[Ugly Joe]

My daughter told me 3 days ago she wanted to be Harley Quinn for Halloween, so I thought, "Hey! I can make a giant hammer for her!"
I've made it from expanded polystyrene and EVA foam. With a length of PVC pipe, and 4 3" circles of 18 gauge cold rolled steel.
(the steel is used as skid plates for the hammer, as she drags it around - I've placed them as "nail heads" on the hammer head)

I should have it completed tomorrow, I only have to paint the "metal" bands, and detail the handle somehow (maybe some cloth or similar).

Here's some beginning and in-process pics:
Here's the two EVA mat pieces curved to forma a barrel shape (used a heat gun and patience)

Cutting 15 inch circles from polystyrene

Interior structure of hammer head - 4 circle pieces with blocks filling space (urethane glue holding them together - ignore the 2 little blocks on top, as they're dispersing weight from a pair of dumbbells on top of it all, providing pressure)
Yeah, the photo's sideways - phone pic, didn't rotate before import.

More posts to follow.

 

[Ugly Joe]

Some more progress pics:

I stitched the 2 EVA mat pieces together with some 12 gauge wire - drilled holes through each tab, and threaded the wire through (took some back and forth to get it through them all).
This pic shows the EVA stitched on both side around the polystyrene core structure - I had charged ahead without glue, but it turned out the fit was so snug, no glue was needed at this point.

So, I got so busy making this thing, I forgot to take progress pics for a bit.
What I did after attaching the EVA foam was to take a hot knife and draw wood grain on the foam.
The goal was to make it look like a giant wooden mallet.
The hot knife did okay, and did make some nice small grooves in the EVA.
After that, I added the handle (PVC pipe) - the center of the structure inside the hammer head was solid polystyrene reinforced with urethane glue - this was done in anticipation of holding the handle without adding a lot of weight.
I serrated the end of the PVC pipe, and used it as a drill to make it's own hole in the EVA and polystyrene. I worked like a charm, so I pulled it out, poured a bunch of urethane glue down the hole, and put the pipe back in.
It is permanent. I'll wreck the whole thing getting that back out.
I then spray painted the whole thing black, and added some strips of EVA foam to make the "metal" bindings (paint to be added later).

While the glue was setting up, I cut out some 3 inch circles of 18 gauge steel. Sadly, I didn't have a sufficient heat source to soften the steel, so I beat the living crap out of it with hammers, pliers, and brute force - I was trying to make nicely rounded "nail heads" to add to the band.
Why steel, you ask? Well, my daughter wants to drag the hammer down the street, and is hoping it will spark or at least seem menacing, so I figured I'd make something that she could drag and save the paint and work on the hammer...so, steel.
So, I beat out 4 misshapen cups of steel, sanded some polystyrene into shapes that fit inside, and epoxied the foam pieces into the steel pieces.
I then sanded the bottoms of the foam (with steel attached) to fit the curve of the hammer, and epoxied the "nail heads" to the "metal bands on the hammer.
Gave it all some more black spray paint.

 

[Ugly Joe]

So, now I had a hammer head firmly attached to a handle, and four skid plates attached to the hammer head.
I did take it out for a drag or two...pretty fun, but I haven't tried it at night to see if there's sparks or not. That's a low priority to me, so I'll worry about that another time.

Now to start working on some details.

Hammer head (detail pic - you can see how ugly the steel skid plates are, but they seem to fit the feel of the prop, so I'm not stressing about them)

Here's the hammer head after some paint, trying to make it look more like wood.

After looking at some Harley Quinn hammers online, I liked the look of "Your Face Here" with the outline of a Joker face - I've seen it used on a couple of props, and it seemed like a nice smart-assed touch to the prop.

I sketched out what I wanted it to look like, and took the hot knife to the end piece.
I tried to give the writing that "not quite right in the head" look, along with some tree rings showing on the end cut.

More to follow.

 

[Ugly Joe]

So, painted up that end, and used a hot knife to cut some tree rings into the other hammer face.
I've painted that as well, and will be placing the iconic 4 diamonds that show up on Harley's costume so often on that face.
I've cut them from EVA foam, and will be gluing them on tomorrow.
Here's some pics of the hammer faces.

So, more pics will follow (as long as I don't forget to take them...again).

 

[Lvbender]

Very nice! When I was Harley I went for the giant hammer too. Mine happened to be made of Styrofoam disks glued together, then coated in ductape. I went for more of plastic/metal hammer look than the traditional wooden one. I am also over 6 ft with my heels in this photo (to give a little scale).

 

[Ugly Joe]

Great outfit and hammer - I wasn't sure which version of Harley my daughter is going for, so I tried to hit the idea that would fit in most versions.

Looks like the hammer I've made and yours are around the same height - this one is 5 foot 1 inch at the highest point, which would be just under your chin. Or, close to being as tall as my daughter.

 

[Ugly Joe]

Forgot some "basically completed" pics.

View of the weathering on the faux metal strips and the faux wood.

One of the faces...

...and the other.

My daughter had wrapped some black and red ribbon around the handle, and tied some black and red streamers onto the handle as well, but none of them stayed on particularly well, so they're not in the pics.

 

[Vandalay Industries]

That looks great. I am going to borrow this idea to make some clown hammers.

 

[Saruman of Many Colours]

Very nicely done!

 

[jackrum]

Great work on the wood texture!

 

[SpookyLilGirl1980]

Great work! I made one for myself last year which I just posted on here. Someone had asked how I made mine and I saw your post when I was preparing mine to show them so I linked yours as well. Always nice to have options of how to do things. I love how yours turned out! I had tried to find some of the pieces that you used on the outside of yours when I was making mine and I had a hard time finding any that didnt have letters cut out of them.. :-D
Mine from last year.