Before and After: Steampunk Ray Gun

Last night, while I was trawling for some recreational crochet patterns, I came across a tutorial on the Craftzine blog on transforming a plastic watergun into a glorious steampunk ray gun.  Needless to say, I had to try it out.  My son has generously donated one of his Nerf shooters with the condition that he gets to keep the final steampunk creation.  Done deal!

Here's the super-punkerific AFTER in all its glory...

This is how it looked PRE-steampunk transformation... 

While waiting for the paint to dry, I took a few photos of the project in progress.  I followed the tutorial fairly loosely, with whatever materials I had on hand.

1.  After scraping the plastic gun on the sidewalk, and

scratching it up with a craft knife, I spray painted it with

black primer.

2.  When the paint was dry, I hot glued a few nuts and bolts,

furniture tacks, and some gear-like pieces onto the gun.  Next

time I will glue these on BEFORE I spray prime the piece so

they can be primed too.  

3.  Next, I applied some copper accents using Sophisticated

Finishes' Copper Topper only on certain parts.  In other parts,

I applied Instant Iron for contrast.

4.  On other parts, I applied metallic gold craft paint and left
it pretty brushy to mimic a burnished finish.

5.  On the parts painted with Instant Iron, I dripped some rusting

solution which will develop and orange patina over time.  The 

copper parts will eventually turn green wherever I applied the

patina solution.