Creating the Original Doom Chainsaw

There Will be Blood

One day not too long ago I was looking at my Doom collection and felt it was missing something... something like a chainsaw. I was looking at the movie props for the Doom movie but felt that I didn't really want to drop $2500 on a prop, regardless of how incredibly badass it looked. So I figured I would recreate the original game's chainsaw.

Of course I know nothing about chainsaws except that gas and oil goes in, handle is pulled, trees and/or demon limbs get divided. "Couldn't be too difficult to obtain the same model, gut it, clean it and paint it up", I said to myself.

I put an add up on Craigslist for 'wanted' and, much to my surprise, got a reply relatively quickly. I ended up getting a non-functioning McCulloch Mac 110, a previous model to the Eager Beaver I was looking for but very similar in style, visually at least.

I stripped it right down; every nut, bolt and screw. Gave it a cleaning the best I could, as the thing had been used heavily and was loaded with grease, oil, sawdust, dirt and rust. It was still far from presentable however,so after getting what I could off I began soaking the individual pieces in vinegar to help remove the sliminess and grease that was clinging on for dear life. Once thoroughly soaked I wiped and scrubbed the remnants away, took a toothbrush to the chain and those 'hard to reach' places, and prepped it for some painting.

I decided to leave the motor out for a few reasons. Firstly, the weight is unnecessary given the fact that I had no intentions of making it run again, this thing's purely for aesthetics so no need to have that extra weight to deal with. Secondly, the guts were pure grease and covered in gas and oil; to clean it would be annoying and the smell it was emitting would be quite unpleasant for a model.

I painted the front panel and right arm black to better resemble the Eager Beaver and in-game style, got the blade back to solid black, blacked out the name section on the body panel and then mocked up some templates for UAC logos. Used some silver paint to get those logos on the name section of the body and blade, then set up some card stock to replace the guts.

I etched out the cards and painted them silver or gold depending on their locations, black washed them and glued them to the inside to cover the holes. Then, put most of it back together and varnished the whole damn thing. You know when glue and varnish instructions tell you to do so and let dry in a well ventilated area? They ain't friggin' kidding... holy crap. I filed down and sawed apart certain pieces like the pull chord piece and rear wire, etc, and glued them and all the 'phantom screws' to the body.

All that's left is to glue and screw the rest of it together. This is a lot harder than I originally thought it would be, considering a bunch of the screws and nuts fasten directly to the engine itself. Oops. Bolted the blade to the side panel, fastened the guard to the side arm and reinforced everything with copious amounts of glue.

Voila! The original Doom chainsaw, ready for display and a welcome addition to my Doom collection. Now I just need to make a display mount for it!

Do you have any cool video game collections or projects? Shoot us some pictures or your inventory in the forums or comments below, I'd love to see 'em!