I've always loved this prop, but never quite enough to pay several hundred dollars for the Roddenberry kit. I also want to carry it around at conventions and stuff, so I want it to be lightweight and cheap, so I won't feel bad about scratching it up. Plus, with the actual screen-used rifle coming up for auction recently, there's some new reference material for it (including the accurate dimensions of the prop), so I have an opportunity to make some small corrections to it that the Roddenberry kit got wrong.
Again, while I like this prop a lot, I don't love it enough to spend more than a few days and a few bucks on this build. So I decided to make it all out of materials I could cut and shape quickly with hand tools. I constructed the main body pieces all out of 2 dollar chipboard and a leftover cardboard mailing tube (which will later be saturated with resin to make it hard and strong):
The undercarriage and rear handle and made from balsa (which will also be saturated with resin later to make them less prone to dents since balsa is quite soft:
Handgrip details with all done with chipboard:
The front cone of the rifle is just styrofoam, filled with putty, then sanded smooth. This will also be coated in resin:
Painted all the parts with resin:
Now I'm skipping about a half dozen steps here, but after I coated the chipboard parts with resin and let them cure, I sanded them, filler primed them, bondoed and puttied them, sanded them again, primed them again, etc. etc. until the surfaces were perfectly smooth:
That's all for now. I'm making a few compromises for ease of construction. For instance, the rear body of the actual rifle tapers a bit toward the back. I decided not to include that detail as it would have been too difficult to do with cardboard. Also, the targeting screen and front grill are recessed into the body of the rifle. Too much work. I'm just going to print vinyl labels and stick them on top. Not recessed.
Again, while I like this prop a lot, I don't love it enough to spend more than a few days and a few bucks on this build. So I decided to make it all out of materials I could cut and shape quickly with hand tools. I constructed the main body pieces all out of 2 dollar chipboard and a leftover cardboard mailing tube (which will later be saturated with resin to make it hard and strong):
The undercarriage and rear handle and made from balsa (which will also be saturated with resin later to make them less prone to dents since balsa is quite soft:
Handgrip details with all done with chipboard:
The front cone of the rifle is just styrofoam, filled with putty, then sanded smooth. This will also be coated in resin:
Painted all the parts with resin:
Now I'm skipping about a half dozen steps here, but after I coated the chipboard parts with resin and let them cure, I sanded them, filler primed them, bondoed and puttied them, sanded them again, primed them again, etc. etc. until the surfaces were perfectly smooth:
That's all for now. I'm making a few compromises for ease of construction. For instance, the rear body of the actual rifle tapers a bit toward the back. I decided not to include that detail as it would have been too difficult to do with cardboard. Also, the targeting screen and front grill are recessed into the body of the rifle. Too much work. I'm just going to print vinyl labels and stick them on top. Not recessed.
