I got this piece over four years ago in pretty bad shape. It's a screen-used Picard Desktop Monitor from Star Trek: The Next Generation. It's a static prop, not the hero light up model. Specifically, it's from the 7th Season episode "Genesis," where Neanderthal Riker picks up the monitor and throws it at Picard. This is a lightweight model. The outside is made of gelcoat to preserve the details. But the inside is urethane expanding foam.
As some of you might recall, I put it to the RPF whether I should restore it or not. This is what it used to look like:
The picture actually makes it look better than it was. What looks like surface chips are actually deep gouges. And often the cracks are actually deeply depressed on one side or the other leading to some highly uneven surfaces.
It was sort of a 50/50 split to restore it. On one hand, I don't plan on ever reselling it and it was in such bad shape that I didn't even want to display it. Restoration might actually help the resale value if done well. On the other hand, it's a screen-used piece, and extremely rare. I know of only three others in collections, and one of them was repainted to be some alien computer.
Well, after four years of sitting in a box in storage, I asked myself, why do I even own this thing if I'm not going to display it? I decided to restore it in as tasteful a way as I could, making sure to preserve the original paint job and tape (yes, the white lines are tape) whenever possible, and also to preserve the damage that is seen on screen. I didn't want the thing to look brand spankin new. In the episode, the monitor splits in half and I left this crack intact, though someone before me glued it back together. I kept that crack there as well as most other cracks and scuffs. Also of note, someone before me had done some really shoddy repair work, and stuffed some sort of wax-based putty in one gouge and roughly painted over it with a high gloss paint (the actually paint is satin). I removed these repairs and did my own that are invisible.
As a general rule, I repaired only deep gouges or large chunks of removed gelcoat. I meticulously reapplied the existing tape. Sometimes it was so crumpled and subsequently petrified into that configuration what I had to soak it in warm water to regain pliability. But I'm happy to report that about 85% of the white tape is original as well as about 70% of the paintjob. I had to use a combination of semi-gloss and flat paint to match the sheen of the original paintjob. Nothing straight from the can matched, so I had to mix it myself. It's also interesting to note that the white tape was not, in fact, white paper tape like the kind used on film sets. This is what I thought originally. Upon closer inspection, the tape is actually regular tan masking tape painted white. So for the parts of tape I had to replace, I duplicated this technique.
If anyone's interested, I can post more photos of the restoration as I documented it pretty thoroughly. Otherwise, here is the finished piece which will now go into an acrylic case in my collection:
As some of you might recall, I put it to the RPF whether I should restore it or not. This is what it used to look like:
The picture actually makes it look better than it was. What looks like surface chips are actually deep gouges. And often the cracks are actually deeply depressed on one side or the other leading to some highly uneven surfaces.
It was sort of a 50/50 split to restore it. On one hand, I don't plan on ever reselling it and it was in such bad shape that I didn't even want to display it. Restoration might actually help the resale value if done well. On the other hand, it's a screen-used piece, and extremely rare. I know of only three others in collections, and one of them was repainted to be some alien computer.
Well, after four years of sitting in a box in storage, I asked myself, why do I even own this thing if I'm not going to display it? I decided to restore it in as tasteful a way as I could, making sure to preserve the original paint job and tape (yes, the white lines are tape) whenever possible, and also to preserve the damage that is seen on screen. I didn't want the thing to look brand spankin new. In the episode, the monitor splits in half and I left this crack intact, though someone before me glued it back together. I kept that crack there as well as most other cracks and scuffs. Also of note, someone before me had done some really shoddy repair work, and stuffed some sort of wax-based putty in one gouge and roughly painted over it with a high gloss paint (the actually paint is satin). I removed these repairs and did my own that are invisible.
As a general rule, I repaired only deep gouges or large chunks of removed gelcoat. I meticulously reapplied the existing tape. Sometimes it was so crumpled and subsequently petrified into that configuration what I had to soak it in warm water to regain pliability. But I'm happy to report that about 85% of the white tape is original as well as about 70% of the paintjob. I had to use a combination of semi-gloss and flat paint to match the sheen of the original paintjob. Nothing straight from the can matched, so I had to mix it myself. It's also interesting to note that the white tape was not, in fact, white paper tape like the kind used on film sets. This is what I thought originally. Upon closer inspection, the tape is actually regular tan masking tape painted white. So for the parts of tape I had to replace, I duplicated this technique.
If anyone's interested, I can post more photos of the restoration as I documented it pretty thoroughly. Otherwise, here is the finished piece which will now go into an acrylic case in my collection:
