The next step for Jimmy was to take the claws from the artificial arm and design copies that could be worn on a person’s hand. The illusion had to be complete, the blades needed to look as if they were coming out of the exact spots on the back of Hugh Jackman’s hand and pointing out at the exact angle and curve for it to look natural.

“All of the blades up to this point were made out of metal,” Jimmy explained. “But for the wearable set we decided to start making some rubber versions. So I made a mold. I had my metal prototype digitally analyzed”.

With the shape of blade captured by a computer, Jimmy had a tool path or 3D stencil made that he then used with a computer controlled CNC machine to cut out and create two halves of a mold. The mold was then filled with pressurized PVC plastic and the individual blades were created, one by one.

“This was the first blade I molded. Same material as all the ones that would follow, just a lower durometer, meaning it was softer, same platform, which meant compatibility and then I could keep the colour across the platform.”

Having created a plastic version of his metal blades, Jimmy then had to create a way to bind three of them together so they could be worn.

“I cut the scalp out from the start of the blade, so that it could fit over the hand, and then I drilled a hole up the inside of the blade, in the centre of scalped section, so I could attach it to a wearable appliance. “

The result was an angled handle that rests flush against the upper palm of your hand with a system of curved wires that wrap around your knuckles to the blades themselves. It seems like a fairly simple solution at first, until you try to put them on and you begin to realize there’s a trick to getting them on your hand right. Most people outside of the movie set get it wrong.

“The idea is to just roll into it” Jimmy told me as he instructed me for my first fitting.

The wires have a special curve bent into them that you don’t see at first, but if you play with them your hand can feel it. They go in between your fingers, and then your hand has to be pushed in and down in order to position the beginning of the blades down the back of your hand and angle them into the skin to complete the illusion.

As I pushed them in place, I could see the blades create temporary divots in my skin.

“They should push on your hand, but just be gentle, so you buy the illusion that it’s coming from the skin”

Getting the right fit for the perfect illusion was a puzzle that Jimmy worked on again and again.

“I didn’t have it on the first one. A lot of R&D in that area. On the first pair I used round wires instead of square ones and fitting was a nightmare. A lot of bending and tweaking to try to get them right, so I said when the next movie came along, ‘I’m going to come up with a system’.

The pair designed for the first X-Men movie used a system of rounded wires that were designed to pivot. The idea was to be able to adjust the blades to make them splay apart really wide or really tight as needed.

In the Marvel comics, illustrators often took liberties with Wolverine’s claws, giving them a kind of personality and using them as an extension of their owner’s moods and feelings. They might appear really tight together to show him simmering with rage or casually wide apart to express mischief.

“They were desirable for the gag these were used in, but lousy when he’s doing action. He’d do a move where he’d sweep his arm through the air and all of a sudden the claws would swing apart from each other, which isn’t supposed to happen, so I ended up welding them in place. It was tedious at best.”

In creating a second generation of the wearable claws, Jimmy decided to tackle another issue, which was that actor Hugh Jackman wasn’t the only man wearing them and the claws had such a special angle for wrapping around the hand, they would fit differently from one person to the next.

“There were ten different people with their own sets, three photo doubles, two sets for Hugh plus stunt ones, then stunt guys needed them, choreographer wanted a pair…. So I came up with the square wires and I decided to graduate them like shoes, all the different sizes. I can take a stock size, I can put them on somebody and see whether there’s a gap between the beginning of the blades and the hand or if they are pressing down into the flesh. In your case, I would change your pair to a bigger size, because that will hurt after awhile.”

He actually has a special fitting case he carries with him and even a numerical system for the sizes.

“When they send a guy to me, for instance they sent Scott, a stunt double, to me saying ‘We need you to fit him up with a set of claws’. I have him come over to my truck, I pick up my standard set, give them to him to try on, and then look at the numbers. For example, in your case I’d bump you up from a 450 to a 500 until they fit just right and then I’d have to do a little tweakage, because there’s the splay. They should be four and a quarter inches apart. “

Four and a quarter inches apart became the magic distance. On a movie set continuity is an obsession. Everything has to remain consistently the same from one take to the next. The claws were made of rubber and the appliance out of wire stock. Both were ideal in that it made the claws light and comfortable to wear, but Hugh Jackman was wearing them and he was in peak, physical condition. After using them in stunts and action scenes, the claws were bound to get bent, to change a little and even a difference of a millimeter had to be guarded against.

“One of my tasks was to check the claws before every take, he’d be standing, ready to go and I’d check them to make sure they were still four and a quarter inches apart. I made a special gauge which I’d keep in my pocket. I’d just go up and hold it next to the blades before each take to make sure they had not bent out of place, that for every take they were always four and a quarter inches apart. It always got a laugh from the crew that I had to come out with my little gauge and check it before they rolled camera. “

“I was always the last guy to see Hugh before they rolled camera. Hair and make-up would do their tune up on Hugh and then I’d step in and put the claws on him, step out and sometimes they caught my ass on camera as I was leaving the shot. Not what I want to be known for, but…”

The physical demands of the movie on Hugh Jackman, and thus on his costume and props, was not to be underestimated.

“Hugh was amazing. When we were doing the scene in the forest in X3, before every take he’d do push-ups. He had weights, and a trainer guy, he’d do running on the spot. If the crew took longer to get things set up, like another two minutes, he’d say ‘I’m exercising again, you need to wait for me now’. He was right into it. Man, he looked good. I went out and bought a set of weights after watching him.”

“I talked to him about it. I said ‘I really want to get into a bit of a fitness program’ and he told me ‘Think of it in threes. Do it for three days. Then do it for three weeks. Then do it for three months’ Ever heard of the Grouse Grind?”

“Well, out in Vancouver there’s Grouse Mountain. They have this tram that goes up the mountain, holds 40 people, it’s big, costs $20 to go up and back. Well, you can climb it. I don’t know how many thousands of feet it is in elevation through forest, but that’s become known as the Grouse Grind. And people who are fit are doing it in under an hour, I heard him doing it in under 43 minutes. I know a guy who did it with him and he said he couldn’t keep up with him.”

Through a combination of breakage and having to make pairs for so many different crew members and crafting special claws for special shots, Jimmy ended up manufacturing over 700 pairs of the wearable claws for the first X-men movie, 600 for the sequel, and another 600 for the third in the series, X-Men: The Last Stand”.

Of the many variations of the claws there was the set that had to be built into a pair of gloves for Wolverine’s costume.

“In the fist movie we bought gloves and cut slits in them. It was hokey. I mean you do your best job with an X-acto knife and trim it up and hopefully they are not really zooming in that close. For the second and third film they had them made by glove people. For the gloves I’d create a looser fit with the claws for comfort. It worked really well, Hugh would leave them on for long periods of time. Well, when we did the Alcatraz scene for X-Men 3, it was November. It was cold. “

“It was towards the end when they’re lining up against the mutants, ‘Whatever you do, hold this line’. They must have done sixty or seventy takes of the same thing, but you know, it was this camera angle, then this camera angle, that camera angle. And we’re shooting nights, and it was cold out. So you’d go to work and think ‘We’re still doing that same scene?’. And it’s hard to stay warm when you’re standing around.”

“They’d bring me in anywhere between 4 and 6 pm, it was early winter, so it’s getting dark early, and they’d shoot until the sun came up. They’d even shoot into ‘the sky’s too bright now, I don’t think we can use it’. ‘We’ve just got one more.’ ‘Nope’. “

“That Alcatraz scene was very lengthy. It was huge, there was three hundred extras, A lot of ‘em in gak, not only their own mutant gak, but then there was the army guys with their army gak, and a huge, huge thing for the props to be stored in. I got the easy job. I just had to be there with the claws when they called my name. I got so I could hear my name when I was sleeping. I’d go sleep in a hammock with a radio until I’d hear them call me.”

For the rare sequences in the movies that did require some computer generated claws, scenes with Wolverine impaling or stabbing objects with them, Jimmy created a series of special tracking claws. These included pairs with sawed-off blades with reflective tape and wireframe sets that featured reflective balls for the digital effects staff to use as a reference.

After the release of “X2: X-Men United” in 2003, Jimmy was asked to solve another strange puzzle. With his claws extended, could Wolverine carry and lick an ice cream cone?

“Baskin Robbins had a promo where they had Storm and Wolverine do separate commercials around coming up with a new ice cream design for Baskin Robbins. I went to Chicago and shot this, it opens with a tub with some ice cream in it. It’s kind of boring right? And the voice-over says ‘We asked Wolverine to whip us up a special sundae’ and then you see the hand come in with these claws on it.”

The problem was the claws were too long for a close-up on the ice cream and since Jimmy is the only man on the planet who can make them, he had to be brought in to make a special pair just for the ice cream sequence.

“They wanted short ones, so I actually custom-made them when I was in Chicago. I came prepared with regular ones, but we needed a short variation. I said ‘Where’s your shop?’ So I went into their prop shop and made them up. “

“They have a scene where they have Wolverine doing a bunch of moves, and then with vis effects the ice cream becomes all splattered, his claws are moving over it, everything’s moving very fast, and then it’s this really interesting, twisted, ice cream thing with blueberry ice cream on it. And then at the end he goes ‘tah-dah’ as he presents it. Then they come over with the voice announcer ‘For a limited time you can get the Wolverine special sundae at Baskin Robbins’. It has nothing to do with the movie.”

The latest version Jimmy has created is a special “Hero” version that have the benefit of “more love and three days spent sanding, painting, and perfecting”. These will be placed for charity auction by X-men producer Lauren Shuler Donner.

From the original prototypes in 1991 to the polished hero claws of today, the process has been sixteen years.

“X-men for me represents a very big part of a very big adventure” Jimmy explained. “I mean, it was huge for me. It took me to Vancouver which lead to six other movies out there and a whole new set of friends and a whole new level of credibility.”