Wand Company Sonic Screwdriver Modified to Chris Eccleston Replica with Aluminum Body

Anakin Starkiller

Master Member
RPF PREMIUM MEMBER
I thought some of you might be interested in seeing how my modified Wand Company Sonic Screwdriver turned out.

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The modifications to the wand sonic that I made were designed to turn the existing remote into a prop replica of Chris Eccleston's Sonic Screwdriver from Series 1 (which was also used by David Tennant in Series 2).

You can see a good pic of the original prop here
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Basically what I did was have a bunch of aluminum Eccleston Sonic bodies machined by my shop.
(They Look like this)

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Then I ordered one of these faux tac switch replacement parts from my shapeways site.
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I then cut out a .25" piece of 3/4" copper pipe to work as the slider spacer.

I disassembled the Wand sonic, poping the aluminum collar off of the plastic body with a knife.
Then I ground down the little tab until it was about .5mm thick and then glued the new copper spacer on top of it.
I then pried apart the electronics casing and swapped out the old activation switch with my replacement part from shapeways. Once this was done, I cut the rubber push button and Steel plate off of a tac switch from Radio Shack and glued it onto my shapeways replacement part to simulate the look of the mounted tac switch of the original prop without having to do any wiring in the modification of the wand sonic.
I then painted the electronics casing black, and then when dry reassembled it all.

Finally I painted the 2 part crackle on the new body and spacer and slid everything into place.

All in all it was a pretty simple modification. But I think it really captures the look of the Series 1 Prop. The only thing I need to do it add a thin strip of blue plastic to the side of the prop and I'm done.
 
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Re: Wand Company Sonic Screwdriver Modified to Chris Eccleston Replica with Aluminum

Brilliant, you did a great job, especially on the crackle paint
 
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Re: Wand Company Sonic Screwdriver Modified to Chris Eccleston Replica with Aluminum

For the base coat, apparently you are meant to apply the top coat after it is "tacky" what does it mean by this
 
Re: Wand Company Sonic Screwdriver Modified to Chris Eccleston Replica with Aluminum

The top coat of paint cracks differently depending on how wet and thick the base coat is. I do two quick thin coats of the base layer and then a very thin coat of the top layer about 3-5 minutes later. It's a lot of trial and error, and also your paint will work differently depending on how old the paint is.
 
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Re: Wand Company Sonic Screwdriver Modified to Chris Eccleston Replica with Aluminum

Can you please post the name and color of the paint you use?
 
Re: Wand Company Sonic Screwdriver Modified to Chris Eccleston Replica with Aluminum

These look down right amazing. Do you have plans for Tennant bodies as well? You'd be perfect for it.
 
Re: Wand Company Sonic Screwdriver Modified to Chris Eccleston Replica with Aluminum

Thanks for the compliment. I probably won't be doing Tennant bodies since these didn't sell as well as I'd expected and I don't want to be stuck with a bunch of parts that I can't move.
 
Re: Wand Company Sonic Screwdriver Modified to Chris Eccleston Replica with Aluminum

Thanks for the compliment. I probably won't be doing Tennant bodies since these didn't sell as well as I'd expected and I don't want to be stuck with a bunch of parts that I can't move.

I have a feeling that Tennant parts would do better.
 
Re: Wand Company Sonic Screwdriver Modified to Chris Eccleston Replica with Aluminum

Thanks for the compliment. I probably won't be doing Tennant bodies since these didn't sell as well as I'd expected and I don't want to be stuck with a bunch of parts that I can't move.
Since they aren't selling well, may I have one for free :)
 
Re: Wand Company Sonic Screwdriver Modified to Chris Eccleston Replica with Aluminum

I didn't mean to insult him, it was just a joke, guess I should watch what I say

Indeed. Most people who make or recreate props in such detail know what they are doing. If you every need/want then to do anything for you, you may not want to do that. Just looking out for you. [emoji1] and them.
 
Re: Wand Company Sonic Screwdriver Modified to Chris Eccleston Replica with Aluminum

And you, Captain, are still very new, so please don't take it upon yourself to police people. Regardless of whether or not your trying to help, it can also come across the wrong way. thanks.:)
 
Re: Wand Company Sonic Screwdriver Modified to Chris Eccleston Replica with Aluminum

And you, Captain, are still very new, so please don't take it upon yourself to police people. Regardless of whether or not your trying to help, it can also come across the wrong way. thanks.:)

I see where you are coming from. Thanks! [emoji4]
 
Re: Wand Company Sonic Screwdriver Modified to Chris Eccleston Replica with Aluminum

Hi not sure your get this or who will I saw a customer remote sonic on instergram with one of your handles. I messaged him and asked where he got it and said to come here do you still make custom handles if so how much are they. Any help would be great cheers.
 
Re: Wand Company Sonic Screwdriver Modified to Chris Eccleston Replica with Aluminum

Finally finished my 9th Doctor sonic conversion! Here's a quick summary with pics:



For the spacer I used a piece of brass tubing instead of copper, because that's what I had on hand :)




Painting the body... the collar/spacer was painted at the same time as the body to get a consistent crackle finish between the two. I used the only crackle paint I could find in town, which was the Valspar stuff that Hobby Lobby carries. I suspect it might be a re-branded version of the Plasti-kote that Dan posted as it looks identical. After painting I noticed the bottom edge of the brass piece was a little out of square so it was sanded to correct before final assembly. Several layers of Krylon satin clear protect the crackle paint, which seems a bit delicate right out of the can.




Replacing the wires in the clear section was tricky! The original sonic appears to have only two wires twisted together, a black and a red. Problem there is that the Wand sonic needs 3 conductors to keep its remote functionality (since it has two LEDs in the tip). After some experimentation with heat shrink (covering two conductors and wrapping a third, way too bulky) and other methods I settled on taking two very thin black wires and twisting them around themselves to mimic a single thicker black wire, and then twisting that assembly with a red wire. Had to be careful and use a multimeter to check that the black conductors were going to the correct solder pads on both ends.

Also took the opportunity while it was disassembled to remove the mold lines from the clear tube, polished it up, and brushed some Future on the interior to help the clarity.

The shapeways replacement button (which fit perfectly!) was finished with parts harvested from a real tact switch, added some metallic blue tape to the body, reassembled everything, and it's done!







I added some brushed brass decal paper to the visible sections of the internal housing of the Wand electronics, and painted the speaker to match... the housing is just plain grey plastic which isn't a problem on the 11th with its narrow slot, but the 9th version makes that much more apparent. So that helps it blend a little more, even if the Wand has a shorter clear section than the original when in the closed position.

And one final comparison to a Wand Co 11th sonic. It's from a later production run where they refined the extension stops and had a more "machined" looking finish on the cast aluminum parts, with no clear coat. The one I converted was from the original release and I had to work at removing the clear coat from the metal of the collar and emitter sections.



Thanks for making the replacement parts available! They're awesome.
 
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Re: Wand Company Sonic Screwdriver Modified to Chris Eccleston Replica with Aluminum

That looks really nice. I wish I had the talent to do something like this.
 
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