Benjo
Active Member
Hello everyone,
The Star Trek TMP phaser has always been my favourite space gun with its streamlined barcode scanner looking. I sure love the TWOK version but my preference goes to the first version of these props.
I've learnt a couple of weeks ago that this stuff was a 3 parts vacum-formed prop for the first Star Trek movie so I decided to build one.I did my best with the few pictures available on internet as reference materials, on the other hand I wasn't looking for perfect accuracy. I've made three bucks out of MDF and plywood, first by shaping the three parts together, making the gun thinner.
It obviously failed. the thickness of the HIPS sheets rounded the edges too much and made the parts impossible to put together. That way to make the gun was clearly too approximative.
I decided to make the gun differently by making a two parts master out of MDF. I first drew a template on Inkscape. The only picture with no shooting angle I found was a TWOK stunt prop. I used it as a base.
There's diffences between the TWOK and the TMP versions. I know the TMP has softer edges with a slightly larger body, the trigger is different and the P1 separation line seems to be painted rather than carved on the TMP. The emitter section seems slightly different to and the side lines extend to the emitter section, but, considering the lack of reference material it's all about (mis?)interpretation. As I said I'm not looking for perfect accuracy.
I begun by triming the parts out of MDF sheets, then glued the parts, repeating the process twice to have two sections.
I then joined the two sections with double sided tape in order to shape the gun properly. For the top section, I used a playmate toy picture to draw a template. That sucks but that's the only workable picture I had.
I ended up with a wooden raw sculpt, had to rework the emitter section with epoxy putty and refine the body section, mine seemed a bit larger. Sorry for the poor quality pics.
I've made the control panel using styrene sheets. Again, sorry for the crappy pics.
Currently I still have to sand it nice and smooth, there's still some surface imperfections. As everybody knows searching and sealing all the tiny spots is a real pain in the ass. I still have to ad details on the control panel, still have some work anyway.
Thx for reading. All thoughts and advices will be much appreciated.
The Star Trek TMP phaser has always been my favourite space gun with its streamlined barcode scanner looking. I sure love the TWOK version but my preference goes to the first version of these props.
I've learnt a couple of weeks ago that this stuff was a 3 parts vacum-formed prop for the first Star Trek movie so I decided to build one.I did my best with the few pictures available on internet as reference materials, on the other hand I wasn't looking for perfect accuracy. I've made three bucks out of MDF and plywood, first by shaping the three parts together, making the gun thinner.
It obviously failed. the thickness of the HIPS sheets rounded the edges too much and made the parts impossible to put together. That way to make the gun was clearly too approximative.
I decided to make the gun differently by making a two parts master out of MDF. I first drew a template on Inkscape. The only picture with no shooting angle I found was a TWOK stunt prop. I used it as a base.
There's diffences between the TWOK and the TMP versions. I know the TMP has softer edges with a slightly larger body, the trigger is different and the P1 separation line seems to be painted rather than carved on the TMP. The emitter section seems slightly different to and the side lines extend to the emitter section, but, considering the lack of reference material it's all about (mis?)interpretation. As I said I'm not looking for perfect accuracy.
I begun by triming the parts out of MDF sheets, then glued the parts, repeating the process twice to have two sections.
I then joined the two sections with double sided tape in order to shape the gun properly. For the top section, I used a playmate toy picture to draw a template. That sucks but that's the only workable picture I had.
I ended up with a wooden raw sculpt, had to rework the emitter section with epoxy putty and refine the body section, mine seemed a bit larger. Sorry for the poor quality pics.
I've made the control panel using styrene sheets. Again, sorry for the crappy pics.
Currently I still have to sand it nice and smooth, there's still some surface imperfections. As everybody knows searching and sealing all the tiny spots is a real pain in the ass. I still have to ad details on the control panel, still have some work anyway.
Thx for reading. All thoughts and advices will be much appreciated.
