 So what is up pop makers? Welcome to hot makes right here on hot makes. I am nerdy Jay And I am super pumped for today's episode. I got the hands flying. I don't even know what's happening Shannon, how are you? Whoa? Whoa? No, it just happened. I don't know. It just happened either She had a good I'm good. I have the same answer every Monday because it's Monday We're gonna we're gonna get you like fired up in the zone with the like the caffeine I'm drinking again the bubbler water. You probably got your Mountain Dew. I do I had to fight somebody at the grocery store for it on Saturday. It was great You had to fight for Mountain Dew Three things left and it was a sale like three for 12 And he comes up as soon as I did and I just went right in grab one If you're watching right now, the real story is there was three left the guy threw him in his cart Shannon went outside. She put on rescue. She came back in on rescue and she's like you show give me this Anything that says she put on rescue is just Nice, how you been it's been another week and we're here we have an amazing show tonight. So how you been? I'm good. I'm very tired. I had a very very very productive weekend We skipped spring and went directly to summer in Pittsburgh, which is not unheard of My friend asked me last week like I heard it snowing and I was like well currently like in the eighth season of the day, so Yeah, no, but I just been working on a lot of stuff I have like five five or six weeks until the convention that I have a table at so it's non-stop That's gonna be awesome. I I hear you with the weather. So it was it was crappy last week Beautiful all weekend 70s Almost 80 on Saturday and in high 60s almost 70 on Sunday and then today 40 That's us in the middle of the week, but it was late 87 all weekend. So it was really hot Now there's forms coming in and it's not supposed to be like 40 a week, but yeah, that's that's what they're saying here It's supposed to be really real cold again, but today. I'm super pumped. I'm I'm I'm old I guess we use a I'm super pumped because we're getting new windows that we started today getting new windows So I had 13 windows and I I stayed home I took some time off of work and I'm home for today and tomorrow and I'm helping that dude because I want to know how it works like I want to know how they're installed I want to know how it works just because that's how my brain is right and Yes, we're getting windows But it is freaking cold when you have a whole floor of your house with no windows at all in them It gets cold fast What is hap is Geary having a heart attack? I don't know I think you just had a seizure Geary did you take a bite Geary? Oh? But yeah, we got a amazing episode tonight. Don't forget anything we show Hot makes wise is in the description below There's a link click on that and jump down there find all the cool stuff and more so we had a ton of submissions and I can't get to them all because if we have an amazing guest today But there's all in the link below if you want to see them also considering hitting up the What do we call it the Oreo fun the hot makes fun? Whatever you want to call it if there's a PayPal link I believe nightbots probably blowing that up and you can hit it in the description below. We always appreciate that. Thank you so much What else we got? I'm as usual. We are everywhere tonight. I feel like we're like taking over So we're on What are we on Facebook YouTube? I don't even know what our Count is on our main channel right now, but make sure you guys are on the main channel as well and Then I'm over here manning twitch for you Friends that are watching this there. So thanks for that David Wilson brought up a point. I want to address this right away. Okay, so she said the Shannon goes to Murph front We have the full disclosure. I believe as of now you can't you can't come to Murph, right? Nothing this summer or fall tentatively is gonna. So because I can't pay my rent right now. Oh, thanks taxes So so Shannon Fortunately, she can't make it to Murph with us bet it, you know, what we're gonna do is I Don't know what we're gonna do. We're gonna. We're not gonna be on a robot. Like you guys Robot to drive around No, I I just want to let everybody know cuz I you know when they say like Shannon Goes to Murph on I don't want you to have any false hope to this year. It can't happen Maybe next year and maybe we'll talk about earth when earth gets closer If you guys want and David Wilson says Shannon pays her rent pun Shannon does if you check out her twitch She has a place you can donate straight to her so you can leave hot makes out of it, which is totally cool with us, too I think it's coffee, right? I Don't know if it's coffee or co-fi, but yeah, co-fi coffee on my website If it might be on my twitch, I don't know. I haven't touched my twitch description like at all. So it might be there All right, so I just want to get that out there before anyone starts like say anything I don't want Shannon to feel bad because I yeah, but this is also like it I don't donate to me because he's telling you this though I just don't want you guys to start like raising a ton of money We appreciate it though Dress says co-fi awesome. Well, I tell you what all of that aside. We have a Phenomenal guest with us. So if you remember like a month ago ish we had Chris on from sinister props We talked about I don't know lightsabers and he showed us a bunch of cool ones Honestly, if you guys were on my stream last Tuesday, he didn't install on my stream Yeah For sure and and then like afterwards we're talking and he's like, you know if you want to see some cool stuff You got to check out this guy and I was like I jumped onto this page And I could not believe what I was seeing in and I think a bunch of us are probably gonna feel like that But I want to bring I want to bring Carl in right away Ladies and gentlemen Carl from vaults of a holla. How you doing? Hi everyone? I'm doing well. Thank you. Awesome. Well, I you're in England. So it's well midnight now, right? Yeah So so welcome to the stream I know we talked a little bit before about the caffeine we all have and I think you said you're drinking coffee, which That's gone now. It's the only thing keeping me going Nice well, welcome to the show before we go too far because we're right in the beginning Can you kind of tell everybody like who you are what you do and then we'll go in to talk about everything else? Sure. Um, my name is Carl. I run balls of Valhalla on my own There's nobody else just me and my job is to make a blank lightsaber hilt Pretty very very pretty with colors and an etching and everything else involved. So yeah, that's literally what I do all day every day That is an understatement you said pretty So so, um, you know, I guess let's first of all congrats on two years I thought two two years on your Facebook like yesterday. Yeah, yeah 24th. Yeah, and I think I'm scrolling real quick. It's a two-year anniversary. So I want to bring this up on the stream Just so everybody can see this too And it looks like my stream got dropped once There we go All right, let's let's drag this up. So this was your this was your two-year anniversary Hilt, right and One of the things that I noticed about you not only The crazy amazing work you do but the write-ups you do for each one of these is phenomenal Yeah, I like my saber designs to tell a story Um, everything is picked specifically everything has a meaning whether it's sentimentality or Something that means a lot in the story. It's from etc I want savers that I make when someone gets them to have a kind of attachment to them You know, it doesn't always happen. Don't be wrong The second-hand market is always full of full of these kind of sabers being sold and bought But I initially when the person buys these and gets it, I want them to think yes This is this is this is my saver. This was made for me kind of thing So that's why I go into a lot of detail about stuff like that because I love Fleshing out what I've done. I love telling people how I've done it why I've done it so on and so forth Well, and it's in it's absolutely a phenomenal work So so while we're talking about the two-year anniversary hilt that you did can you tell us about it? You know, you know, you told the story on Facebook, but most people here probably didn't read that So the top the the shroud amidst at the top here. This is filled in silk white It's based on the crown the Aragorn is Coronated with but it's filled in white because new manure and new minorians Reveal the seagull and seagulls revered because it's association with the sea and the new manure was an island in the sea and They're you know, they're basically a kingdom of the sea The rest of it the elvish that comes along in the middle here reads from left to right It's the top part of the prophecy for Aragorn. So you've got from the ashes a fire should be woken Basically the whole thing all the way around and then down back around the emitter The it is basically a Lord of the Rings crest. Yes The front triangle part is the very front of the crown It has a star in it and in this one I put a sapphire in there. There's no need to do it It's not actually in the thing. I just like adding a bit of gemstone occasionally It just makes things look a bit nicer And then everything is in it's been filled in with like silver and gold lines all the way around because if this is Going to be a saver for a king. I want it to look like it's been made for a king So gold a bit of a no-brainer and then the bottom pommel is The actual front crown so the the tree of gondor the two flourishes on either side and then the full Full set filled in matte silver against shiny silver which come out really nice I've never done that before. I've never used the same color to fill an edge But it because it's it's dulled down. It looks really good against it So I was quite pleased with that and then the rest is just filigree with royal blue So so we're looking at this can you tell us like I don't know if you have any trade secrets You can't tell us but how does it how does it work? How do you do what you do? I'm gonna pull this down Actually, yeah, I was I had the spear up because you posted that and this is what six See This is completely unique. It is one of the kind nothing else like it exists I had all the pieces for this machine especially And sent over from France and then they were all etched every single bit of it Etched and filled etched and filled all the way and then I added cross guards to the top Monger shrouds that is that is a giant garnet teardrop and the light from behind it was showing So yeah, it's it was a lot of work that huge amount of work That is awesome. I think you said something like seven months in the making right? It was from plan to finish it was seven months. Yeah, that is absolutely crazy. So so you you know Do you ask that cheese or how do you etch them and then like? What's your process how you get a fresh one like this one right here? Yeah, and then this is the one I'm gonna build and I believe these are actually your shrouds on here, right? The design is mining kens origin save from France. Yeah Awesome. So you get something like this I send it over to you and then what where do you do from there? So first things first if I don't have a template for the saber I've been sent you have to create one Which means using a set of vernias You have to take accurate measurements to meant, you know diameter etc And then mock up the template and then you have to test it to make sure it fits So print it test it it doesn't fit go back try it again so on so forth once you've done that you can then start the design I use inkscape because it's it's freeware and frankly for black and white stuff like like what's needed in this It's it's more than enough. You don't need photoshop or coral draw. Okay. I have coral draw It's there if I need it the last time I used it was probably about nine months ago You know what a waste of money. It's a super expensive software So once the design is done Which can be anywhere between Four to twenty four hours. It depends how complicated it is or how difficult the theme is Sometimes I get artist block. It does happen. I'll sit there for hours Staring at the design not getting anywhere and it's very frustrating But you do get there eventually and then once that's done You print it And I have a set here. This is this is the condor design on that saber So this is what it looks like when it comes out. So it's on the blue press and peel paper And this is the stuff they use to transfer and etch circuit boards Okay, you normally do it on copper But it works on brass and aluminium etc. So what you do is you then chop these out Cut them out to where they need to be and then on the saber match up Where it's going on this Pop it on there once his car obviously and then you tape it All the way around really tightly with thermal tape. So take that can resist high temperature. Sure As tight as you can it's got to be pressed flat against the metal. It's got to be absolutely solid Well, you stick it in the oven Sounds mad. You can use a food oven. It doesn't do anything to it It honestly my gas bill like when I'm when I'm doing the transfers for that day is nuts Like it'd be like 12 quid instead of the But yeah, you put that in for about About 15 minutes. The problem is the temperature Now it's different for every toner. Okay, so I use a Xerox printer And it's specifically a printer that I researched for acid etching because the toner in this particular printer is a really high pigment counts Brilliant for acid etching that printer toner likes about a hundred and sixty degrees Centigrade not Fahrenheit. Okay. Okay Other printers I've seen there's a Samsung. I've used before that was a hundred and seventy Then the problem is if you vary eight the degrees by too far you'll get bleeding You'll get blurring you'll get you know ruin the design It won't look right and you'll have to do a lot of fixing unless you want to reprint it and redo it all So, yeah, it's it's it's been a lot of research a lot of a lot of big learning curve from start to finish like Figuring out what's best where when I first started I was basically just hand-fisting it You know the temperatures weren't precise So I was ending up with a scriber in my hand Fixing it by hand and using bits of paint fixing it by it was a nightmare now Pretty much got it down to a nice process where I know what I'm doing so That is super cool. So so You take the paper you put on there you bake it then what happens at the ink transfers to yes, okay? So the back of this you'll see it shiny Right. Yeah, so that's plastic. Okay. It's got a plastic back to this So once the ink transfers the toner melts sticks to the metal and then when you pull this paper back off It pulls the blue off with it So yours this will all be transparent once he's got you got you transparent paper So the plastic itself because it's bonded to the toner and stays on the metal It stops the acid hitting the metal where it was Because it's plastic is resistant to ferric chloride, which is what I use to do my etchings So nothing can get through it is what gives the design the way it works on the metal. Got it There you go. So Andrea said off ferric chloride by the way We had a used to use first started for aluminium but Frankly, I prefer ferric. It's faster. It's easier. You don't have to sort about with mixing it It's just so much easier. It's messier. It's horrible stuff. Don't get it on anything metal. It'll ruin it Don't get it on your clothes. It'll ruin them. It's a nightmare for that, but it's so much better for quality etching That's awesome. So Real quick. Andrew. Thank you so much $10 not for the shanin to go to merfund. That's what it was specifically for So so you have you have a hilt like this you throw it in the oven you peel it off you have it etched You throw it you just toss it in the acid. No, no once it comes out the oven. There's there's more to do It doesn't just go straight in the acid Unfortunately the first thing you'll learn if you're etching metals even with your press appeal even with a perfect transfer You never trust your resists Never don't trust them. They lie to you. There are little tiny little holes that you can't see with a naked eye You'll get pitting in them. It's an absolute nightmare. So no I spend about Up to a week on my rounder sabers masking everything So I will use tape on large areas that don't need etching because nothing gets through tape I'll use nail polish on other areas like right angles and stuff to stop it getting in the corners Which is an absolute nightmare. I don't know if you've ever tried to mask A piece of metal a 90 degree angle You put paint on that the edge just comes straight back out again The paint doesn't stick on the actual edge so you can cover it and then the acid will hit the edge and it will still Eat through it. It's an absolute pain. So yeah, I mean you thought it was simple gem. It's not I'm learning. I mean like probably I don't know about y'all out there. Let us know in the chat What you think but I'm learning a ton right now And also if you have questions for carl, let us know Geary is gonna star them and we're gonna come back for questions You know towards towards the end here, but so so you mask it You you spent maybe like a week on something like this just masking it off and getting you ready See all the all the all the black on these Most of the time unless it's super super fine like the writing for example I will go over them with a 0.5 mil acrylic paint nib So I will hand draw the design over the design Just to stop the tiny little holes where the acid might get in and eat it It makes a world of difference because it it means that your designs come out super shiny with no No black holes and pitting everywhere Which happens a lot with acid etching. It's unavoidable in some cases even I get them And I I don't tend to get them in the designs I tend to get them elsewhere where I've used a big load of nail polish and something hasn't dried properly somewhere And it's just gotten through but it it's almost impossible to stop It is literally if you start acid etching you get pitting and you get damage and stuff like that It happens. Don't worry about it. Everyone gets it. Don't panic Well, and I imagine, you know, I bought this I sent it to you And if you don't take the time and detail that you're putting into it This could just be a ruined mess pretty quick. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, thankfully I I've yet to ruin a hilt like actually destroy a hilt to throw it away right In fact, if things go wrong, it can be saved There are ways to to make it look good despite the fact that it's gone way beyond where you're supposed to be It's funny because there's a couple of savers back when I first started When I first started etching and my first experience With putting metal in the acid and not really knowing how long it was supposed to be in for and things like that It came out and I remember looking hey chris And I remember looking at the uh looking at the metal thinking my god I ruined this It's destroyed. It looks terrible like Honestly, you cannot make that decision until you finish cleaning and polishing and sanding until it's all back to normal You can't look at that and say that's ruined because it will surprise you it'll come back out of it Looking absolutely brilliant when you thought it was wrecked Which makes no sense whatsoever, but it really does happen. It's happened a couple of times. Oh, man. Oh, man. So so you uh Spend I mean by now you have a couple weeks into the design into prepping into transferring and Masking and then the acid how long does the acid part take you dip it in something you paint it on How does it work? So you dip it you submerge it in this instance, which is another problem because if you think about think about hilts Yeah, big long tubes With big holes in either side of them So you also have to make sure the inside is sealed off as well, which uh, I I I kind of invented a process that I I gave everyone freely in the community. I didn't hide it I put a big live stream out about it and now every actor. I know uses this So everyone used to tape the inside of the hill So you'd get a big long strip of tape and you somehow bend it and get it in Back down the other side and then you hope it sticks to the inside of it No one It takes ages So I I looked at it one day. I think this was about Maybe two months into my into my journey. I looked at now when there's got to be an easier way to do this But you know all it means is something inside creating pressure and I just went balloons Balloons can do it So now I just put a balloon in there blow it up tie it off and put a cork in the pressure Pushes it outwards and it stops everything getting in the windows It makes the world of difference. It makes it so much easier. That's that's genius I know uh chris chris over at sinister props. Uh, he says carl I've uh, I've installed a solid dozen of your works in of art and I can say you're absolute living legend, my friend It's a bit above and beyond Yeah, well, what's what's cool these criss? Why do you I I'm sure I follow your page All I ever see is jeremy doing it What what's awesome about that is that you have you know, you're making him on England, you know, he's making him. He's put him together in california somewhere All that comes together All over the world and back again and then back again. It's nuts. Absolutely nuts, right? So you so you acid etching Uh, you dip them in the acid they come out What that takes about a day Yeah, well only because I do each piece individually Um, so if I'm doing aluminium it's an aluminium on one day and a brass on the other because the processes are slightly different So I have a set batch for acid etching brass which is called an edinber etch So it's not just straight ferric chloride. It's also citric acid dissolved in water mixed ferric chloride So the citric acid in the ferric chloride pulls the copper ions off the surface of the brass To stop it getting clogged up because brass is a little bit harder to etch. It's not as fast It takes a bit longer. Is that what this is here? Yes, that's brass. Yeah, okay Yeah, so um The the edinber etch I save normally until after I've done all the aluminium and then the aluminium I'll start I'll pull all the shrouds off separately uh the pommels the grips and so on and so forth and then with ferric because it's such a It's such an instant reaction with aluminium. It really is quite aggressive and it can get quite hot as well crazy I've kind of got it down to a bit of an arc form now with timings I know I know how long you should put it in for before you pull it out rinse it some and so forth A lot of the time it's maybe 15 to 30 seconds It doesn't need to be in long and then you pull it out rinse it put it back in again It heats up. You've got to use cold water to rinse it cool it back down again. If you let the heat Go out of control. It will destroy the work If you just eat through it in an instant it's now it steams sometimes it'll steam When you cool it off in the water, you can see steaming coming off it It's nuts how fast it is don't ever ever leave a piece of aluminium in ferric chloride unattended. Don't it'll it literally explodes It comes all over it'll go everywhere. It's now seen it before it's never happened to me I've seen someone post it in a group saying I tried doing this for ferric chloride. What went wrong? You went inside the house, didn't you? You left it on its own and it just exploded everywhere It's aggressive stuff with aluminium brass Leave it in as long as you like don't because it will get ruined eventually It doesn't do anything like it doesn't fizz up and foil over or anything like that That's awesome. So uh, you get it out You clean it up. You said and then um, we're looking at this one you created This is that big staff, right and and the one that you showed in the beginning Um, this one looks like I mean you fill in the color then from there The white yes, the weathering is done Basically once once you pull it out of the brass Sure, um clean up does take a little while because there's so much nail polish and so much crap everywhere And you've got to use a lot of acetone. It ruins my hands Like after clean up my hands the fingernails are black like it's ruined But yeah, once that's done you don't take the resist off straight away You kind of dip it in some chemicals to darken it up And then once you've scrubbed off the resist, you then give it a bit of a sand A little bit of a light polish so you don't pull the the resist Look the weathering back out of the recesses Okay, and then then I move on to the painting and the gemming and stuff Wow And I mean you have uh By this time what two three weeks in into this? Yeah, so normally from design to finish I'd say Anywhere between 20 and 25 days Wow, yeah, that's crazy. I mean this month's and is the 25th I mean they're so detailed though. So like I mean, it doesn't surprise me because it you know, that's effort that goes into it clearly. Oh, it's it's a lot of time Yeah, yeah, if I boil it down to hours worked Versus the prices they tend to go for and I'm not saying I'm cheap because I'm not I know I'm not cheap If I boil it down to hours work, I'm earning just above minimum wage, which is nuts. So But but you uh, but you love doing it, right? I mean, that's and that's exactly it That's why I sit there all day at my work bench and carry on doing it because I feel like a slave, but I don't because I love doing it. So so you um You brought a couple you have a couple next year, right? So you you just finished a few lately the giant staff is behind you We saw that for a minute. Is there any more you can show us that are they're hiding there? So I haven't sent this off yet, but it has been sold and This is the spider man. I did Oh So a lot of work went into this because I don't know you can see every single hexagon there Oh my god, it's hand-filled in red enamel And it took ages to do that. I was doing it with a little tiny little needle With enamel just just getting it in the little hole. I really wanted to be like I want one But now I I don't want to make it well. I counted and I filled in over 1500 hexagons Oh my god, there's more on the actual emitter as well with blue there So yeah, it was an absolute nightmare and then the funny thing is I started filling them I did an entire shroud and Originally the eyes and the webbing weren't black. They were still silver And I thought I was going to leave it shiny and then I did all the red and I went I think I want to do it black which means I had to scrub it off Starts again and then do it black and then refill it. So I mean technically I did over 22,000 hexagons Yeah, it was a lot of work but one of the things that makes this one special is um, that's a metal spider icon which I I got out of etsy. It is a metal car decal and what I did was I carefully bent the legs round To fit the hill and because the paint will flake the cross it then I had to respray it before it went on So I resprayed it in gloss black and then the webbing This is the 3d puffy paint. They actually use on the cosplay suits So this is how people get their their webbing done on the spider suits when they're making themselves I've never done it before and I was quite proud of how that came out because honestly It's a pain in the ass to control it. It's a horrible little tube that you use But yeah, it came out really nicely. Very proud. I love it. I love it Uh, and I also have the Loki which I've just finished today Oh, I saw the other day. But yeah, so president Loki badge, Loki armor Loki symbol, Loki horns, Loki scarf pattern Yeah, it's all for everything's filled I don't often do full fill sabers because they take so long to do and they take a lot of cleaning up and so on and so forth But there's certain themes that require that the green and gold of Loki needed to go through the whole thing You kind of got a little bit of green and gold and say, yeah, it's Loki theme like he is green and gold That's what he wears this his entire ensemble. So I love it That's so cool. And I mean like the thing about just just talking to you for the last what we got 30 minutes here say Um, it just it everything that stands out to me about you is like you don't mess around if you're gonna do something You're doing it like I don't care if I have to fill in what'd you say 22,000 or something little little dots Do you know what I shoot for self in the foot for it every time? I sit here in my chair doing these designs and I think there was like, yeah, that's a great idea That's gonna look amazing when I get down there when it's all done and finished. I'm looking at it and go Why have I done this to myself? It's such a pain. That's such a mood for me Um, but if you want to point out real quick guys, I'm interrupting. Uh, thank you to For the raid. We just got raided by 13 people on twitch. Nice. Thank you. Sorry Shouting out everyone. Yeah No, that that is awesome. I mean it but but in the end you look at it, right? And you're like, yeah, I'm glad I did that Yeah, it's worth it. It does end up being worth it But honestly after time, I just think I just make things hard for myself on purpose I'm constantly trying to push the envelope. I'm always saying, well, I've got to stay relevant I've got to do something new. I've got to try something else like and it is always frustrating because It's not like, you know, you just etch and leave it at that. I'd be a master at that by now But I'm always trying to do something different. Right because of that. I'm always learning every time I do something I'm learning something new Last month I had to to learn how to do a traditional Arabian fabric wrap I had to turn it into a grip and anyone knows that if you cut woven fabric it frays apart Is that this one? There's no way to do it. That, that's the one, exactly that So this guy, this guy sent me this from Saudi Arabia. He sent me this specific thing And he said I want my grips to be this and I looked at it and normally I should have just said no Because that's me until But no, I went, yeah, let's give it a try. I'll see if I can do it So what I ended up doing was I cut it with a I've got a big One of the big rotor trim big cutters like super sharp blade So I cut the right size square out that I needed and then immediately stuck it to a sheet of prospects Little like a thin sheet of prospects. So can't like glue all over it just straight down So it didn't have a chance to start fraying and then I glued I hand glued it all the edges around the square to stop them coming apart at the edge as well And then I folded it over Use my leather punches to punch through the plastic and then sewed it like I would a leather grip But because it's plastic it doesn't stretch. It's really tough and it was wanting to go flat all the time It was a nightmare. I'm never doing that again. That is a one-off never again That's phenomenal. And I mean though it looks amazing and uh, it looks like it sounds like you learned something new Right. Oh in many ways. Yeah, I've never taken a dremel to my own work before There's your stitches. But that was new. He went, yeah, can you battle damage two of them? Oh, what? You want me to destroy them? Like, yes, basically. So I saw that. Um, here here you go. I absolutely love that by the way I think I saw this when you the other day when you posted it. I love that. I love how that looks I would like to point out. I've never done that before That's the first time I've done that. I've seen people do it And I just took that as my guideline and went, yeah, let's give it a go. And that's how that's what happens That's how I do things. I'm like, yeah, let's give it a go. Let's just try it. So you etched it first and then tore it up Yes, exactly that. Crazy It looks it looks awesome. Um Shannon, I think we need to battle damage some stuff. What would you have that we can battle damage my stuff? I already battled damage it because it's never how I want it to be. So I'm just like, oh, it's okay It's so cool Yeah, as a matter of fact, I might send you one of these and you can battle that. No, I'm just joking See, but I don't attempt to battle damage my stuff. It just like never works out. So Um, so I'm on I'm on carl's facebook page. Oh, hey the crown royal I mean you must get that was an unusual one. I was gonna say you must get some just just crazy requests, right? What's the weirdest request I haven't had anything that's that I'd actually consider crazy just yet That was difficult because of the amount of themes on it You know the crown royal stuff looks great, but then he wanted, you know, there's like 15 fandoms also on that sabre. So Oh, wow Oh, yeah, there you go So yeah, it's firefly rick and morty, uh, Jurassic park ghostbusters Settlers a katan legend of zelda batman hitchhiker's garden galaxy futurama doctor who star trek voyage. It's nuts All of it's on there That's phenomenal. So like to shannon's point, I think she just asked what's your what's your weirdest or craziest one I mean, he said there haven't been any like way out there one. So I mean, I think that probably fits a bill that one Yeah, that's that's probably the most out there one I've done so far Uh, does it have a flask inside? No, but the guy who who that was commissioned for he's got a jedi robe hand sewn from those bags Nice, literally they're just all bags joined together into this massive robe. I remember seeing the photo just like a wow I haven't bags to that take He drank a few for that. So this is this is cool. This is a kind of a different different look here. Is this Real wood or is this painted? Oh, no, that's no, it's real wood. It's it's wood veneer. That is brazilian rosewood Um, I if I'm doing the wood look handle. I prefer to use real wood It's a bit more of a pain because it splinters and flakes if you're not careful with it It does look better I kind of went for a steampunk look with that. Yeah, I saw that with the pipes. That looks really cool Yeah, it was it's not something again not something I've never done before and the trigger guard again My god, that was that was interesting I had to file that out to fact fit the curve of the hill Oh, yeah originally so I had to get a big hand file and just go at it That's super cool I love it. I I mean so, uh You've been doing this for for two years now, right? And something we completely skipped over. How did you start this? Like what what in your head said, you know, I'm gonna start making, you know, how did it start? Let me just answer Chris's question first My favorite Lord of Ring theme saber I've made. Well, I've done I've done saber of the the Rohan guard. I've done the saber of the fountain guard I've done the saber of the new Menoran kings. I've done the saber of Aragorn I've done the saber of Tariel And I've done the journey Which was a representation of of the fellowship's journey With Sauron and so on so you know big staff that was and so far I honestly think the favorites I did were the 89 sabers fallen Saber of the fountain guard saber the Rohan guard because they repaired into a staff So one side was Rohan one side was gondor and they were only the shrouds But it was nice and clean and it looked really it just set her off nicely It wasn't too busy or anything like that things like this are great But they get so detailed that things get lost in it. Yeah, it's still beautiful It's a gorgeous looking saber But you know, you have to you have to come up close to read the writing and stuff like that Whereas on these others like yeah, that's Rohan. Yeah, that's gondor. It looks amazing There's something to be said for simplicity There is I was laughing real hard because Dan says we need a Jimmy Buffett themed I mean to answer a printer from there. Here you go. Some people do Some people do convert them into beer handles So nice that that you know, what's funny is I showed someone recently I was like Carl's going to be on the stream and they're like foot tap handles. I was like, no That's right. I got a Heineken themed one just later. Yeah. Yeah, so yeah when I started I I basically I I've been out of the saber game for a long time. I think the last time I bought one was a mace window From 2004 or five or something like that. Okay, and the technology in them was You know, there's no great shakes. They did the they did the flash on clash and that was it They didn't do the smooth swing hums or anything like that It was kind of just and not only that the safer grip It's like that was massive this thing. It was huge. You couldn't wield it if you wanted to So I still have that it's downstairs, but it didn't interest me at the time and then sure just over two years ago Obviously galaxy's edge was fairly new Disney were getting big on star wars and they started releasing their own like their own hilts with the little display cases and stuff And I my personal favorite cannon hilt or hilts tend to be obi ones So I like the Phantom Menace. I like the the Bench of the Sith and so on and so forth Um, but I got the Phantom Menace hill in its display case and it came and it got me interested in savers again for However brief a period of time and when I jumped back into the hobby to find out what was going on with savers I realized that the technology had come so far now that essentially they were real saver without cutting through things Obviously, but you had the effect of a real saver. Sure. Um, and I remember thinking of mine This hobby's huge There's loads of these people around and as you scroll through the groups you you can't help but come across the people who etch the savers and there was only really I suppose three three major names two years ago and one of them was bad batch etching who was Pete's powder and pourium Okay, um, and I remember seeing a couple of his filigreed Etched savers and I think I thought to myself They look incredible. Like they look amazing I would love to have something like this And I realized that he was in America and I was like if I sent something there to be done It would be months down the road before you even got to it It cost me a fortune to send it there and get it back again So on and so forth And I remember commenting on one of his posts. I said, God, I wish you lived in England You know, I wish you lived in the UK and I realized there was no one in the UK did either Not at the time. Anyway, there's a couple of us now Um, but yeah, I looked at it and I went I wonder how hard that actually is to do It can be that difficult surely So so that was literally how it began. I started looking into it And then I I bought my first blank hill from Cal at K. R. Savers, which is flagship Black ship. Sure. So I did like this one. It was the brass one Weirdly, that's not the aluminium. It was the brown. I went full tilt into the brass If I mean thinking back that was a mistake aluminium would have been slightly Um, but yeah, I I etched those two I installed those two and got them both working and I just I fell in love with doing it And the problem was all the equipment to do it and this was only the basic, you know Get it done out the way. So not the stuff I've got now the stuff a lot of that stuff is really expensive Um, but it was quite expensive at the time and I thought, ah, maybe I could make one to make a bit of money back You know, just sell it on the hobby. You know nice and cheap So I did and I created the the Cthulhu Sabre, which is like a Sith Cthulhu hybrid And and the lady called Rara who's quite prevailing on the groups bought that And when she got it in hand, she raved about it She couldn't but she was literally on the group saying this thing's amazing I can't believe how good this looks on and so forth and because this was literally the third of hilt I'd etched I had I suppose looking back at it now with all the experience I've gained I had no right being that clean I didn't I had no right. It should have come out dirty and pitted You know, as you would expect for someone who's just started doing it But my stuff for some reason I have a bit of a I suppose a bit of a perfectionist streak And I have to make sure everything goes perfectly otherwise I'm not happy and that really helped In setting this business up because if I hadn't had that I would have taken me a long time to get to where I am now Fortunately for me because of Rara's backing and the fact that I then created the saver of the new menorian kings which went viral It it literally exploded. It was on the front page of reddit, which I'm sure anyone knows that's really hard to do You need a lot of likes in a very short amount of time and a lot of comments But it just it just went it exploded and then I decided to put it up for auction because there was so many people who wanted it And I ended up selling it for just over 2000 pounds Oh, wow. That was the fourth Fourth hill I'd made And the flagships as you know are what 100 quid you know 120 dollars Yeah, this thing went over 2000 pounds and the buzz around the community just it went around like lightning But have you seen this flagship that sold for over 2000 pounds like nobody could believe it And the next thing I knew I had a business That was that was literally I set up my page And then I was full for a year And that was it that's how I started did you uh, did you decide at that time? Okay, this is where I quit my old job or did you try to do both for a while? No, I I did both for a year and a half. Oh, wow And it was a struggle. I tell you I didn't have a day off for a year Minimum like it was it was nuts every single day every single day I used to finish work where I was a cycle 15 miles home And then I worked on midnight like and then I it was a nightmare But wow because I love doing it. It wasn't so bad And then I realized we know what after about a year Uh, maybe a little bit longer. I realized that actually the the money I was taking in from this job Far outweighed the other job And really if I started doing more in this job because I had more time It would have been it was a better option. So that's what I did I eventually I handed in my notice and I've been doing this on its own for about seven months now That is super cool. And and uh, I know we gotta we're already man We're already 13 minutes out But but um, we talked a little about the show and and how you historically have worked so far Is that you open up a lottery for like two for two weeks, right? And then you just allow anyone else to anyone to sign up and then you have an allotted Amount of hilts that you can do in the year and you just it's like a lottery if you get it you get it if you don't you don't, right? Uh, I mean exactly that. Yeah, I use a random number generator. I've got said nothing's ever truly random on a computer But you get the gist the thing is this year. Um, because I'm opening more slots with my commissions I probably won't be doing that again. Um, I think Usually I have about 40 sign ups and if I can get 40 slots, there would be no need to do a raffle this time Hopefully, I mean for all I know it might turn out. I get a hundred off. I don't know Sure. Sure. No, that's so cool. And and uh, we're I mean just looking back. I I I speak for myself and probably a lot of the people in the chat Are just sitting back on holy moly. I mean the the attention to detail in the time Is absolutely amazing, but just talking to you you can just tell that you absolutely love it I mean to be honest if I didn't I'd probably be in the corner crying Difference I think that's a lot of the projects a lot of people do you think if we I want to do a little bit of a shout out to another do it another sabre manufacturer This is a pride in my collection a piece of pride and I I don't say that lately because of the stuff I make it takes a lot to get into my collection um, but this is this is the Pierce the resistance that I have this is made by vaders vault Vaders vault are a premium saver company in the united states They make absolutely beautiful pieces and they do custom work with etching and this is the the saver of the even star So it has the Has the r-wen symbol on the front there. It's got the doors of durian on the back nice But it it's it's beautifully etched Very nice. It's quite deep But this it the reason I like these is because vaders vault make their savers so very slim Like you can put your full hand around it quite easily and nice to wield and the electronics in there Absolutely incredible That's super cool, and that's neopixel then that's neopixel. Yeah Uh, you hear that chris I'm glad you talked me into I got three Neopixel setups coming for the three hilts I got and I'm super pumped for To install them for the first time But uh, you know, let's I think we're super close for about 10 minutes out Let's just take a couple minutes And let's look at some cool stuff the hot makes we got for the episode and then we'll come back and finish off with you First thing I want to do is well, we'll bring some hot makes up. Let's do it hot makes So the first thing we got here is Um, shannon, who's this? Who is this? I forgot who you said it was. This is baren. Uh, baren, okay Actually, at least he was earlier, but um, we saw this a couple weeks ago Uh, oh, he shed it on my stream and it's just there's a lot of detail in there. So Yeah, I think this has they said it has 1500 individual coins over 3 million poly polygons Um That's pretty dang awesome. Do you 3d print on your side over there, uh, carl? I own the 3d printer. Yes. Um, I use it for making chassis is occasionally Uh, practical stuff mostly, you know door stops and hooks and things like that. It's a very handy thing to have Very handy. I must admit It is this is super cool 1500 individual coins 3 million polygons. That's pretty awesome. Nice work All right, what do we got next here? Blasto I don't know if I don't know if I saw Blasto in the chat yet But he says he's built his dream game boy color with the boxy pixel cnc aluminum shell and buttons It's a usbc rechargeable and This thing is This thing's a game boy color. I lived on that when I was a kid. I know And and I love that people are recreating them Yeah, it's like the games are a thing right now to Yeah, well, that's and that's the next one. So he's got the first uh, or the second two here So his next one, he said he went out and bought about 12 new cartridges off ebay in the last few days So he needed something so he printed this, uh This this holder here for it. I still have that game boy camera You watch your Nice, I love it Um, all right, what do we got next here? Uh, hey, this is awesome. This is a dice tower made with a 1.5 liter bottle on the outside And then the 3d printed in poly light petg Um, I love this thing. I've seen this around the few times, but I absolutely love this print. It's just It's super cool And you know the gaming the dice tower is just such a big thing That there's just there's thousands and thousands of models and this is one of my favorites because you actually get to see it coming down the stairs Anything that has like movement like that. I like nice. Thanks for yeah movement is good Um This is this is something I thought would really cool. I wanted to show this because it made me think of like the lightsabers, right? So we had um, we had land in on and he he um Was it landed now? I'm second guessing myself. Oh my gosh. Anyways, um, he he gets some crazy 3d printing And he does metal and all sorts of cool stuff and this is uh, he says nasa made alloy grx 8 10 It's very tough to machine Into an additive powder so you can actually print with it The future's not so or it's cool, but it's hot 100 or i'm sorry. I can't even read today a thousand C If I could read the writing in front of me a thousand C to make this and and print with it from this powder I'm Look at that super good It'll withstand a thousand C Yeah, it's of the nasa workbench with a creality end of three on it the little Yeah, yeah, yeah in the middle of nasa. There's little 3d printer like Um now I need to read this article because uh, I think it's so it's super cool. It's it's super high. Um Tolerance as far as heat goes and An additive powder. It just makes you think like what's next All right, uh Subsection 3d. I'm going to need a lot more poly tera army beige for many more busts like this. I thought this was pretty sweet Nice work on that Where was he at in star wars? I can't remember Uh, just joke Gorilla wasn't in the chat to correct you so I had to oh All right, what do we got here local maker michigan? I had to do this I don't know if dan's with us tonight or not But he said if you want screenshot the misery of dan eating heaping mound of vegemite First of all, I didn't even know vegemite still existed. Yeah, and kiran will gladly probably tell you in my chat And and to the face after he actually eats this This phenomenon Nope Oh, so good dan you're with us. It sucked he says Um So so we can now call you the vegemite kid because you're the only one I know That has eaten this since I was a kid probably Uh Nice work All right, what's next miller 3d designs, uh laser engraved mirror and custom frame um I'll pop this open There you go So that's pretty sweet. I'm a laser engraved mirror with a custom frame and some leds in there Yep, and if anybody's not aware of it is the maker deck logo in there There you go And that's and they tagged like uh maker deck right there and chris I'm surprised chris isn't here. I Chris is this all of the good star wars stuff recently like I know you usually you say lightsabers and he starts twitching All right, chris russell, uh just finished lasering this tile This is actually done on the fucos fucos fe 20 It is uh two colors of paint on a white tile and then he uh, basically you change, um As far as that's okay. You change how, uh What's the easiest way the speed and the power of the laser depending on You know how far you want to burn down and I did some videos on this too on my channel and this is a really really good Uh job here nice work on this one chris um The greens pop the whites pop super super good And I love it the the grogu there All right, what do we got next kit kit posted a whole ton of these and I only have time to show one today But he has made a new 3d printed action figure like sat There's another another one that he printed that he just has lines and lines that he's lined up and some of them are painted And um, I think it's really cool that transform is Yeah, kind of yeah. Yeah, and um It's my 3d printed action figure is what he what he said here, but it's super cool that you can take something Um design it and then like print it like you said, you know absolutely Nice work I know i'm going through these kind of fast today, but um this one is the uh from ai build This is one continuous 3d print with changing angles and no supports um, this is a 360 degree multi planner Print and I gotta show you this this 15 seconds when I saw this I was just like there's no way Let's see what you guys think of this Uh, so the printer can move. Yeah, okay That is That makes sense though because it's just clinging to the surface of what's already there instead of being layer on layer, so yep That is just out. I mean that that's just awesome. I mean The technology is going so far so fast and 3d printing everything in a minute We can already do this Right All right, what do we got next Pathy on design. Oh, this was cool. This was uh 3d printing in the back of a truck Like okay, that wouldn't work here because it would just be pothole after pothole Like that honestly would probably break the printer if they want to challenge They should take the perspex cover off that'd be This is awesome You know, I wanted to know they said I read further into this and it said about 20 minutes into the print Their battery backup died So they're gonna try to get a bigger one or maybe even power from the truck and and see if they can actually You know print for a while But that was pretty dang cool Pretty dang cool. Thank you dan for hitting us on that one. Uh graffit He is uh, let's see is this it's ready ready with the tanker now. Um, there you go This I I love I love the mad max stuff And he did such a cool job. A lot of this was done on the Piapoli phenom resum printer and a prusa 3d mini plus and a predator delta. He says There you go awesome And then the last two here steven pool, uh, this is an air raid siren and it's very loud I'll take his word So, um, I had to throw this in Because steven steven did it right. He used the hot makes banana for scale And you know, we can actually see The scale of this the this is the official hot makes banana carl I was a yeah. Yeah, it it says, uh hot makes official, uh right on it Tom, uh, 3d printing mama designed this and we always give everybody a hard time because When you see something you never know what the scale is, you know, it's just hard to tell what a scale is from a picture So, uh, you know, we always say, where's the banana and he came up with this, which is really cool. Um, and last but not least I left this one specifically for carl tonight Um, this is the, uh, arian flamming for laurel moses from printables.com. This is the loyal saber Oh, there we go The 3d printed oil saber with the the kyber crystal There's a there's a dude who 3d prints, um lord of the ring sabers So he's done like the andreal hilt and things like that and I would I would love to have one in metal Yes for me 3d printing is is you know, I can't do anything to it It's plastic. I can't put it in that seat. I won't do anything You know, I tend to steer away, but they look really cool. You can cast it properly Nice well nice work on that one and uh everybody if you want to see those and more don't forget link in the description below Uh, click on that. You'll see everything from the episode as far as the hot mix goes. Um So carl, I know we're up against time too, but before we go one more time Who are you? What do you do and then where can everybody find you? um Hopefully they can't find me because I try to stay away Um, that's not a joke. I haven't left the house since the fourth the fourth of april I've become a hermit. All I do is work and and I have a cat that keeps me company Does your cat go get your groceries? I mean that's No, I just order online. It's so much easier. They bring me to your door. I don't have to do anything. It's pretty He's literally not kidding I'm not kidding. That's all the last I left for the fourth to get a haircut I have to get it done elsewhere Uh, yeah, so I'm call I'm bolster valhalla. Uh, you can find me on facebook under bolster valhalla Uh, www.bolstervalhalla.uk Um, and I have an instagram as well, which is at bolster valhalla Awesome And if and if we want to get on the next lottery or whenever you open it up, how do we do that? How do we know that on facebook? So my list reopen is coming up in may for june Which is when all my slots restart It'll probably be the first two weeks of may so look out for the post within the next you know within the next week Literally, um, I'm going to be opening the slots up further this year. So there'll be more Slots available. So if you do want to get on board, there's a good chance you will get on board this year without me having to raffle them off so No, that is super. And you know what though? I gotta say what a problem to have you got to raffle your work off Darn it. Honestly, I mean it's slowed down now. I think I think my mind that that's peaked now I'm kind of coming into the nice level curve it but back in the day when I brought out a new saver That was a project. I couldn't move for the amount of people saying I want it. I want it. I wanted please Let me buy this. It was ridiculous. I had to fend them off with sticks as opposed to Actually selling the unit now, you know, I might get one or two people saying yeah, I'll have that I love this. I think the hype hype's just finished now. I'm just steady. It's nice Nice. No, that's awesome for you. We really appreciate that. Anything else Shannon before we go Oh, no, my end. Um, I'll be on my own stream tomorrow and I think, uh, Chris Chris, I don't know if you're joining us. I'm just assuming that you are because it's Tuesday. Um, but that's about it for me Awesome. Can I just say I appreciate the british avengers hat, by the way Yeah, it's like my favorite thing. You guys are gonna make me really emotional. This was um, downy's assistance hat He passed away and I was I talked to him often on so, uh, I got it from a mutual friend as a gift for my birthday this year And it's like my favorite thing So, yeah, that's set hat from ultra nice Awesome. Well, everybody else don't forget hashtag hot makes keep tagging us with the cool stuff We'll get you in there. I promise we have an awesome show for you guys next week, too But carl, thank you again, man. We really really do appreciate the time I know it's you know one in the morning your time right now but We definitely appreciate you hanging out with us and and being able to be live with us Everybody in the chat let carl show them some love before we go, but Okay, you're fine. Yeah Well, no pictures no pictures But everybody have a great week. We will see you next week right here on hot makes 6 p.m. Central Carl hang out with us. We'll be right back with you everybody else. You guys have a great week We'll see you next time. See you later Bye