MGC
Sr Member
A couple of weeks ago I ordered one of Stapleton's new MkVII medical tricorder kits. These little gizmos were the first props I ever really noticed as a kid and they kickstarted my interest in props as a whole. I was thrilled to get this thing as it looks absolutely spot on and being resin it feels a lot tougher - and should be more forgiving to assemble - than a vacform version.
While waiting for it to arrive from the US (which, as it turned out, was a very small amount of time) I started on another prop that I loved from that era - the satchel-style medkit.
The Fleet Workshop has a fantastically detailed thread on the Medkit, which is what pushed me over the edge. Norbauer posted a great outline of the prop which gave me the idea to laser-cut it. While the original prop was vac formed over a wooden buck, I have limited workshop space and the prop fabrication co I use are forever getting laser cutting jobs from me so it seemed a no brainer to go this route. I started with making a very basic model in Sketchup to work out the layering, making sure the door etc fit, and proportions of the plant-on dressing/decals.
I then put these into Illustrator - where it's much easier to do curved shapes - to make the cut files (I then export the nice rounded panels back into the SketchUp model).
I also drew up the various graphics including the Caduceus logo.
Finally I ended up here - a mix of 5 and 3mm acrylic and 1mm styrene pieces. I'll have to sculpt/putty the radius corners into the sidewall gaps but that's much more preferable to layering up loads of the outline shape and having to sand them all flush.
One final test assembly in SketchUp:
I've now sent off all the parts to the laser cutter - hopefully they'll be back in a week or so. Eric Ardos was good enough to ID the Evergreen styrene sheets used for the texture parts, and luckily I managed to get those in the UK without too much hassle. I also started to get the vinyl graphics cut out:
While waiting for it to arrive from the US (which, as it turned out, was a very small amount of time) I started on another prop that I loved from that era - the satchel-style medkit.
The Fleet Workshop has a fantastically detailed thread on the Medkit, which is what pushed me over the edge. Norbauer posted a great outline of the prop which gave me the idea to laser-cut it. While the original prop was vac formed over a wooden buck, I have limited workshop space and the prop fabrication co I use are forever getting laser cutting jobs from me so it seemed a no brainer to go this route. I started with making a very basic model in Sketchup to work out the layering, making sure the door etc fit, and proportions of the plant-on dressing/decals.
I then put these into Illustrator - where it's much easier to do curved shapes - to make the cut files (I then export the nice rounded panels back into the SketchUp model).
I also drew up the various graphics including the Caduceus logo.
Finally I ended up here - a mix of 5 and 3mm acrylic and 1mm styrene pieces. I'll have to sculpt/putty the radius corners into the sidewall gaps but that's much more preferable to layering up loads of the outline shape and having to sand them all flush.
One final test assembly in SketchUp:
I've now sent off all the parts to the laser cutter - hopefully they'll be back in a week or so. Eric Ardos was good enough to ID the Evergreen styrene sheets used for the texture parts, and luckily I managed to get those in the UK without too much hassle. I also started to get the vinyl graphics cut out: