The idea was to build something from new and relatively eay to locate parts only, since that makes it a lot easier for people to actually complete the design should they decide to give it a shot *rimshot* sorry about the pun there. I'd fire myself, but I'm self employed!
Anyways, Gareth asked me if I would design a Ray Gun of some sort but that it should be a shorter article since they already had a few big projects in the issue... so I figured it was time to create a Derringer style weapon for ladies to carry in their purses or such. I've also been obsessing over making my work more functional lately, so I also decided to make this Ray Gun a working butane lighter, since that seemed like a logical enough leap.
The prototype became a birthday gift for my friend Befu, and the second one was sold at NorWesCon a couple weekends ago. I made the second one originally for display purposes only to advertise the article, but I had a lot of people asking if it was for sale... so I decided to make a couple more to sell on my Etsy page: