I recently came into possession of images of two Polaroids presumably taken around the time of filming of Blade Runner.
There are very interesting things in these Polaroids!
First there is the "5223", which I recognize as the font Futura Bold. It's probably dry transfer lettering. (The serial number "5223" is engraved in the Steyr receiver on the other side).
Then there is a WIRE, attached to the second of the two grub screws on the side of the magazine housing. It seems as though this wire runs up into the "sight rod" (aka laser sight, jeweler's screwdriver)! [EDIT: removed possibly confusing reference to a non-existent wire to the grip light.]
On the production blaster, the metal wire clipped to the grub screw is replaced by a bundle of four white wires, which run from the inside of the magazine, up the cylinder cover and into the sight rod (but not back out again). The white wires were clipped off at some point and covered with black electrical tape.
And lastly, there's a flat disc on the cylinder cover, also visible in my Worldcon 2006 photos, which remains a mystery.
Someone once told me there was originally a lit-up sight rod as well as a light in the grip, and these photos appear to prove that!
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19949348/hostedimages/bladerunner_preproduction/5223-wire.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19949348/hostedimages/bladerunner_preproduction/wire.jpg
There are very interesting things in these Polaroids!
First there is the "5223", which I recognize as the font Futura Bold. It's probably dry transfer lettering. (The serial number "5223" is engraved in the Steyr receiver on the other side).
Then there is a WIRE, attached to the second of the two grub screws on the side of the magazine housing. It seems as though this wire runs up into the "sight rod" (aka laser sight, jeweler's screwdriver)! [EDIT: removed possibly confusing reference to a non-existent wire to the grip light.]
On the production blaster, the metal wire clipped to the grub screw is replaced by a bundle of four white wires, which run from the inside of the magazine, up the cylinder cover and into the sight rod (but not back out again). The white wires were clipped off at some point and covered with black electrical tape.
And lastly, there's a flat disc on the cylinder cover, also visible in my Worldcon 2006 photos, which remains a mystery.
Someone once told me there was originally a lit-up sight rod as well as a light in the grip, and these photos appear to prove that!
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19949348/hostedimages/bladerunner_preproduction/5223-wire.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19949348/hostedimages/bladerunner_preproduction/wire.jpg
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