Help Identifying Carpenter's "The Thing" Dynamite brand.

I dug up a few "pictures" of other Hercules sticks - not the same style but still helpful. Note the angled wrap line.
5e473bfa29f336d354e5abc4f1951d83--hercules-lighthouses.jpg
s-l1000.jpg

Also, I took the crate image from post #7 above, and removed most of the perspective distortion on the logo, so that it basically matches the proportions of the low resolution logo from post #5:
straightened-hercules-logo.jpg
Not perfect, but probably good enough.

Next I'll clean that up and start mocking up a wrapper. Maybe tomorrow.

Does anyone have more screencaps? I don't own the movie. A clip from the blood test scene, on YouTube, reveals that there's quite a bit of blank space on the labels, but I wonder if we can get a better look at the text below and beyond the "UN". If not, I'll guess it's similar to the vintage ones.
 
Internet consensus suggests these sticks are usually about 8" by 1-1/8" or 1-1/4". Size may vary by strength, though - bigger stick, bigger boom?

Of course the props were props, so might have been non-standard sizes anyway. I haven't tried to scale the ones in the movie from other props/scenery. It might be worth attempting.

Instead, I decided to spend some time today cleaning up my workshop. Wouldn't you know it, one of the first out-of-place items I had to put away was...

tube.JPG

A cardboard tube, just about 1-1/8" diameter. Well okay then! I sawed off 8", as shown. Ready for label tests.

I'm not sure where I even got that tube. Probably gift wrap, my favorite source for narrow cardboard tubes.
 
Dug a bit more and found this screencap.
ranking-john-carpenter-the-thing-700x300.png
Notice how you can't see any printing on those sticks at all. So the entire back half is blank and these are all facing away - I guess.

Note the diagonal wrap line.
 
I'm skeptical of that one. It looks nothing like the ones in the film. Wrong wrap, too glossy, and too narrow. Only one picture as well. Seems off.
 
I'm skeptical of that one. It looks nothing like the ones in the film. Wrong wrap, too glossy, and too narrow. Only one picture as well. Seems off.

I agree. At best, not the same prop we're doing. Maybe they had more than one style on set. I just read that they actually had the actors throwing real dynamite sticks. That's pretty weird.


Very cool finds!

Stay tuned for a rough draft.
 
Awesome. It does look like the Hercules inc logo in the previous post is spot on apart from the "industries" etc bit. I bet they cobbled together some images lol

Regards
T
A
Z


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
Here's my first draft:
draft 1 stick test.JPG
I think the wrap angle is pretty good. The text is purely speculative - I still can't see anything beyond "UN" for sure. But if you squint I think this looks pretty close.
It shouldn't be hard to fine-tune it from here.
 
I looks to me like UNIGEL is written twice with text in the middle. Probably the high explosives text.

I like what you done so far mate.
Least it won't be hard to find black waxed cord for the fuse and electrical tape lol
Regards
T
A
Z


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Re: Help Identifying Carpenter's "The Thing" Dynamite brand.

Lol real fuse? For your cannon? Lol well it looks like the fuse in the film is black to me. Sounds like a great offer. I think I'll settle for black waxed cord or something to be on the safe side lol

Regards
T
A
Z



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
I'm not sure why I bought it, I suppose you could use it on a cannon. :) I've had the stuff for over twenty years now.
 
Okay, I think I'm done:

dyna test 2.JPG

I could tweak it a bit more if necessary, but I'm about out of time to work on this and I'm satisfied with this version.
I think it looks pretty close. Without better reference from the film, there's really not much more I can do.

Here's the printable wrap; note that it's exactly 11x8.5 inches , so be sure your printer doesn't try to scale it down to fit a smaller printable area. Keep it at 100% scale:

dyna 02.png

Enjoy!
 
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