One of my all-time favorite props has to be the Oscillation Overthruster from BUCKAROO BANZAI, and like most fans I've owned several recasts that have been floating around for years now but I had always wanted one that was a little less wonky, and a little more screen accurate. I came to the conclusion about 5 years ago that I was probably going to have to just build my own, but only got around to it a few months ago and here it is.
The first issue to tackle was the overall size. It was obvious that numerous recastings had shrunk the piece considerably, so using the larger of the two castings I had in my collection as a starting point I decided to enlarge the entire thing about 10%.
I began by sawing off one side of the larger casting, drawing an outline of it's profile and enlarging it accordingly. I then built a new frame out of maple hardwood (that was also 10% wider) and started to add onto it. I was actually able to save some time by gluing the cut off sides of the old castings onto this new frame and using them as a base, building right over the top of them. This way everything would be proportionally accurate. The tricky part was to make sure that the new pieces were now straight and less 'wopper-jawed'. It was still pretty time consuming, though.
Using the DVD as a visual guide I also corrected a few of the missing details that were lost or re-imagined incorrectly due to all the subsequent recasts. I won't bore you with a complete breakdown, but it seemed the more I studied the screengrabs, the more of those things I noticed. It's still not perfect of course, and I admit I've idealized some of it to my own personal preferences, too.
The biggest overall challenge however, was to incorporate all the "weird stuff" located in the cut-outs on the sides and bottom. After a lot of trial and error I finally settled on a three different techniques. The 'clockwork' pieces on the left side were all individual hand cut pieces of styrene built up in four layers to give it a nice depth. The right side cut out was filled with a thin styrene 'wire', and some even thinner welding wire braided together, while the bottom circular cut out was just filled with some sand grains from my front yard. Dirt, basically. lol
Finally, in order to make the piece even more different from the other previously available versions, I decided to make the three priming pins stand out from the body.
This way they could be cast separately and in clear acrylic resin. My good friend Tim Arp (aka D48thRonin) volunteered for this task and came through with fying colors. He was also kind enough to paint up the version you see here.
I hope you like it and please feel free to ask any questions, I'll do my best to answer!
Shawn
The first issue to tackle was the overall size. It was obvious that numerous recastings had shrunk the piece considerably, so using the larger of the two castings I had in my collection as a starting point I decided to enlarge the entire thing about 10%.
I began by sawing off one side of the larger casting, drawing an outline of it's profile and enlarging it accordingly. I then built a new frame out of maple hardwood (that was also 10% wider) and started to add onto it. I was actually able to save some time by gluing the cut off sides of the old castings onto this new frame and using them as a base, building right over the top of them. This way everything would be proportionally accurate. The tricky part was to make sure that the new pieces were now straight and less 'wopper-jawed'. It was still pretty time consuming, though.
Using the DVD as a visual guide I also corrected a few of the missing details that were lost or re-imagined incorrectly due to all the subsequent recasts. I won't bore you with a complete breakdown, but it seemed the more I studied the screengrabs, the more of those things I noticed. It's still not perfect of course, and I admit I've idealized some of it to my own personal preferences, too.
The biggest overall challenge however, was to incorporate all the "weird stuff" located in the cut-outs on the sides and bottom. After a lot of trial and error I finally settled on a three different techniques. The 'clockwork' pieces on the left side were all individual hand cut pieces of styrene built up in four layers to give it a nice depth. The right side cut out was filled with a thin styrene 'wire', and some even thinner welding wire braided together, while the bottom circular cut out was just filled with some sand grains from my front yard. Dirt, basically. lol
Finally, in order to make the piece even more different from the other previously available versions, I decided to make the three priming pins stand out from the body.
This way they could be cast separately and in clear acrylic resin. My good friend Tim Arp (aka D48thRonin) volunteered for this task and came through with fying colors. He was also kind enough to paint up the version you see here.
I hope you like it and please feel free to ask any questions, I'll do my best to answer!
Shawn
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