I've always loved the football-shaped ray gun from TOS. Although it's called an "Offensive/Defensive Ray Gun" in The Making of Star Trek and the Star Fleet Technical Manual, it's been featured in several episodes typically as a repair tool or scanner (The Squire of Gothos, Galileo 7, The Doomsday Machine, etc). I love the throwback, Buck Rogers vibe it has, so I've decided to start working on one.
I drew it up in SolidWorks as 4 parts:
I went ahead and printed up a prototype on my FDM printer just to get an idea of how it'll look. I took measurements from The Making of Star Trek (the measurements in the Tech Manual are inaccurate). It looks a little cartoony and toyish because of the rough texture and red/blue colors I printed it in, so you have to get past that. Also, the emitter nozzle failed to print the final segment of the tip, but that's fine as this is just a prototype. Imagine this silverish-grey, with a shiny silver emitter base and clear (and complete) emitter nozzle, with amazingly clean, smooth details. The reliefs on the side of the football will be red, as in the original prop. That's what the final product will look like when it's produced on a high-quality resin SLA printer. I will outfit this with a button to light up the tip, just like the original prop. I expect the resin one to be done in about a week and will post pics of it then
In the mean time, check out the pics of the original prop along with the pics of the FDM prototype and let me know what you think!
tJ
I drew it up in SolidWorks as 4 parts:
- the main body (the football)
- a top the screws into place (allowing for fitting/accessing the electronics)
- the emitter base, which screws into the base above
- the clear emitter
I went ahead and printed up a prototype on my FDM printer just to get an idea of how it'll look. I took measurements from The Making of Star Trek (the measurements in the Tech Manual are inaccurate). It looks a little cartoony and toyish because of the rough texture and red/blue colors I printed it in, so you have to get past that. Also, the emitter nozzle failed to print the final segment of the tip, but that's fine as this is just a prototype. Imagine this silverish-grey, with a shiny silver emitter base and clear (and complete) emitter nozzle, with amazingly clean, smooth details. The reliefs on the side of the football will be red, as in the original prop. That's what the final product will look like when it's produced on a high-quality resin SLA printer. I will outfit this with a button to light up the tip, just like the original prop. I expect the resin one to be done in about a week and will post pics of it then
In the mean time, check out the pics of the original prop along with the pics of the FDM prototype and let me know what you think!
tJ
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