Showing posts with label custom medieval guillotine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label custom medieval guillotine. Show all posts

Monday, November 13, 2023

How to make a Lego style Medieval Guillotine!

 

Hey guys, how's it going?  I'm back with another MOC build and this one is for my medieval village display. 

I posted this over on the Lepin subreddit and I got some great suggestions about what my MOC guillotine should include.  Redditor u/Plane-Phrase4015 said "Make sure you put a body on it with a head in the basket!" and "Put it up on a platform with a crowd, too".  Well ok, I'm always up for the challenge!  I was planning on making some little feature sets to put with my medieval village.

Oh BTW, These are all of my medieval themed sets and figures in my collection right now ...

Some Random Assortment of Medieval Soldiers Minifigures

Some Random Assortment of Medieval Villagers

The JMBricklayer Medieval Observation Guard Tower

The LesDiy Medieval Windmill

The  JMBricklayer 3-in-1 Ancient Weapon

I also have the Funwhole Medieval Pier Inn but I think it's more piratey then medieval.

Hopefully, my pictures here will inspire you to make your own guillotine for your own medieval building block display.

So, as was suggested, the guillotine should be constructed on a raised platform.  In order to have adequate movement around the guillotine, I made my platform 12 studs x 12 studs with an extra 4 studs for the steps leading up to the execution platform, making the entire footprint 12x16 studs.  I think 3 bricks high is a good as height as any.

Here's the flip side of my platform.

The main components are the platform with raised headrest, the guillotine frame, and of course the all important bucket.

A look at the side profile.

At the front of the platform I decided to recess the bucket, so as to make the imminent demise a bit more ergonomic and comfortable.  Oops, someone forgot to remove an old head leftover from last week's execution.  The sugar donuts are meant to represent some bloody neck sections, sorry, that's all i could come up with.   For evening executions, we have a couple of torches to provide mood lighting.  And for any beheadings, vermin are essential.

To ensure that the heathen does not attempt to escape, he is forced to kneel down and then shackled to the guillotine.   The maintenance ladder is from the Winter Garden Toy shop set, btw.


The blade is a triangular shaped wing piece from an old Megablocks fighter jet set which I can finally put it into use now.  There is a cable that is attached to the top of the blade and feeds through the top and over a pulley wheel.


Here's a better view of the blade.  For my display, the blade is fixed to the frame by two pegs that go into the headlight bricks on either side.  I suppose it is possible to have the blade free hanging by removing those pegs, making it more or less "functional".  I'm not sure if the blade might end up hanging  lopsided though.

Also pictured is the pulley wheel, which is mounted to a technic plate which is in turn mounted to the frame structure of the guillotine.

Here's the reverse view of the blade component.


The cable runs down to the executioner's podium where it is attached to some leftover castle blocks (also Megablocks brand).  The extension to the platform measures 4 studs x 9 studs.

Just another day on the job.

Donuts, anyone?





I'll let you use your own imagination on how the beheading might look like. 
Thanks for checking out my custom medieval guillotine!   Bye for now!