Unpainted TNG, DSN & Voyager comm badges from the prop shop that made them...

[BartGold]

So, in my intro thread I mentioned that I did some work at the off-lot prop shop that made a lot of the Trek hand props.

I realize folks here have probably seen a lot of badges here and there but these unpainted pulls, from the molds used to make the badges for the show, are favorites of mine from what little I was able to keep.

I should disclaim that they made a lot of badges over time, so these may be fractionally smaller than the oldest badges. (Apparently every time you mold something in silicone, make a copy, then make a new mold from the copy there's a little shrinkage. But these are straight up production line pulls from batches of badges that went onto DSN and Voyager.

The Bajoran badge might not be a comm so much as an ornament within the world of Deep Space Nine. But I love the Bajoran stuff because it all had decorative squiggles which gave the prop makers a place to write their names.

 

[YenChih Lin]

Nice, I always wondered, do you have to happen a Season 1 ComBadge to compare with a Season 4-7? Would be grest to know the visual differences and how the masters were made…

 

[BartGold]

Season 1 of which? TNG?

 

[YenChih Lin]

yes. TNG.

 

[BartGold]

As far as I understand the TNG badge was the same the whole time, which continued onto DSN. (Minus occasional things like a visit from the future where the future-enterprise crew had a new combadge design on.)

It's possible there were minor improvements to the back, re: attaching badges securely to uniforms. I think the orignal sculpt happenned internally at Paramount, then they farmed out a copy for others to replicate.

In that case, the only change over time would be a tiny fraction of shrinkage depending on how many iterations of part-mold-part-mold-part occurred.

I do remember later in the game my friends engineered a mold master so you could pour in fresh silicone and make indefnite numbers of new two-part molds for a single combadge. (Two part urethane gives off heat when it's mixed and curing, so you can only get 25 or so pulls before the a silicone mold starts to tear and crack.)

 

[YenChih Lin]

What I read was the TNG combadge was first a bigger than the later versions, the oval was bigger, the impression was also given in the TNG HD Remastered. And there was a metal version, which was shown in "ST Aliens and Artifacts", but I never saw it on screen. Some said there was also a two parter, the delta and the oval backing…

 

[BartGold]

Yeah, there's lots of metal versions among the souvenirs and merch.

I got curious so I just went on netflix and compared screengrabs of Picard from S1 and S6... looks like you're right, the S1 badge is fractionally larger. Possibly larger than the discrepancy that would be cause by silicone mold shrinkage. Honestly I'm not sure how the master(s) were sculpted back then.

But I do know that when Max (The M on the back of the Voyager badge) sculpted the second style of badge above, it was a piece of plastic that he subtractively dremelled out to make the shape. Which impresses the heck out of me still.

It could be done by hand by somebody good enough. I'll ask around...