I agree with
renaissance_man and
Funky, in short do what you can do.
When I started building replicas my stuff was pure garbage, but now it’s closer to just trash. As I got better (and acquired more personal time and money) my skills improved. It took me years to get to the point where my builds were more that an approximation of what I was referencing. In fact the only time I’ve ever built screen accurate replicas is for commissions... my first accurate build was a set Voyager PADDs for a friend. But when it comes to myself, I tend to get lazy and cut corners.
I took a 22 year break from building. But now I just build what I want. My Movie-era tricorder build is a true distortion of the actual prop. It’s just a fun build and meant to get me going again. To me, it’s more important to enjoy yourself, and like it’s already been said, do what you cans do and build what you can afford.
I do however think it’s also important that we all help each other ID inaccuracies and faulty info. My motivation is to help reduce disappointment and ridicule. I’ve encountered some serious Prop Snobs in my time who were pure penises, and if your not informed about what you’re doing they can be down right cruel and demeaning.
As to 3D printing (specifically if you have a 3D printer), I recommend digging up as much reference material as possible and then designing your own screen accurate devices.
As to purchasing replicas and castings, I have a casting of the SFS tricorder and highly detailed reference material for the “real deal”, I can tell you the castings are not screen accurate either. They’re close, maybe 90% but not 100%.
I’m not sure if even contributing. I just was to see what comes of this build. [emoji41][emoji106]