Re: John Long Phaser 1 Kit Buildup plus MM P2 Restoration
Okay, so the screw thing...
So, I couldn't figure out whether the tab and the nut were supposed to be brass or steel (and my confidential sources are being typically confidential). From the pictures I have, it's just not clear:
Well, that is, it
wasn't clear until I went looking through my pictures again, and I found a picture that was submitted for John's article in Star Trek Communicator #146 but not used. It looks an awful lot like steel to me:
But, in this replica made after he examined the original, John used a brass tab with a steel screw soldered on:
So I may very well revisit this part before I get too locked into this part of the pistol. There are a couple of other things I'm not happy with you'll see below, but for now it's doing the job of closing the phaser very well -- so I'm not sure it this is something I'll address tonight/tomorrow or not.
Also, on the original, the tab is pitched back at an angle from the floor of the pistol. I have no idea why that is, but I certainly don't want my flathead screw canted like that. I want it nice and flush, so that's one feature of the original I won't be trying to slavishly reproduce.
One thing though: I've seen replicas where the tab is actually an L-shaped bracket, and the upright leg is what the nozzle stem screws into. Even on the original, the bottom screw does seem to line up very well with the hole in the nozzle stem (go back and look at all those photos... you'll see what I mean).
However, I hesitate to do it this way. It makes the lineup more complicated, I don't gain anything from it that I can think of, and it doesn't seem consistent with what we understand about the history of the prop. Since that bottom screw was added by Wah Chang and not there originally, it would mean he would have ripped out the mount for the trigger (which blocks the brass slide from backing out to expose the nozzle screw), removed the brass slide and the nozzle, then removed whatever hardware was holding the nozzle in there in the first place, and then installed the bracket and put it all back together, all so he could make an L-bracket instead of just a little plate. So sure, it seems pretty straightforward when you're building the phasers, but not so much from Wah's position of just reworking them in a timely and cost-effective manner.
So, back to what I actually did...
For the hardware size, I went with a 4-40. I was going to use a 6-32, but when I looked at it on the outside of the pistol, it just seemed too big. On the original, the screw is definitely steel, and much longer than it needs to be for some reason:
For the plate, I went with 0.040" brass, since I had some scrap on hand left over from making the plate for the handle. I figured the best way to do it would be to punch a 1/8" hole in the brass piece, open the screw hole in the right location on the underside of the pistol, and screw it onto the outside so I could start eyeballing the interior fit.
I used a scribe tool to mark the rough locations of the interior walls, took it to the grinder, and got lucky the first time out:
Of course, now my hole's no longer centered...
Tell me about it...
But I just kept going -- I was gonna have a closed phaser Sunday night if it harelipped everybody on Bear Creek...
Now let's get this thing on the hump, we got some phaserin' to do!
So then I screwed it back onto the phaser and made sure to clamp it nice and tight...
Clamp it, not Clampett!!
Soooo..., back to the bandsaw, then the grinder...
Then I soldered the nut to the plate. This took a little sliding the nut around with my little sliding-stuff-around tool and part-time scriber, but I got it lined up without much trouble:
Then I just screwed it in place, dropped in a gob of JB Steel epoxy putty, and pressed it in. I wound up with the putty erupting through the bottom of the pistol because I'd hogged out a bit too much resin to accommodate the plate, but that's one of those problems that solves itself when the putty sets. As you can see, the whole thing does the job very nicely, which automatically makes it beautiful.
Finally, I had a little time left, so I decided to open the hole in front for the nozzle stem. I figured out the simplest way to locate and mark the hole:
Then I just ground it out with a burr bit and parked the nozzle in there for pictures:
The hole's very rough, but that'll get straightened out when I have the nozzle properly secured.
That's it for now -- see you again in the next few days with more!