Gungan Shield

72" tall x 26.5" wide mesh shield for foam dart tag.

Inspired by Meaker’s hula hoop mesh shields.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Meak/comments/jzb81g/sheild/

I did this as a project years ago just to make one of these for myself. Posting upon request. Assembly required a lot of cleanup, sanding, drilling, gluing, and epoxy. I really don’t recommend building this if you want it to just work. It will need some care in the assembly and it’s probably best if you know how to get into the .steps and adjust fit and tolerance for your CPVC and printer or even just customize and improve my design. I also included my .f3d if you want but it’s a bit of a mess. I’ll try to answer questions but I’m not sure I remember all the details.

These files include printable stencils to cut out a piece of plywood to use as a buck to heatform the curved pieces of pipe.

The pipe is 1/2” CPVC. The handle piece is 24 1/2” and the four straight uprights are 29”. The printed handle ring is held together with 6 nubs of CPVC. There’s room for 30mm but I used 1”.

The four curved pieces end up being a little longer than 34 3/4” but I built the stencil so that you don’t need to measure. The 2 end pieces of the stencil are for extra length. I formed 4 pieces of 4’ pipe then cut them to length based on the 5 core segments of stencil. This gives you pipe to hold onto and clamp on each end and lets you cut off crushed ends. You might be able to get away with 3’ pipe if you’re careful.

The mesh is glued on with E6000, then trimmed once it dries. I sanded the pipe and prints on this contact area. The "top bottom" prints are super glued together in pairs. I believe I used 2 part epoxy to glue the pipe into the sides and I think that worked well, but if I remember I also used E6000 to glue the handle pipe into the handle parts and that may even be a better way to glue something like this because it has a little bit of flex and stretch. If I were to make another I would E6000 everything but epoxy would probably also be fine.

Mine is printed in PLA with lots of walls, it’s not completely solid but the sockets definitely are. It’s held up for years of use. Orientations shown in the gallery, support as needed. Prints came out a little rough, especially supported overhangs, but cleaned up okayish.

I couldn’t find purple nylon mesh so I got it in white and dyed it with purple Rit DyeMore.