Red Dwarf Space Phone

I've long been a fan of Red Dwarf, so I was really excited for Dave's reboot.
This 'Space Phone' features heavily in the season premiere 'Trojan' as Lister spends the majority of the episode on hold with customer services.

This is really just another repaint job, it's nice to add to my prop collection without loosing months of my life.
The good folks over at the RPF identified both the phone model and the 'magnetic pickup tool' that the original prop was made from, all that remained was to glue the two together and give the whole thing a coat of the iconic hull colour of the Red Dwarf.

Stripped off the original colour and machined a hole in the top

I secured the 'aerial' with a lump of epoxy putty

To match the screen prop several of the mic/speaker holes are filled

A coat of 'Hull Red' and a JMC logo to finish

Stargate Kull Disruptor - Magazine & Finish

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3



I had planned to make another one of these and document it better, but until then I figured it was best to have some pictures of the final piece up.

The final part to be built from plasticard was this magazine type piece, that holds the power cell.

After that was finished, I cast up a copy of everything, scavenged a weaver rail mount and set about painting.

The paint job was rushed and doesn't really have the proper depth, but with a few tips from veteran Zat painters I should be able to do better next time.

But for now I'm mostly happy with how the project turned out.
Still on the to do list are:

• New paint job (got some suggestions and new paints ready)
• Draw up circuit board for lights and mill with my CNC machine
• Scavenge the perfect part for the clear plastic lens 
• Remake the moulds for the main body, it has one or two shocking air bubbles.
• Mill a new powercell out of brass. (Even a small bit of solid brass is prohibitively expensive so this one is unlikely)
  

If I can manage just 3 of those things I'll have a really nice piece.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Range Finder

We're getting very close to the end of all my old progress pictures. I did get the helmet down the other day intending to do some more painting, but gave up before I'd even started, it's just so tedious, marking out all the shapes.




Originally Posted 27-Jul-2009


Next up is the rangefinder housing. If I remember correctly this part isn't detailed in either of Antman's threads 
(which I have been following fairly closely) So I'll try to show a bit more detail.

First of all print out a set of WoF's templates from the gallery.

I'm using 1mm thick mattboard (scavenged from an old sketch book)
So I then began to mark the various places I would have to trim 1mm off of to keep the correct shape.

The dotted lines show where I'm going to angle both edges at the corner rather than just trim one of them.

Here are the pieces cut out.

I began to angle some of the pieces with a knife and sandpaper. I also drilled out the LED holes using a 5mm wood bit.

Then I just began assembling all the pieces.

I had to be careful, trying to make sure the sides were square.

One of the pieces didn't quite fit, overtrimmed, but I'll sort that out later

After letting it dry a while I decided to paper mache' the inside, to cover the small cracks and strengthen it a bit.

Then I brought out my circuit and did a test fit, bending the LEDs into roughly the correct place.

The circuit fits easily into the housing. The only problem is that it infringes on the lens' space more than I would like. 
But I can't be bothered to move all the stuff onto a smaller board.

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Electronics

A huge gap here, bringing us closer to the present. Now working on some rangefinder electronics.

Rangefinder Electronics

Originally Posted 27-July-2009
I haven't posted anything in ages because I've been away (doing an Architecture degree)

But now I'm back and have got thoroughly stuck into making my rangefinder.

First of all I purchased a metronome kit from Maplin as well as some green LEDs.

As soon as I got the kit I assembled it according to the instructions and then began to sync the lights up to the right speed (2.13 Hz), by adjusting the two pots to 40KΩ each.

That was fairly easy and formed the basis for my rangefinder circuitry.

Next I desoldered the 9v clip, the LEDs and the capacitors. I re-soldered the capacitors, leaving longer leads so I could fold them down flat.

I had to extend the leads of the LEDs, this was fairly simple, I just soldered on some short lengths of wire and added heat shrink tubing.

I then re-soldered these longer LED's into place.
Also I filed off the unused areas of the board.

Until I could scavenge another resistor (maplin only sell them in massive sets) I'm leaving the circuitry here.

Total spend is now £9.58.

- Large card for main helmet & mask : £2.00
- Pint o' PVA Glue : £3.00 
- Metronome kit : £3.99
- Superbright green LED : £0.59

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Indentured

A slave to perfection. That's the problem with this build, the longer I spend on it, the more I want it to be right (definitely never redoing it).

Redoing The Dent

Originally Posted 26-Oct-2008 Very small update, I wasn't happy with my dent. It was too deep and lacking in detail. It's probably in the wrong place too but I can't be bothered moving it.

Any who I filled it up with polyfiller and sketched a design onto it with pencil. I over exaggerated the shape because I knew I would loose some detail when sanding. 

Then using a small half round file I began to etch out the main lines.

After that I filed out the main, depressed areas.

Then with the file I began to round off the raised areas. After that I moved to sandpaper and ended up with this.

Not perfect. But I think it's better than before What does everyone else think?

Stargate Kull Disruptor - Intro

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Another prop build, this time from Stargate SG-1.

This project arose from theRPF's annual secret santa gift exchange.
Upon finding out that my recipient also liked Stargate I started researching some props, obviously there are a lot of Zat's and other Jaffa costume pieces. But I wanted something that hadn't been done to death and that would be relatively simple. 

That's when I stumbled upon the Kull Disruptor.

Stargate SG-1 8x06 'Avatar'

It's a neat little attachment that clips onto the teams' weapons. Developed by the SGC to take down Anubis' Kull Warriors, it features heavily in the episode 'Avatar' (8x06) but pops up elsewhere too.

It's nice and small, recognisable from Stargate, (even if you don't know exactly what it is) and I reckoned it should be simple enough :s .

Scratch Build

Firstly I set about drawing up some good schematics to work from.

Then I just printed out some templates and began to cut pieces out of plasticard, with a scalpel.

These are all cut from 1mm plastic, fairly easy, if a bit tedious.
These plastic pieces fit together to form a cross section of the piece. 
It was filled with Bondo to give it mass and then the shape was rounded out with various files and sanding sticks.

The final step was carving the lines into it with a Dremel.

Unfortunately I seem to have forgotten to take pictures during most of the build up of this piece. However you can still see the remnants of the plasticard in there.

The back part is flat to accommodate the power cell and magazine.

The building of which will be in the next post.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Venti

Something about a bucket of coffee? I dunno,  I'm redefining tenuous puns.

Anyway this time I'm constructing the vent.

The Vent

Originally Posted 04-Oct-2008
Tiny update, I still have none of the proper materials at my new house but decided I wanted to carry on anyway.

With no printer I had to construct the keyslot pieces using a pencil, ruler and set-square. It took forever.

After that It took me ages cutting out the delicate vent piece. Going over each line several times very gently.

Its worth doing this slowly to get those sharp, square edges.

These are all the pieces necessary, the frame has an extra bit of trim so it will attach to the rest of the helmet.

Unlike the rest of the build for this I had to use Uhu glue. It left the piece a bit scrappy, not generally how I like to do things. Hopefully with a bit more work I can tidy it up.

Note: remember when wetting and bending the vent, the good (best looking) side should be the inside curve.

That's all for now

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Dome Wax

The following is a documentation of the hours I spent at uni polishing my helmet. 
Note: May be unsuitable for minors.

Finishing the Dome

Originally Posted 28-Aug-2008
This part wasn't following Antman's tutorial, because he hadn't posted that stage yet.

Still it was fairly simple,  get out my pot of dodgey polyfiller and cover the dome in it.

You may also notice I've painted some of the edges, this was just to stop them from being damaged too much during the next stage.

I was fairly happy with the finish on the cheeks and didn't see the need to cover them in polyfiller.

Next ( after hours of sanding )  The dent.



Originally Posted 22-Sep-2008
Right, only a little bit of progress. I bought some Tesco value sandpaper for about 50p. Then started sanding away at the mass of polyfiller. Working down from 60grad to 100. I wrapped the sanding paper round a block of wood to try and get better control.

After a lot of sanding here it is.

I also started on the dent, This is where accuracy went out the window. I cut a random sized hole in roughly the right position. Glued a bit of card behind and filled it in with polyfiller (had to do this in layers)

I then made the main lines using a small file. After that I've been slowly shaping it with 60 grad sandpaper.

That's all for now I need to finish the dent and then when I get some supplies I'll work on the vent.



Note: these are now camera phone images as the camera I used previously wasn't mine and I couldn't bring to Uni.


Total spend is now £5.50. 

 Large card for main helmet & mask : £2.00
 Pint o' PVA Glue: £3.00
 Sandpaper: £0.50



Originally Posted 23-Aug-2008

This was taken with the webcam on my laptop, hopefully its a bit better.