Primer Good, Primer Bad

Couple of news items on the primer front. I'll start with the easy one.

I've blasted the new alien padd with primer. Nothing much else to report. The good thing about grey primer is that it helps reveal any tiny flaw in the casting. I suppose that's also the bad news.



But I ran into a problem with the Vulcan phaser. I had it all masked off and ready to apply the bronze/copper paint. However, when i sprayed it on, it went all "orange peel" on me. Basically, the paint reacted violently with the paint underneath it. The two types are incompatible. Lacqer vs. Enamel. Classic struggle. So I had to knock the paint down with sand paper, and put down a few coats of primer. Hopefully, the copper paint won't struggle with the primer. If it does, I'll just pick up a can of tamiya copper, and give that a try. I don't want to spend the rest of eternity sanding and primering hard to reach places on that gun.



That's it for now.

Ex Post Facto

It's a bit after the fact, but I now have photos that document the stuff I was posting about yesterday. Here be they:

First up is the vacuum chamber that I am repairing. Just a little silicone glue around the bottom seal, and it should be ready to suck.



This is the Vulcan hand phaser circa Enterprise. This is the base coat, all finished. I personally am not a fan of the finish, but it seems to match the screen used piece, and that's what I'm after. next up is the bronze highlights.



And finally, here's that other alien padd that I was talking about. I drew out a template on a piece of plex. Now I just need to cut that out, and it will serve as the main viewscreen for this little gem. Once again, big thanks to "It's A Wrap Hollywood" for getting so many of these weird little pieces into circulation.

Non Rifle, But Still Progress

I'm still pretty sick, so work is limited. I've been distracted lately with other, smaller projects. Those have taken a front seat over the rifle. I'm a big fan of results, and the rifle is just moving too slowly. I figure I've got another two or three hours in masking work to be done before I can lay down the black spray paint.

I don't have any progress pics of the other things I'm working on, but I'm currently kicking around a vulcan hand phaser and another alien padd. I have some pictures of the screen used props, that I'll post here for reference. Just to give you an idea where I'm going.

First up is the padd:



Hard to visualize from this picture, but all I have is the outer ring. The back is just a piece of styrene, and there's a layer of plex in between, protecting the graphic. No work has been done on the resin, but I did mark out a cutting template for the plex this evening. I'll attack that with a coping saw later on.

Here's what the vulcan pistol looks like



The keen eye will note that this is a simple redress of the Hirojin hand phaser from Voyager, with the nose tip sawed off. I took a close look at some of the other photos I got of this prop from "It's A Wrap", and determined that the main color was a rustoleum "hammered" metal finish. What I was not sure of is if it is silver, or a very light off green. My monitor is not perfectly calibrated, so it's hard to tell. I think it's the green, but I went with the silver. Go figure. I'm a walking contradiction. I'm pretty sure I've nailed down the copper highlights paint too. It's a rustoleum rattle can.

My replica is just about done. It's been sanded and primered, and tonight I zapped it with two coats of the hammered metal silver. I'm going to let it dry overnight, and then mask it off for the copper highlights. With any luck, I'll have some photos to show soon.

In other news, I'm prepping a few items for molding. I would have poured the rubber tonight, but the lower seal on my vac chamber is shot, so I had to glue it back to the base. I used some silicone glue, but it too needs 24 hours to dry. So I'll take another look at it tomorrow.

So lots going on right now, just not a lot to show. One of the things I'm going to mold is the "Zorg Remote" from The Fifth Element. it's a little hand held game that took me about 8 months to track down. It'll be good to get that project finished.