to do w/ a HIC all it does is sit there?

Hmmm. I think you may have joined the wrong forum. Are you a Star Wars fan? If so, you would probably understand why this would be cool to have. And yes it will just "sit there" and light up and look absolutely awesome in my house just like it did in Jabba's palace. To each his own I guess.

Great work.
It had to take a lot of time for doing this.
congratulations/

Not quite done yet. But thanks TD! I'm taking it slow and making sure everything turns out right.

Very good approach, so I wish good luck in further work

Rob, here are the blueprints I used for my HIC. You will need to adjust and tweak them slightly depending on whose side panels you get and if you build it as a trapezoid or a rectangle shape like I did. Let me know if you need anything else and the best of luck on your HIC.

More progress over the weekend. When we put the expandable foam in through holes we drilled in the back everything filled in nicely except for his head. The foam got a little too expanded and it ended up looking like Han had a huge carbonite tumor on the right side of his head. We pulled up the top portion and salvaged what foam chunks we could from inside the head and shaved them down to the size needed. Then I reapplied the Liquid Nails and let it dry with some weights on it overnight. In the morning everything was looking good so we went around the entire black rubber edge with a framing brad nail gun. The nails it shoots are about an inch long and were just long enough to secure the rubber to the masonite below. We don't want this thing moving around at all once we apply the bondo. After the brad nails were shot around the whole edge of the rubber I followed and countersunk them slightly into the rubber so the bondo could go over them.





Next we mixed up the bondo and used a plastic bondo spreading tool to get it as even as we can from rubber edge to rounded corner on the front face. I used Micro Lite lightweight body filler that I got at Napa Auto parts and it worked great. On the actual HIC you can still barely see the line where the texture starts and the smooth frame meet up. I think we got this effect pretty good, and what isn't perfect I'll take care of when I sand it down.









We almost got it done with the one can I bought but we'll have to finish up the 3 or so feet on the bottom left the next time I work on it.
I also got started on the side panels too. I botched one of my panels trying to cut the squares out with a dremel tool so I had to buy another one that is slightly larger that already is molded with the holes cut out. I cut pieces of frosted plexiglass to fit behind the hero panel and panel 2. I used an exacto knife and cut thin strips of a white Avery sticker label to make the grid pattern on the flashing green part of the hero panel. While I was home we used a drill as a borer tool to roughly cut the squares out of my panel and I'll trim and sand them down to look nice and smooth.

Lookin great man.

When I fill one with foam, I dont back it. I fill it with it off, and then cut it with a sharp serrated knife. That way when it expands, it expands out.

Otherwise, it looks like your takin this downtown!

Thanks SR. The foam worked perfect everywhere else. The body is nice and solid and so is the knee. All the excess foam drained out of the holes we drilled in the back of the masonite.
We just put a little extra in the head and it turned out to be too much. We fixed it pretty easily though. It's coming along good though.

I finished up applying the bondo and touched up some areas too. I let it dry overnight and then used 60 grit sandpaper and a woodblock to hand sand the thicker areas down to be smooth. I made sure that where the bondo meets the rounded corner wood it is perfectly smooth so you can't see any seams and it will look like one solid piece. After this I will use an electric sander with 150 grit sandpaper and go over all the bondo once again to get it perfect. I didn't sand too much where the bondo meets the black rubber because I didn't want to damage the rubber. When I use the electric sander I will go over that area lightly to smooth it out a bit.

did any company ever sell a lifesize han in carbonite?

anyone have details of it?

A company called Illusive Concepts made an officially licensed lifesize han in carbonite that they sold for around $3,000-$4,000. There are pictures somewhere on the forums of people who own them.

Great work man. I've been following your thread since its beginnings.

With my HIC project, I had trouble getting the Bondo smooth, and there are slight irregularities in the surface of the Bondo on the frame. Looking back, I wish I would have done it a little differently, but it still turned out pretty good. I actually like the irregular look to the frame, it looks more like the irregular carbonite on the front.

What was your technique on the seam between the frame and the rubber? I've got to go back and redo this part when I install the side panels.

Oh yeah, how are the panels coming?

I didn't want to drop $400 on a set, so I'm scratch building mine out of wood. I tried to build one and then make vacuform copies, but the details just weren't as crisp as I had wanted. So it looks like I'll be scratch building all 8.

This looks great. Still debating whether to build one or look for one pre done.

Nice work man!
max

Thanks guys! Toothboy: when I applied the bondo I just used a lot and spread it over the seam and a little bit over the rubber also. When I used the plastic spreading tools that came with the bondo it actually smeared into a texture on the rubber that looks like the texture part on the rubber mold. It kind of naturally did it's thing. When I started sanding I just used a real heavy sandpaper the first go around to sand down all the bumps and big irregular areas and it turned out good. I did some sanding over the weekend with an electric sander and 100 grit sandpaper and it turned out great. Even sanding the bondo that is against the rubber works fine too. The rubber that is sticking up to where the bondo is gets sanded down as if it were bondo. I got my frame around the rubber to be real smooth just like the actual prop but it takes a long time even with the electric sander. I am going to sand a little extra right on the line between the bondo and the rubber so the bondo sinks slightly below the rubber edge. If you look at the prop it is slightly raised where the texture part starts, and the frame around the outside edge is really smooth and a little bit lower.





BTW I had a financial emergency recently and I'm going to have to sell my panel and greeblie set I got from Dung and Angela. You've seen the pics of them, they are very nice and accurate too. I also purchased a vending machine lock for $30 that would make a great second panel knob as well as other knick knacks I have found that I was going to use on my panels. I am including all of these with the set I am selling. When I get more money I will buy another set but I need to sell these things asap. I am asking for $250 for the set shipped anywhere in the USA. I'll post this in the Cargo Hold also but I figured I would give you guys a heads up before I post them. I even started cutting and hollowing out the boxes for the metal or white frosted plastic to go behind. PM me or let me know if you or anyone is interested. The post in the Cargo Hold will have a bunch of pictures too.

PM SENT I'LL TAKE THEM THANKS.

Oh man, sorry to hear about your emergency. Hope all goes well for you and your family.

Hey, did you ever get a chance to finish your HIC? I'm in the initial stages and I bought the front part from Kingjawa. I'm brand new to HIC builders so any help is appreciated.
Jack

Still trying to find a chance to finish sanding and start painting and putting the panels together. Almost done though! Give me a shout if you need any help with anything or have any questions. Good luck on your HIC!

glad to hear you are still at it Jacob!
mike

Very cool.

NICE!!!

That mold / cast looks awesome

It looks great! I'm also working on a Han in Carb so this is really inspiring

yep good job. I've just started working on mine, even though i've had stormriders parts since last year

how did this trun out brother ? was looking great . just got my panels from SR . need to get to work on them .

Hi,

does anyone have pics of all the panels?

Beautiful work, I may have missed it somewhere but do you happen to sell the main front panel of Han in Carbinite?
Please PM me if you happen to or can point me in the right direction for it.
Cheers and awesome work again I love it.

i will like to get one of those copies of your HIC please let me know where i can get one


thanks

Originally Posted by Stormrider

Lookin great man.

When I fill one with foam, I dont back it. I fill it with it off, and then cut it with a sharp serrated knife. That way when it expands, it expands out.

Otherwise, it looks like your takin this downtown!

amazing decals for the sides looks good

Nice. I'm jealous.