Men in Black Large Guns

You amaze me what you have. Those are probably from molds used in the rubber fight scenes with the creature at the end.

Rick

hollywoodhardware said:

Hey guys,

I acquired these years ago from a former board member. At one point, I sent the tri-barrel to Shawn M. but he never had the spare time to work on it. So he sent it back.

I would donor these to a talented guy who has to retool them and make copies. I anybody interested, pm me.

Be aware that there are parts missing and the seems are off at some places. The material of the guns is fiberglass and they are copies directly of the real deal.

Thomas

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Finally, "the Maker" has spoken

Rick, since the last posts were asking about it: Is it still correct that you won't ever do a run of the bigger MIB guns nor the Neuralyzers? (I remember a post of yours saying what a pain it was to build the Neuralyzers, so I guess we can't expect anything in that direction.) If you won't do a run I hope you can help us out with some infos.

Glad to hear that you confirmed the vacuum metalized J2 run at some point in the future. I hope you'll give us an advance warning so we can scrape money together for it :cool

The Maker has spoken, That's funny. I'm just a guy like all of you who is tring to make a living making stuff. Yes, it's just stuff. Let me explain. What I like about the whole process is the shapes at the end. Everything else is the same. Plastic, metal, electronics, wood, molds, resin and finally paint. The end result is what is cool. The ingredients are always the same. The part I enjoy is the challenge, to get to as close to the artist's drawing who originally illustrated the concept for the designer. All the while trying to make a buck in the process.

Now for some info on these "Big Guns". Like I said earlier, there were molds made but the type of molds were not RTV. They were of a hard but flexible material which I had to prep with PVA and then shoot Zinc into it. The surface was a somewhat aluminum finish backed with poured urethane material. The thickness of the metal ranged about .03125 to .1 in places. It was hard to keep it uniform. I bought the machine which was called Tafta Metal Spraying. Somewhat like an arc welder wire feed machine that shot out vaporized metal at 150 psi. That compressor was a beast in and of it'self.

When I was doing the first MIB show I didn't know how popular it was going to be so the importance was low in keeping the molds and parts around for an extra year or so. Plus those molds were big and heavy.

Yes, I threw them out! I had pictures of it and never thought that there was going to be a sequel. Also the sequel didn't use the same guns in it so that was good.

There were tons of little parts and found pieces I used for these guns, but mostly I made just about everthing in them. Even the little creatures that you don't see inside the clear chambers were tiny aliens floating in Karo liquid. They had tiny suction cup feet and everthing. The three barrel gun had also an alien which blew bubbles. That was such a pain. The barrels to the three barrel gun was all machined out of aluminum and welded in that shape.

I went through the box of pictures of the guns and found a few more that I will post on my site so you can see them. They are scanned because that was when it was film and not digital.

You can ask me about those guns anytime.

Thanks again.
rick

barbatus said:

Finally, "the Maker" has spoken

Rick, since the last posts were asking about it: Is it still correct that you won't ever do a run of the bigger MIB guns nor the Neuralyzers? (I remember a post of yours saying what a pain it was to build the Neuralyzers, so I guess we can't expect anything in that direction.) If you won't do a run I hope you can help us out with some infos.

Glad to hear that you confirmed the vacuum metalized J2 run at some point in the future. I hope you'll give us an advance warning so we can scrape money together for it :cool

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Glad to hear from ya rick, the molding process of these guns sounded like it was a pain, but it payed off, these are incredible pieces, coveted by pretty much everybody here!

What'd I tell ya? - "a great guy & generous with his time"! Thanx for the info, Rick.

Awesome, thank you very much for the info! I always wondered what the barrels on the Tri-Barrel were made from.

Do you remember any of the found parts you used on the guns? Just in case someone wants to try and build one?

Regardless, thanks a bunch!

Found parts were few. I had line drawings of the two big guns. Top, side front and Back. The train gun ,as we called in the shop, was so strange in shape that the surface lines did not match the other views. I did a lot of interpretation on those guns. So basically the knobs, tiny silver bits, and switches were found objects. Everything elese was made from scratch. There was no base that we were going from if that is your question. Like haveing a standard gun and building around it.

rick

Oh, I see what you mean. What I meant in my question was if you remember what any of the small knobs and switches, odds and ends were originally. Like things you can find at Radio Shack. I remember on the casting I owned a long time ago that the two pieces that the two clear tubes on the side of the Tri-Barrel looked like cable connectors you'd see on your tv.

And if I remember correctly, where the three barrels connected to the main body of the gun I thought I remember some nuts that secured it, running a cable down to the end of the barrels, where there was another skinny silver piece with some flat round parts facing outward.

Hey Rick, do you know anything about the ICONS Tri-Barrel that was under construction before their company went under? The colors are off in the advertisments, there isn't any stock on them, and the grips are the wrong color. If you said that you tossed the molds, were they just molding an original? Speaking of which what happened to all the ones used in the films?

Well, no rush, just some questions I was curious about as I'm sure other are as well.

Thanks again!

ricksprops said:

The Maker has spoken, That's funny.

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Well, you are the one who made the originals and that definitely makes you the authority in terms of MIB props. It was kind of "comforting" when you wrote me that even you would have a hard time exactly recreating what you did back then...

When I was doing the first MIB show I didn't know how popular it was going to be so the importance was low in keeping the molds and parts around for an extra year or so. Plus those molds were big and heavy.

Yes, I threw them out! I had pictures of it and never thought that there was going to be a sequel.

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Almost painful to read but completely understandable, since you are doing this for a living and surely have no room to be too sentimental about it. I still would like to know how (or if at all) you watch the movies you provided the props for. Are you disappointed to see your props in a bad movie or are you proud if it's a great movie ... or doesn't that matter to you since after all it's just your job?

I guess reproducing the MIB II props would be easier for you, since according to the pictures on your homepage a lot of CNC machining was done for the second one. (I really like the gun you are holding on your avatar picture :cool) But I know that CNC machining is insanely expensive. I remember your J2 interest thread asking whether the gun should be resin or metal and everyone voted for metal ... until you suggested how much machining would cost. Do I guess right that MIB II guns would be doable for you, but pretty much unaffordable? :rolleyes

I went through the box of pictures of the guns and found a few more that I will post on my site so you can see them. They are scanned because that was when it was film and not digital.

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Great, THANKS :thumbsup

ricksprops said:

Dude it's still in a box on my shelf , actually I think I never even cashed you checks until I had all of the money. So you are not out. I am a man of my word so I do plan on another run one day. It will be vacuum metalized and not painted.

Rick

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Please help me out with my understanding of this vacuum metabolizing process. How does that work ?

Yes I do you Radio Shack. The reason why is that there is one in every state and mostly a few in a city. So when I'm on location or in need of one quickly I just go to the local store. They all have the same stuff. You if you work around their stuff you are safe. I can't tell you how many times this happens.

Yes, there were TV connectors. Monkeys like shinny objects. Kind of like women and diamonds. hehe.

I used a bicycle brake cable without the plastic coating for the front piece on the Three barrel gun. Each barrel was machined out of lots of pieces. the very front end was EDM and there were laser cut 1/8 aluminum plates used too.

Don't know anything about the Icons guns. These guns are expensive to make. Lots of parts and time involved. I can't see a company trying to make these and sell them to the public. I have had many people ask me how I made the Neuralyzers. They were the hardest props I've ever had to make. I didn't even want to make them on the second movie but got talked into it. There are companies who did copies and did a nice job on them, but they didn't have to make 5 of them in 3 weeks and have access to an original. That's cheating.

Rick

Rusty85 said:

Oh, I see what you mean. What I meant in my question was if you remember what any of the small knobs and switches, odds and ends were originally. Like things you can find at Radio Shack. I remember on the casting I owned a long time ago that the two pieces that the two clear tubes on the side of the Tri-Barrel looked like cable connectors you'd see on your tv.

And if I remember correctly, where the three barrels connected to the main body of the gun I thought I remember some nuts that secured it, running a cable down to the end of the barrels, where there was another skinny silver piece with some flat round parts facing outward.

Hey Rick, do you know anything about the ICONS Tri-Barrel that was under construction before their company went under? The colors are off in the advertisments, there isn't any stock on them, and the grips are the wrong color. If you said that you tossed the molds, were they just molding an original? Speaking of which what happened to all the ones used in the films?

Well, no rush, just some questions I was curious about as I'm sure other are as well.

Thanks again!

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Funny thing about your question. I'm doing a test today on building my own vacuum metalizing machine.

The process is very simple. In a high vacuum you place your part you want shinny. Somewhere inside the chamber you have electrical element which heats and vaporizes aluminum. The vapor coats everything inside the chamber with a very thin coat of aluminum. You take out your part and I believe paint it with some sort of protective coating. If you want gold you paint it transparent yellow. It's the same process used in the LEGS panty hose containers or the little chrome bumpers in plastic car models.

If all goes well I'll post me experiment and how I did it.

rick

00MrNotWrong00 said:

Please help me out with my understanding of this vacuum metabolizing process. How does that work ?

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Hi Rick,

Newbie on here but i'm not new to your work, have looked through your website various times just to drool over the X-men pistol and MIB kit. Awesome work, and would love to own a few of your pieces one day.

When you do a run of the J2 pistol I will be in the queue!

Some good screencaps!

Hey everyone, here's some good screen grabs I was finally able to take. There's a little bit of everything in there. Pretty bad ass guns! :thumbsup

Those are some great screen caps, looking at Tommy Lee slinging that big ass gun over his shoulder makes me realize how big that sucker is!!!

Hey Rick, if you made the guns for the movie, why are they on this site? Not saying you didn't make them because you obviously did, but I was just wondering what this site has to do with them. They're about midway down the page.

http://cifx.com/ClientPortfolio/Movies/index.php

I want one of these,any progress?

Well well well. Very interesting. He has many of the things I've made on his site. Love to hear that explaination. We'll see how long they stay up there before he takes them down.

I remember once running into a guy who claimed he did a prop I made for sure. Up and down he said he made the prop, until I told him how cocky he was to ever think he'd actually run into the real guy who built it. You should have seen his face then.

I've sent the guy an email. I'll keep on this and let you know what's up.

Rick Gamez The real maker of these weapons. I have invoices to prove it from sony.

Rusty85 said:

Hey Rick, if you made the guns for the movie, why are they on this site? Not saying you didn't make them because you obviously did, but I was just wondering what this site has to do with them. They're about midway down the page.

http://cifx.com/ClientPortfolio/Movies/index.php

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Ok I just looked at this more intensely , this guy worked for me when I did the movie. He was a guy I hired. Still haven't spoken to him but , keep you posted.

rick

http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=57524


Well I did look into this and you can see the rpf link above.

rick