Last night the manufactory was a feverish hive of activity as the Neuralizer, now broken down into its component parts, was fitted with sundry components of a mechano-galvanic nature, and the outer casing given a lick of paint (can't go adventuring in the Victorian Era with a handful of PVC) to make it look like brass, which it does, mostly.
This morning I revisited this job with a view to finding some means of preventing everything the Neuralizer touches being coated in super-fine brass dust, which I'm hoping can be summed up as "Testor's Glosscote". I'm keeping the old fingers crossed that the varnish doesn't interact in some vile way with the metallic paint and destroy all this hard work. It wouldn't be the first time paint has mutinied on me.
Also, what I hope is the final construction conundrum was solved when I machined a workmanlike pistol grip for the device from a block of Maple. I sized the grip by eye and used some wood I had left over from another project that was of convenient dimensions. Cutting the top and bottom to a 15 degree angle gave the grip a comfortable rake. Due to a happy error at the table sander due to ham-fistedness, I machined a small front-to-rear taper in the blank which turned out to improve the comfort of the grip considerably.
The breakthrough moment came when I realized that things would be easier to achieve all-round if I mounted the two triggers not side-by-side as originally planned, but one beneath the other so that the lower one could be actuated by the middle finger and the upper by the more traditional index one. This allowed me to use a smaller, sharper router bit to cut a slot down the face of the grip to accept the microswitches, which were then a press-fit. Another pass with a veining bit to provide clearance for the cabling required and I was left wondering why it had taken me so much effort to come up with the solution in the first place.
Attaching it to the rear housing turned out to be easier than I thought it would be too. I simply machined a tapped hole in the rear of the already highly machined piece of wood, aligned with the grips vertical axis, and mounted a length of quarter-inch threaded rod in it and secured the two together with epoxy resin. This enabled me to attach the grip to the housing with a nut. The handle was prevented from twisting by the addition of a short stud just forward of the hole for the threaded rod that protruded into the slot cut for the microswitches/triggers.
This morning I wired those triggers and mounted them in the grip. Nothing wakes one up so quickly as jabbing a hot soldering iron into the left bicep.
A late design change calls for one relay to be re-designated as an optional upgrade, making the rearmost hand-wheel control only the Aetheric Resonator effect rather than forming the first in a cascade of controls for the various effects (which would convey a more realistic firing sequence). I'm nervous about the relay failing, you see. I can live with the actual firing effect not working because of a sub-standard part failure in the field, but the visual impact of the device will largely depend on the plasma effect going on down the spine of the gun and having that go dark because someone tightened the purse strings when it came to making the armature of the relay would be too bad.
Tonight the device will be reassembled into its working configuration and hopefully I can get on with building the Moran Galvanic Reservoir - a power source of proprietary (and sparkly) design and putting the final touches to the webbing slings.
After I build the Forward Barrel Exciter Shield and attach it in place, of course. The exciter is mounted but needs to be concealed and the light (which is a bit disappointing in the candela department to be honest, but the large and impressive version was simply too long) requires a reflector to properly direct it and hide the rather mundane origin of the green Weird Science glow from public view.
I decided to go with a double length of cabling between the power source and the gun - I'm really too nervous for words when it comes to thin wires people can grab and electricity, even when insulated. I've seen some catastrophes involving current traveling down wires too thin for the flow in my time. A key design element has always been to avoid setting myself on fire while using the Neuralizer. Double cabling introduced a headache with tangling, so I stitched both fabric-clad lengths together with thread.
Should I ever revisit the design, I think I will somehow arrange for hidden bypass switching that can be actuated without stripping down the Neuralizer in the event of a relay failure. I would also like to include an anti-tamper control that disables the whole affair in some non-obvious way.
But other than that, I think the Moran Aetheric Neuralizer is just about ready to be deployed against the Vile Vivisectors of Mars or anyone else who wanders into the line of fire without a white flag and the proper attitude.
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