Inspired by gmjhowe's amazing steampunk guns, I made a steampunk raygun. I started with a piece of scrap wood for the body, and cut the basic shape with a jigsaw. The piece of wood had grooves in it, so I used spackle to fill those in. Then I painted it. After painting it, I realized that it still looked like a block of wood. I used spackle to shape it, and sanded it down by hand. Then I started to add the components of the raygun. The "barrel" of the raygun is a piece of copper pipe, with an adapter on the end. I cut two slits in the end of the body, and slid the pipe onto it. I used spackle to hide the seam, so it appeared as if the barrel was part of the body. After that, I made the "cocking mechanism". This is a mending plate from my local hardware store, a spring from a toy, and a piece from a switchblade-comb toy. The spring is attached to a hole in the mending plate, and a hole in the toy, so when you pull the toy forward, it springs back. I attached it to the raygun body with hot glue, but put the cut-off heads of six screws onto it to make it look like it's attached with the screws. I went to Michael's craft store to buy some leather for the handle that I had laying around, and found some steampunk-looking jewelry pendants. I attached a some of these to the raygun using the same cut-off screw method mentioned previously.  I glued on the handle, which is a piece of copper pipe with a curved elbow on it. The "trigger" is a hunk of metal from a slide lock. Then, after adding a few more things, I masked off the components, and painted it. I started with a coat of flat black paint, then went over it with a light spray of brown, gold, and silver. Over all, I think it looks pretty good.