Inventor Creates Fully Automatic Wolverine Claws

By Joelle Renstrom | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

clawsLast year, GFR ran a post about the feasibility of creating Wolverine-style adamantium claws. The Freddy Krueger upgrades attracted enough attention that even neuroscientists wondered about the possibilities. Well, wonder no more. It’s definitely possible to make them—just ask Colin Furze, inventor and X-Men super fan.

Perhaps Furze wanted to get into the buzz surrounding the soon-to-be-released X-Men: Days of Future Past, which I’m looking forward to mostly because I love odd couple Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. Or maybe he was simply drawn to the timeless awesomeness of Wolverine. Regardless, Furze just finished his DIY claws, and they’re pretty darn convincing, as well as being fully automatic.

In the video below, you’ll see a super-charged Furze demonstrating the 12-inch, stainless steel claws (I guess adamantium is about as tough to get as unobtainium), which pop out and retract at the touch of a button. That’s one of the most important and impressive aspects of the design. Simply having the claws already deployed isn’t nearly as effective as making them spring to life. They’ve even got a finger-like spread.

Furze also has an instructional video to demonstrate how he achieved this greatness, and perhaps to help other DIYers make their own claws at home. Yeah, I’ve watched this how-to video twice, and if I were to make these, I think I’d just duct tape some knives to my hands, much as I did for an ill-conceived Edward Scissorhands costume a long time ago. It’s probably just as well that I don’t have my own soldering iron, I could do some serious irreparable damage with that.

One look at Furze’s Youtube Channel shows how prolific, talented, and imaginative he is. He’s got how-to videos for building pulse jets, turbo jet engines, mobility scooters, and more. Please don’t build jet engines in your garage. Furze happens to hold some world records, too, like inventing the fastest baby stroller and the world’s fastest mobility scooter. He also makes his own inventions, such as the “UnDecor 500,” which will take down Christmas decorations by spinning a tree so fast that they all fly off, and he developed the Cake-O-Matic, a device with 8 spinning spoons designed to help him celebrate his own birthday by splattering cake all over the place. I really want to see him try to eat cake with the Wolverine Claws, but maybe that’s for another day. Furze says he’ll soon upload more X-Men DIY demonstrations onto his channel—my bet is on the wheelchair.