TMP Wrist Communicator

Eric Ardros

Sr Member
Though I've never been a fan of the first feature film, I have to admit some of the props they made for it were pretty kewl. One of those, of course, being the Wrist Communicator:

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I got these off eBay a while back, and came across them recently going through all of my unfinished kits (too many to count, lol).

They're both the same size and shape, and fairly accurate, however research into the screen-used originals showed these were too large to what the actors wore.

An interesting little fact, the TOS actors for the most part are fairly small people. Even Leonard Nimoy, though tall, was a very thin guy during TMP with very small-looking wrists. As a result, the originals are smaller than people think.

What happens is, many fans may be substantially bigger in the wrist area than the original TOS actors. As a result, rather than sizing the wrist band to suit their needs, they typically upscale the comm itself resulting in some substantially oversized replicas.

Being the stickler for detail and accuracy that I am, lol, once I was made aware the oversized nature of the wrist comms I had in my possession, I was motivated to scratch-build a screen-accurate replica for myself.

Below are a series of WiP pics leading up to the finished product:

06/13

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11/13

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It measures 2 5/8" tall by 1 1/4" wide, considerably smaller than any other replica made to date (pic below is a comparison to the versions at the beginning of this thread):

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Of course, the finished ones shown above were actually done for clients, as I've molded/casted my styrene master to make kits from. I have one of these, with a slight typo in the "ER - 2/8" area above the black "faceplate" up top, that I plan to sell at Ottawa Pop Expo in December.

The colder weather prohibits primer and/or paint from adhering properly to anything prop-wise (I do all my painting in the garage), so until warmer springtime/summer weather comes around again I won't be able to do one of these up for my own collection. It'll be great when I do, though :cool
 
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I love it. iv'e been thinking about this item for a while and its great to see what you have done. it never occurred to me about people resizing the original, good catch.
 
Actually, the fact about others resizing their replicas to fit their own wrists was something point out to me, lol, so I can't take credit for that realization.

Once I knew of the resizing issue and realized the castings I'd had were too large, it was only logical that I scratch-build a replica that was accurate in size to the screen-used originals.

I am very pleased with the end result, though. Definitely a far more accurate depiction of what was used on set, I think. And the clients were happy with my efforts, so it's a win-win :D
 
Thanks! That's quite the compliment :)

I'm currently working on making electronics for a full hero version, minus the brick-sized battery pack they had to use for the set-used hero, lol.
 
Thanks! They've been fun builds to do, despite all the detailing involved.

Funny thing is, I tried doing up a less detailed mid-grade unit, and kept having problems with the final details I just threw my hands up and decided to stick to the more detailed units, lol.

I just find it kind of wierd how the high-detail ones would end up being easier to do than the low-detail ones :p
 
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More than a full year necropost, I know, but wanted to post a few pics of the hero Wrist Comm I made for my collection (compared to my static HD unit):





If it looks a little rough, that's because it is. Some of the paint came off around the top LED cut-out when I tried inserting the smoked lexan insert. Then I lost that insert (dropped it on the floor, bounced off into oblivion somewhere in my workshop), so have to make another.

Despite that, I'm thrilled to have such a rare piece that's very close to accurate to the screen-used originals :) Someone I know who bought one of the other eight hero comms I made in the summer compared mine to a screen-used stunt comm, and my replica was only off by mere centimeters.

Not bad for just eye-balling it, lol.
 
Awesome work. I've been doing some research to build one myself when I found this. if you don't mind I have a few questions. What was the dimensions you settled on? and what did you make it out of?
 
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