This project originally began a few years ago as a joint effort between myself and Tim (D48thronin) Arp. The idea was to take one of the plasma rifle recasts from James Cameron's Universal Studios T2 3-D theme park attraction film and give it a minor makeover, the biggest change being the inclusion of the T2 screen accurate Calico M950. We wanted to go for the Hero Firing version that Stembridge had originally put together for T2's Future War scenes but that was apparently abandoned prior to filming (my own guess is the Winston Studio full scale Endo's probably couldn't support the weight, let alone safely control a real weapon firing blank rounds on full auto).
For a variety of reasons the project was put on the back burner until recently, when at the urging of my good friend Matsuo it once again regained forward momentum. As stated, the biggest improvement on all the previous versions was to be the addition of the correct grip. I had purchased a wonky stunt Calico M950 off of E-Bay almost a decade ago and since acquired a real Calico grip. By combining these two for a nice "clean" master pattern, I would then cut it down to the appropriate dimensions. Tim had already done an amazing job on the less-than-impressive source material, cleaning it up, installing all the correct screws, and removing then re-mastering many of the smaller detail parts that we were going to add separately. He also made the magazine as a separate piece which we could then insert into the receiver with a plug. Our mutual friend Jeff (Darcjedi) Heath turned a beautiful aluminum barrel, which would also be attached via plug.
Everything was going great until I cut the Calico casting down to install it and discovered with both horror and glee that the main body of the receiver needed to be shimmed out an extra half an inch(!) in order to make it wide enough to fit the Calico as it did on the original. This is the second major alteration/improvement to the piece that makes it radically different from all of those that have preceded it. This version is a lot beefier, with the width of the receiver at it's narrowest measuring in at 2 and 3/8ths of an inch. This discovery pretty much made the decision to go all out an easy one. Instead of a minor makeover, it would get a major face-lift.
After deciding to shim out the entire upper shell I realized I also needed to completely rebuild the rear section that comprises the magazine, as the sides of this section were too squashed in and out of square to be acceptable. Since the hero firing version had a visible seam line behind the grip (perhaps to allow easier access to the Calico - the magazine of which sits on top of the receiver), I thought this was the best place to make the transition from existing casting to new scratch-built rear end. You can see this staggered seam line behind the machine screws. I also decided to rebuild the magazine, since it also had a major case of warp. From the beginning, Tim and I realized that it would've been wiser (and a lot easier) to simply go ahead and rebuild *everything*, but by keeping as much of the original as we could we've at least tried to maintain the lineage (such as it is) from the original piece.
But enough talk, on to the pics!
Here's the parts (minus the small clips that 'hold' the Calico in place)...
And assembled...
Beefy! ( the rifle, not my wife )
I normally wouldn't show something off that wasn't painted, and I know the white resin doesn't allow for all the details to show. However, I'm very happy how it looks, and know there's been more than a mild interest in seeing this project succesfully realized.
I hope you like it, and I'll post some more photos in a bit.
Thanks for looking!
Shawn
For a variety of reasons the project was put on the back burner until recently, when at the urging of my good friend Matsuo it once again regained forward momentum. As stated, the biggest improvement on all the previous versions was to be the addition of the correct grip. I had purchased a wonky stunt Calico M950 off of E-Bay almost a decade ago and since acquired a real Calico grip. By combining these two for a nice "clean" master pattern, I would then cut it down to the appropriate dimensions. Tim had already done an amazing job on the less-than-impressive source material, cleaning it up, installing all the correct screws, and removing then re-mastering many of the smaller detail parts that we were going to add separately. He also made the magazine as a separate piece which we could then insert into the receiver with a plug. Our mutual friend Jeff (Darcjedi) Heath turned a beautiful aluminum barrel, which would also be attached via plug.
Everything was going great until I cut the Calico casting down to install it and discovered with both horror and glee that the main body of the receiver needed to be shimmed out an extra half an inch(!) in order to make it wide enough to fit the Calico as it did on the original. This is the second major alteration/improvement to the piece that makes it radically different from all of those that have preceded it. This version is a lot beefier, with the width of the receiver at it's narrowest measuring in at 2 and 3/8ths of an inch. This discovery pretty much made the decision to go all out an easy one. Instead of a minor makeover, it would get a major face-lift.
After deciding to shim out the entire upper shell I realized I also needed to completely rebuild the rear section that comprises the magazine, as the sides of this section were too squashed in and out of square to be acceptable. Since the hero firing version had a visible seam line behind the grip (perhaps to allow easier access to the Calico - the magazine of which sits on top of the receiver), I thought this was the best place to make the transition from existing casting to new scratch-built rear end. You can see this staggered seam line behind the machine screws. I also decided to rebuild the magazine, since it also had a major case of warp. From the beginning, Tim and I realized that it would've been wiser (and a lot easier) to simply go ahead and rebuild *everything*, but by keeping as much of the original as we could we've at least tried to maintain the lineage (such as it is) from the original piece.
But enough talk, on to the pics!
Here's the parts (minus the small clips that 'hold' the Calico in place)...
And assembled...
Beefy! ( the rifle, not my wife )
I normally wouldn't show something off that wasn't painted, and I know the white resin doesn't allow for all the details to show. However, I'm very happy how it looks, and know there's been more than a mild interest in seeing this project succesfully realized.
I hope you like it, and I'll post some more photos in a bit.
Thanks for looking!
Shawn
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