Hi guys-been too busy to post much lately, but thought I'd pop-in to give you an update on the Comm kits. As most of you know, I had already created a prototype for the kit based on my documentation of Greg's two screen-used Comms a few yaers ago.
I had pretty good reference from that examination, even wrote an article for the Star Trek-Communicator Magazine about it. However, a few weeks ago Greg allowed me to take those same two Comms back to my shop, and actually use them to generate the tooling for the kit!
Pretty cool huh? Finally a totally accurate Comm kit cast directly off of the real thing! As promised, I have been photographing the entire process so I could share it with you.
*In my best Gleason* Humina humina humina :LOL
I think I was more excited to see these the second time around. These pieces are just so cool!
The fact that one of the units is in pieces makes it absolutely perfect to use in the creation of the kit.
This allows me to measure inside and out, every single little detail.
There is definitely all kinds of very interesting stuff to be learned from a close examination of these shells.
Here's a close-up of the interior of the bottom shell.
It was my goal to replicate perfectly every single, subtle little nuance of this prop. I want this kit to be
as close to owning an original as you can possibly get. So, with the owners permission I actually used
the shells as a mold to generate the tooling for the kit.
To create an exact duplicate of the original vacuumform bucks, I mixed-up a special RTV Silicone and
poured it into the back of the shells. The whole process including which materials would be used had to
be carefully thought out, with the intent being to maintain the dimensional integrity of the original prop.
Perfect!
Now we're ready to make our mold.
More to come
I had pretty good reference from that examination, even wrote an article for the Star Trek-Communicator Magazine about it. However, a few weeks ago Greg allowed me to take those same two Comms back to my shop, and actually use them to generate the tooling for the kit!
Pretty cool huh? Finally a totally accurate Comm kit cast directly off of the real thing! As promised, I have been photographing the entire process so I could share it with you.
*In my best Gleason* Humina humina humina :LOL
I think I was more excited to see these the second time around. These pieces are just so cool!
The fact that one of the units is in pieces makes it absolutely perfect to use in the creation of the kit.
This allows me to measure inside and out, every single little detail.
There is definitely all kinds of very interesting stuff to be learned from a close examination of these shells.
Here's a close-up of the interior of the bottom shell.
It was my goal to replicate perfectly every single, subtle little nuance of this prop. I want this kit to be
as close to owning an original as you can possibly get. So, with the owners permission I actually used
the shells as a mold to generate the tooling for the kit.
To create an exact duplicate of the original vacuumform bucks, I mixed-up a special RTV Silicone and
poured it into the back of the shells. The whole process including which materials would be used had to
be carefully thought out, with the intent being to maintain the dimensional integrity of the original prop.
Perfect!
Now we're ready to make our mold.
More to come
