Phase 2. My Blade Runner pistol replicas.

[userd1402]

This thread is just somewhere for me to put information about my own Blade Runner builds and since I have now started my own blog; 'Blade Runner Thoughts' it probably won't be updated much either. All my new builds and 'thoughts' will go on the blog.
The link to the blog is in my signature below if you're interested.

2015: Rick Deckard's Steyr Pistol; ('World-Con' Sidkit #1). SOLD JANUARY 2017

The first thing any Blade Runner fan wants to own is Rick Deckard's Steyr pistol and I'm no different. This gun is a movie icon like no other. Thought lost for over twenty years, the one and only hero prop was found at the World-Con convention in 2006 by Karl Tate and as a result of his extensive pictures and measurements we now have some excellent replicas to build and covet. My Steyr is an all-metal replica by the late Siderio Germaino, a Sidkit. It has the full working functions; moving slide, swing-out cylinder, working trigger, hammer and ejector. It's been lightly blued and lightly weathered to resemble the hero prop in the condition it was when filming finished. The five red LEDs on the lower magazine all work as per the real prop but I have not wired up the two green 'sight-rod' LEDs as they were never shown illuminated in the movie (or were they?). I also added some .44 dummy rounds, again these were never shown in the movie but it helps add weight and I like heavy guns. The barrel is a turned steel replacement which was originally intended for a Japanese Tomenosuke replica but luckily it fits the Sid'. It was made about four years ago in the US by 'propsmith' Dave and came to me via about 4-5 previous owners.

I really like these kits and recently compared my World-Con Sidkit to a 2015 Coyle C&S (claimed by you-know-who as the best and most accurate replica on the market) and I'm really glad I got a Sidkit instead of spending well over a thousand on a Coyle. The casting of the Sid' is much cleaner and sharper than the Coyle. Sidkits can sometimes be a bit loose and rattly (apparently a dab of nail varnish in the screw holes will fix this) but the finished pieces are really impressive. This particular one was created in Italy from the original molds after Sid's death in 2009, by his business partner Michelle Possanza, and came loosely-assembled in two packages with just final fitting, wiring, bluing and weathering to do. I used ordinary car polish over the grips and when it dried I wiped off the excess to leave the 'World-Con' residue and ordinary Humbrol modeling enamels to add the black patterning to the bottom of the grip butt-plate. My bluing of the receiver is a little patchy but I think that's due more to the nature of the pewter amalgam than my technique which followed the instructions of several members of the replica prop forum who have had great success with these products. I see this build as a 'homage' to the genuine prop as it exists today and as a practice piece for the day I can build a real-parts replica with a genuine Charter-Arms frame, custom machined grip frame & cylinder shells and a real Steyr Mannlicher receiver.

[userd1402]

Rick Deckard's Steyr Pistol; 'hero' version (Sidkit #2). SOLD JANUARY 2018

This is the second metal Sidkit I have completed. It's the same 'recent' Italian casting as my first gun except this one came with a metal magazine & housing rather than the, actually more accurate, plastic version. Like my first Sid' this one has the full working functions to resemble the hero prop. I made a few extra modifications for accuracy too. I added a genuine Steyr rifle-scope pivot screw in place of the infamous Weaver knob on the right-side cylinder casing. I also swapped the replica 'binding post' on the same side for a genuine world-war 2 EE-3 field telephone aerial binding-post which was expensive but does look very good and has the correct amount of 'groove' showing under the end cap just as on the genuine hero prop. Finally I changed the perforated pewter barrel that came with the kit for a turned steel one. When doing my final assembly I added a small drop of my favourite 2-tonne epoxy glue behind the barrel end, as well as in all the screw holes, to ensure this PKD is rattle-free. My previous Sidkit became a little loose as handling took it's toll on the pewter castings and I do like to play with my toys. A little Turtle-Wax polish on the grips allowed to dry then wiped off leaves a little whitish residue on the plastic grips.

As with my first completed Sidkit the green LED's in the sight rod were not actually connected to the battery because they are not shown illuminated in the movie. The dummy .44 magnum rounds which fitted so neatly in my original Sid were just a hair too tight to fit the cylinder on this one. Probably a different batch of metal with a slightly higher shrinkage rate than the first one I built three years ago. The easiest fix is to use .357 shells instead. No one will ever know, unless you tell them. The final thing to do was to run over the bluing with a felt polishing pad on my Dremel to add highlights and emulate years of handling and this has given some nice contrast to the finish although I may have been a little over-zealous on a few areas (such as the bolt lever).

With the build completed I checked in with my friend who owns the Coyle to show him my progress and swap build-stories. He's the only other person in my part of the world, that I know of, with a PKD obsession like me and he's recently come into possession of an unbuilt Coyle kit to add to his 2015 C&S version. All I can say is that, having seen the Coyle in built and unbuilt form, I am increasingly impressed by the quality of the Sidkit. They are straight and true with fine, crisp etched details and no bubbles or voids to fill. My buddy has his work cut out for him to make the Coyle look as impressive as the Sid' I proudly waved under his nose.






UPDATE NOV 3rd 2017
I had the day off today so, apart from creating this thread, I have done a bit of modding on my Sid’. I started by dismantling the front end because the magazine was drooping at its leading edge. The back is screwed down beside the trigger guard but the front has very little ‘edge’ to hang onto so I dug out a genuine Steyr Mannlicher .222 rifle magazine and mag housing from the box where I'm collecting parts for a hybrid build. This one was made in 2015 and is laser-engraved with a date on the flat left flank. Obviously they didn't do this in the 1980's but I kinda like it. If this was 'in-universe' it would mean this was a four year old gun in the movie timeline of November 2019.

I tried the Sidkit magazine, with it’s LEDs and battery, in the Mannlicher housing and it was about 1mm too long at the back end. Luckily pewter amalgam is soft enough to file down easily. With the illuminated mag fitted tightly I filed the housing to mate the steel barrel diameter at the top edge and screwed it home but not before cleaning the receiver with Brasso. This actually took a lot more of the bluing off than I expected so I just went for it. I now have a 'variant' version, with a date-stamped mag housing and polished receiver. It looks cool and I’m very happy with the new look.




EDIT Nov 23rd '17;
I found some short lengths of white 'bell' wire in the shed so decided to add this to my gun to emulate the wires found on the hero. The genuine wires are a little thinner than mine, and not quite so bright-white. They also run on the outside and inside of the cylinder cover with a split half way down. The real Steyr mag housing I'm using is a little shorter than the Sidkit replica along the top/barrel edge so there’s a natural gap where the barrel/frame join can be seen. I can twist two wires together then insert the ends here, with a small dab of glue, then feed them down inside the housing’s trailing edge and under the magazine. I know it’s not the screen accurate path for the wires but because it's a real mag housing on a replica frame I have some tightness/clearance issues with the opening cylinder and having them run over the outside edge would tighten everything up when I try to access the cylinder so I’m working with what I got.



Apart from a slightly loose front trigger, which I will fix with a dab of UHU, that's about all I'm doing to this gun and now that I have this thread established, and the decks clear, I can start on my next project, a CAW Charter Arms replica revolver into a Tomensosuke kit.

EDIT 10th Jan '18: I can't believe how stupid I am! I was tidying my display shelf, to get a newly acquired Safex ash-tray on, and I dropped it! It fell a metre, nose-first, onto the hardwood floor. It took a nice big chunk out of the upper receiver front end-cap. It also took a chunk out of the floor which annoyed my wife. The frame appears to be bent a off-true as well now. I'm gutted. I think I'm just going to have to sell this now.



UPDATE 23rd Feb '18
I'm on holiday. I sold the Sidkit just before I went away and I just had an email from the new owner saying how delighted he is with it. As I sit here, by the pool in sunny Australia, I'm starting to think maybe I should have just got a few spare parts and repaired it. There's only one thing for it, I'm going to have to call Michelle and ask him to pour me another kit.

[userd1402]

Dave Holden's Steyr Pistol; 'ghost' version (Tomenosuke #1).

I have always wanted to see more of the gun that Holden tries to pull when he's attacked by Leon at the start of Blade Runner. Because in the scene Holden gets blown through an office partition by Leon's four-barrel derringer, actor Morgan Paull would have been holding a 'stunt' gun; a rubber cast of the 'hero' prop. I have a screen-capture from the film which shows the moment Holden pulls his gun and the light from in front of the camera reflects off the sight-rod and the top of the receiver. You can clearly see a casting line down the centre of the receiver, indicating that this is indeed a stunt-gun, but at no point can any colour be seen on or around Holden's hand so the grips were almost certainly NOT transparent amber like the hero pistol wielded by Harrison Ford. That's all the excuse I need! You see I think Dave Holden, with his sharp suit and immaculate hair, would have 'pimped' his Police-issue sidearm a little. He was a stylish guy and he would have wanted everyone to know it (even a 'skin-job' he was about to retire!) so I'm going to create that hypothetical pimped gun and call it 'Holden's Ghost'. This build is dedicated to the Late Morgan Paull who died too young and deserved more screen-time.



I was able to get the assembly-kit version of the new Tomenosuke 2049 issue in July '17 from Mune-san in Japan and have already gathered a set of upgrade parts; a stainless steel barrel from 'Teddz', a prototype set of mahogany grips from DylanRose and a steel replacement cylinder from DonParker over at propsummit. That should be a good enough set of parts to create a good looking (and decently heavy) custom gun. I decided the final 'look' for this gun should be silver/polished top-half, black through the centre and waxed wood grips over a polished grip-frame. So I'm polishing the upper-receiver to go with the stainless barrel and give a good shine. I have been using 'Mothers Mag' and Aluminium Polish'. It's a slow process, and quite messy as the polish turns into black gunk as you work. The black plastic magazine housing is very clean and I will polish this further to remove any moulding lines or flashing. The cylinder covers are also being polished first before I decide whether or not to paint them but will probably end up gloss black to fulfill my 'theme'.

I've done some research and a lot of people seem to change the LED colour on 'ghost' builds to blue instead of red & green but that's a step too far for me (and Holden) and I think the standard red lighting goes very well with my black/silver theme.

Update - 25th May 2018
I have long wanted to do some sort of live-fire version of Deckard's gun so I thought; why not modify this one to 'blank-firing'? Veektohr discovered the frame sizes on the Tomenosuke Pro-Retail and the plug-fire Bulldog revolver from Craft Apple Works in Japan were exactly the same. He made a blank-firing hybrid CAW/Tomenosuke pistol which looked fantastic and fired 2x7 blanks. I was so impressed by his build I decided to do the same conversion myself. I managed to acquire the necessary 'realistic' version of the .44 Bulldog revolver from a film & TV weapon supply company using an interesting delivery loop-hole (which I will keep to myself, so don't ask, as I'm not sure of the legality) and it's been sitting in my workshop just waiting to be used. With two guns to combine, a new hollow steel barrel to install, metal re-finishing/polishing, and all the safety aspects of modifying the blank-firing revolver this is going to be very involved and I aim to take my time and do it justice. I already have several parts in hand to complete the build; a steel replacement barrel, drilled out to allow smoke and sparks to escape, and an LED sight-rod. Since the CAW and Tomenosuke are so close I will also try, in due course, swapping the CAW cylinder for a Don Parker steel one which has no 'washer' in the end and will allow more smoke and sparks out the barrel.

The CAW pfc revolver doesn't need a huge amount of modification but it does need some fiddly work around the bottom of the frame, adding the second trigger, which involves splitting the grip and internals out of the frame so naturally I 'chickened out' and started with something else - cutting off the barrel with a hacksaw and filing down the mounting face for the metal replacement. I made a start with the hacksaw but found there was a lot more steel reinforcing inside than I expected so after labouring at it for a few minutes I tentatively tried to bend the remaining part out only to find the whole barrel coming away from the mounting face in one piece. Turns out it was only a tight press-fit after all and I needn't have bothered with the sawing..




Since each post on the rpf can have up to 24 pictures here are a few progress shots;






UPDATE - 24 Jan ‘18
This week Shinji-san announced a very short run of replacement sight-rods for the Deckard pistol which include pre-wired LEDs at both ends powered by amazing miniature batteries inside the sight-rod tube itself. This incredible piece of engineering design has been produced by Kazuhiro Saito who created the limited edition ‘World-con’ version of the gun released at Tokyo Comic-con this year. Just 35 sets worldwide means they would sell-out instantly so I didn't wait for the advertised order-start-time, I simply put my request in right away and managed to get on the list. This means Holden's ‘ghost’ will now be fully illuminated rather than just in the magazine. I also found that LED modules can be purchased to fit this unit in red, yellow, white, green or blue which will allow me to keep my 'ghost' build in all red, black and silver.

UPDATE - 6 April '18
The sight-rod from Saito-san has arrived and I have installed red Milight LEDs.

Update - 11th June 2018
Tomenosuke have sent me a set of clear grips for this build. I feel very privileged as these were produced in very limited quantity by Tomenosuke for the old Pro-Retail edition and this appears to be the last set ever made (certainly the last set sold). Arigato Shinji-san. I think I will use the mahogany grips for a custom build now. Maybe a magnum version for Captain Bryant to wear.

[userd1402]

Rick Deckard's Steyr Pistol; 'stunt' version (Tomenosuke #2). SOLD MAY 2018

Back in 2015 Tomenosuke did a limited-edition black rubber stunt gun. This is the gun as it was when it was first molded to make stunt copies, before the LED's and switch were inserted into the Steyr magazine and before the 'pinky groove' was cut into the butt-plate for Harrison Ford's fingers. This is like the pistol held by Ford in the scene where Pris kicks the gun from Deckard's hand as he searches Sebastian's apartment where she's hiding under a sheet. A rubber gun would have been used so Daryl Hannah didn't break her foot when she kicked it. At the time of release I was between jobs and couldn't afford one of these and since the edition was small I was resolved to never owning one but one popped up online recently and I put in a low bid. Luckily for me there were no other bidders.

My original plan was to re-create the gun Harrison Ford held during that stunt with Hannah. The stunt-gun on display in the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle could well be the one from that scene. The available reference pictures show it has amber grips crudely glued onto it to add detail. Unfortunately when I went at the rubber gun with my craft knife I found the grips were molded in. The seams were so crisp it looked like a separate piece on each side but no. Oh well, this one will just have to look like the all-black 'patrolman' versions from the background characters.

UPDATE; I sold this one for exactly what I paid for it, so I guess the value was spot-on when I bought it!



UPDATE: Looks like the few rubber Tomen's in circulation will be increasing in value. This post on the blog has announced that the molds are broken and the original is lost so there will be no more runs of this blaster.

[aeonpulse]

wow, beautiful work, thank you for sharing. looking forward to your future thread updates!

[veektohr]

The Tomen + CAW Bulldog is such a match made in heaven. You did a great job on those Sids! Eager to see more

[KramStaar]

Great thread

[Funky]

Wow! Your blasters look great!

[eethan]

great collection so far, but didn't expect less from the blade runner guy
hey, I have a really stupid question and I hope this will not offend, the "CAW bulldog" is also a replica made the same way that the Tomen no? I was wondering what was the point in converting that to a blaster, it's the same parts no? is it for the fun of trying to convert the trigger guard and all that to feel what it would be like with a real gun or something like that? again, sorry, I don't intend it as a critic or anything and I might not have used the appropriate words, but it's just out of curiosity.

looking forward to see more of your collection mate

[userd1402]

'the Blade Runner guy', I like it!

The reason for doing the rebuild with a CAW Bulldog frame is simple; I have always wanted to try a live-fire version of this gun but all live handguns are banned in the UK. Now I think that's a very good idea and I support it fully. Ordinary people don't need lethal firearms and we live in a safer society without them. Politics aside, here in the UK blank-firers and plug-fire replicas (with some restrictions to appearance) and deactivated real firearms (as long as you are over 18) are all legal so the only way to have a 'live fire' Blade Runner gun here is to use the plug-fire base revolver.

[veektohr]

You can also special order triple cap rounds for that model!


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[userd1402]

Rick Deckard's Steyr Pistol; 'World-Con 2006' version (Sidkit #3).

May 21st 2018
I’m not a superstitious man but I think the stars were aligned for me today. I spent the morning trying to persuade a guy on the Propsummit Facebook page to trade with me for a Takagi ignition-type Deckard pistol, one of maybe only two in the UK, but he would only deal face-to-face and he was three hundred miles away with no way for me to get there so I had to let it slide. Then, just as I waved goodbye to that gun Michelle mailed me from Italy with news that he had a fresh Sidkit World-Con ready to go if I still wanted it. Perfect timing! We did the deal and it's in the post. I plan to build it using Karl Tate's photos from World-Con 2006 as my build-bible and weather it to be accurate to the way the hero was found. My inspiration for this is Mark Raats famous World-Con Sidkit build.

May 30th 2018.
The Sid' has arrived from Italy and although I'm really not a fan of 'unboxing' posts (especially the tedious videos people post about taking something out of a box... yawn!) I just have to share the amazing quality of the modern Sidkit with you. The gun is almost complete. The castings are crisp and precise. The assembly can be completed in under 30 minutes (plus wiring which obviously takes longer) and for devotees like myself the whole thing can be dismantled for weathering and bluing with just a screwdriver and a hex-key. Small screen-accuracy issues aside, you don't get quality like that with a Coyle kit!.








Update July 20th 2018
Not much progress gets made with prop stuff over the summer as it's my busiest time of the year but here's an interesting little aside; These are both genuine vintage posts removed, by me, from 70+ year old radios. An EE-8-A in brass (paint is not original) and an EE-8-B in standard nickel finish. The interesting thing, for me, is that Karl Tate's pictures of the hero gun show the binding post painted black with a brass colour showing through on the little groove under the cap. Now most people use the nickel finish post but what if it's actually the earlier brass one we should be seeking out?

[userd1402]

Rick Deckard's Steyr Pistol; (Tomenosuke #3).

June 20th 2018
Mune has accepted my request for one of the new licenced 2049 kits being released in July. I'm very pleased to have another kit on the way. The first kit I got was sold when the need arose and the second is the basis for my on-going 'live-fire-ghost' project so what to do with this one? I think I'm going to go for 'as-new' with everything blued and polished and a replacement steel cylinder & barrel.

July 09th 2018
Email notification of shipping, with tracking number, has arrived.

July 20th 2018

[userd1402]

This post was about a piece I ended up giving away before it even arrived. Got side-tracked. Sorry...

[userd1402]

July 19th 2018
I'm planning something big. Something I don't think has ever been done before.
If I just say 'flying car'...

[PAULH]

Great thread! I bought a Sidkit from you earlier this year (with Teddz steel barrel and, separately, a Steyr screw). Your thread has motivated me to put out some build pics.

[Eagle]

Subscribed! You have PM, too.

[userd1402]

13th June 2018;
After 16 years together I think the constantly changing pile of guns, whiskey bottles and ash-trays in our lounge was starting to irritate my wife so she bought me a cool art-deco IKEA display cabinet to fill with just my toys. Oh how I love that woman.
This will be the ideal place to put that 1955 Dazor model 2008 'flying disk' lamp when it arrives from the states.



I reckon I could fit nine pistols in this thing.

[veektohr]

I have a gen 1 Don Parker cylinder that I tried on my CAW build. Didn’t fit on my initial try, but I haven’t revisited it yet...


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