Want a big cardboard gun? How about a huge one? This is a cardboard version of a revolver and is 20 inches long. It was made with 123D Make and a laser cutter although if you're patient you can certainly cut this out by hand as well.

Having a huge cardboard gun is pretty ridiculous. Like you just crossed over into toonland. I'd say it's been a pretty valuable addition to our office as you can now ask for things with extra authority.

Step 1: Starting Out in 123D Make

Start out by getting 123D Make. It's free for PC or Mac. With that installed, just open it up and import a 3D file. This handgun file was available free on Turbosquid. It's a .44 Magnum revolver.

Step 2: Slice and Enlarge

We're going to be using the Stacked Slices option here. This slices the model up for cutting out of cardboard.

Of course, we don't want the regular size gun. That's no fun. So select the width and bump it up to 20

Step 3: Shrinkwrap

Since the file has the cylinder separated from the rest of the gun we're going to use the shrinkwrap option to connect them better. This also has a side effect of bulking up the whole gun and making it more cartoonish. Which is also nice.

You can see the before and after effects of this in the photos.

Step 4: Export EPS Files

When everything is ready to go, export your files. 123D Make will export all of the slices across a few pages. I'm using these files for a laser cutter, an Epilog, but they can also be printed out on regular paper and then taped down to cardboard to cut.

Step 5: Cut and Glue

No it's just a matter of cutting and gluing. The pieces are numbered to go in order from bottom to top so start at 1 and keep on going until you have a gun!

Step 6: Gun!

That's it, you now have a large gun to play with. You can even make it bigger if you want. Or use it for other items that would look sufficiently goofy when large.

Have fun!