Wolverine Costume with Retractable Claws

Step 3 Retractable claws (equipment)

Now for the claws, Wolverine's signature piece. I played around with a few plans for automatically retracting and extending claws (including a pulley-based system) but eventually went with a simple gravity-based system: flick your arm down and the claws extend, raise it up and they'll retract. They can be held in their current position by pushing your knuckles against the claws, either to block the end tubes or to hold the extended claws in place.

For each hand you'll need:

• three tubes, about the length of your forearm. I used the plastic handles from some cheap pitchforks they were selling at the local Halloween store.
• three metal-looking end tubes that are slightly smaller diameter than your main tubes. I used metal joiners from an old tent I had salvaged for last year's costume.
• three wooden dowels that will fit into the main tubes
• a Dremel tool or the like to shape your dowels to look like claws
• metal foil tape or silver or chrome paint
• three end plugs to close off the backs of your main tubes (I used a quarter-inch piece of PVC tubing)
• two spacers to keep your claws separated (more pieces of PVC tubing)
• black leather gloves
• a piece of black leather (I salvaged some from a leather backpack that had finally fallen apart)
• an old sock (any color)
• and of course, duct tape