Your first replica build. What and when?

[drusselmeyer]

What was you first replica build and what did you use to build it? When did you start?

 

[Captain Dunsel]

What was you first replica build and what did you use to build it? When did you start?

Technically, it was a TOS Phaser drawn on and cut from a piece of Son of Big Chief notebook paper, around age 5.

 

[drusselmeyer]

Hmm. I was not counting on flatsies. I was thinking 3d. But on the other hand that is a good point.

 

[JakeySnakey630]

Mine was a ‘The Fifth Element’ ZF-1. Built mainly out of aluminium with a fibreglass shell from SuperKrates. This was January 2019 and took about 6 months of lunch breaks, evenings and weekend work.

 

[Captain Dunsel]

Hmm. I was not counting on flatsies. I was thinking 3d. But on the other hand that is a good point.

OK, in that case, my first dimensional prop was from a Vacuform Phaser One kit ordered from Intergalactic Trading Co. around age 10 or 11. I painted it up with brush-on Testors paints.

My first lightsaber build was this V2…based upon what scant information was available at the time; around 1999 (including the long lever being misinterpreted as a bent wire that embedded itself into the booster section)…

And this was the dark and grainy photo that was the source of the long lever misinterpretation…

 

[AJK001]

My first was the AMT landing party kit and then the 23rd Century Phaser kit back in the late 1980's.

 

[Birdie]

Space 1999 Commlock out of wood when I was about 10. Sadly no picture!

 

[Apollo]

TOS Phaser 1 out of balsa wood and tin for the “asperator pile”

Took me a out 3 days back in the 70’s

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

The first prop I built was in 1998 after the book Star Wars: I, Jedi. I really dug the idea of an emergency lightsaber cobbled together out of whatever parts you could find. In the book he built it using a speeder bike throttle. I had no money at the time (I was 21 then), so I used whatever was around my parent's house. So I used part of a baton that unscrewed into nunchucks and the handle from a cheap survival knife (bought when Rambo was popular) as the body/emitter. I used an old plastic watch back for the pommel and sewed pieces of flip flop rubber (the part that your toes slip around) for the grip because that's the only rubbery grip I had around. I wish I had larger pics, but these were taken in 1998. It was crude, but was the gateway drug to spending too much money making prop replicas.

 

[13doctorwho]

Mine was a 4th Doctor Sonic Screwdriver made out of construction paper. To make the tube shapes I rolled the paper in long strips. I later did one where I wrapped the paper model in aluminum tape. That was in the late seventies or really REALLY early eighties.

Also did a lot of Star Trek props in balsa wood. When Next Generation first came out I was making the new tricorder out of balsa wood from glimpses in the making stuff before the show even came out. I saw the props at a convention from a distance. Majel Barret was doing the convention circuit marketing for the show before it came out. Great memories, a long time ago.

 

[moviebuff5]

Probably around 8, a lightsaber out of a pen light, green cellophane, cardboard, and an acrylic rod for the blade. Hardly screen accurate, but more of a DIY toy.

 

[dbuck]

When I was probably eight or nine a couple of moms got together and made five of us Star Trek TOS tunics for Halloween. I used TMOST to make phaser ones and communicators out of wood blocks that I reshaped, used cardboard for the comm antenna, and paint or paper for details. They probably were mediocre at best but I do remember one fellow at one of the houses freaked out in happy way and asked to see them and was totally enamored.
a few years back I asked my mom if she had any pics from that Halloween but alas, that was a no.

edit: it was 1974. I remember sometime after Halloween I wore my ‘Kirk’ tunic to school thinking it would be cool. Ten year olds at that time did not think it was cool. Most people still said Star Track and Doctor Spock.

 

[Metalalien]

In the late 70s I had to have my own Galatica Viper so I made my own out of toilet paper rolls and paper towel roll. The wings and cockpit were made with paper and I drew on the other details with a marker.

So the three toilet paper rolls were the three engines, the paper towel roll was the body... you get it. As I said previously I was a Battlestar kid not a Star Wars kid.

 

[Leinads]

1969, the Apollo LEM. I was “allowed” to use a knife and scissors to cut-up a cardboard box into a four year olds’ impression of the Eagle Lander. A few rolls of foil, duct tape, some tasty paste, a cellophane viewport and I was off on the ride of my life! Great memories

 

[Dr Jones Sr]

I was ten years old, it was 1967, and I build a 1:6 scale MP40 for my GI Joe.

 

[billy baloney]

My first Replica build was the "Best Bike in the Whole World", the X-1 from Pee-wee's Big Adventure, I started in 2011 using a post war Schwinn DX and custom fabricating all the Custom stuff by hand from scratch.
got it done in 2014,

 

[PicasoX]

Right around 2000, Rod.com Communicator with electronics and shortly after the Rod.com Phaser 2, then after that all hell broke lose

I had the star trek exploration set in the 70's but I don't think that counts, but thats what really started my interest in sci-fi props.

 

[gromenawer]

Thor's hammer when i was 10 years old.
I found in my grandparent´s house a stick that looked to me like the handle of the God of Thunder´s hammer. I wrapped it with yellow and black electrical tape (i can´t remember how i got the money to buy them), nailed a piece of leather at the base after opening it a little with a saw.
I asked a neighbor to build a wooden box opened at the top estimating the size of the hammer´s head relative with the stick size and I poured cement in it (i "borrowed" it at a nearby work and had seen how they mixed it).
Obviously it was just for decoration but i was not satisfied with the measurements: I wanted it to be just like the hammer from the comic and the problem was that sometimes I saw the stick too big and other times the head was too big so I decided to finish by hitting it against a rock because I was obsessed (the first thing I did when I got up was to look at the hammer).
It was the first and only time that I built something.
It was 44 years ago.

(sorry for my english buy i needed to tell)

 

[red4]

Luke's ROTJ lightsaber made from a broom handle. The details were crudely indicated with strips of colored vinyl. I made it in the mid 90s when I was about 11 years old. My next attempt at replicating a prop would be in high school, it was Squall's gunblade, life sized, made of plywood, uncomfortably heavy, painted with Duplicolor cans, my first experience with spray paint. Later, still in high school, I made a wire-poseable X-Men Nightcrawler tail for my friend's Halloween costume. At the end of high school in 2005, I replicated Luke's ANH lightsaber with Home Depot plumbing parts, to wear it to the premiere of ROTS.

 

[jheilman]

Star Trek TOS communicator when I was 10 or 11. Made by cutting a large cabinet hinge and soldering it to a piece of metal grid for the antenna. Cut a circle of cardboard for the mic, added a couple buttons and a small magnet to keep it closed. Lost that decades ago.