Padd Painting

The end is nigh. Near? Neigh? Sleigh?

Anyhow, I did one last wetsand of the padds, and they're looking really good. Today the santa ana winds are blowing like crazy, and it's really hot. That means it's prime time to do some painting. So I've laid down another coat on the two padds, and I think these surfaces are done. I just need to flip them over, and get the other sides, and then I'll call it a day on the paint jobs on these guys. MUCH more trouble than I ever would have dreamed.



Here's a picture I took off my balcony. Beautiful weather today. It's about 80 degrees. Must be nice. Oh wait, it is!!!

PADDs

I've got three separate entries that have been posted today, and this is the first. I'm trying to group entries by project, to avoid confusion to any reader who wants to breeze through the archives.

Cuz ya know, there's lots of readers who want to do that. Right?

Anyhow, this weekend, I did some more work on both TNG padds. Nothing to really show, as the photos don't seem to really capture what I'm working on.

Long story short, the Krylon that I'm using to paint the PADDs doesn't agree with the primer I used. This causes the occasional "freak spot", which is hard to fix. I generally end up just blasting the problem area with krylon, then wet sanding it smooth. NBD.

So here's the latest. The back side of the small screen padd, and the front of the large screen padd.




Krylon also doesn't dry really well unless conditions are optimal. Even a day or two might not be enough. So for now, I'm just going to let these little fellers cook.

More PADD Painting

I did a tiny bit of work on the TNG padds tonight, but nothing really major. I'm at a point where it's important to leave the paint to dry overnight, else I run the risk of leaving marks in it and stuff.

In my previous entry, I had wetsanded the back side of the padd to eliminate some imperfections, but along the way, revealed a freak spot where the paint doesn't seem to want to stick. So after the wetsanding was done, I took it back down to the garage and blasted the spot in question with a some more primer. When this dries, I'll sand it again, then do another coat of paint. OY, it's a lot of trouble!



And here's the other PADD. This guy is all prepped, primered, and ready for paint. I hit it with the first coat of Krylon tonight. Going to let that dry overnight and come at it again tomorrow. So far, so good.

Zorg Remote is DONE!

Strike up the band, and all that good stuff, as the Zorg Remote is officially done! YAY! Not that much work really went into it, it was just a pain to find the thing, as mentioned in previous entries.



I also did some wetsanding on what I'm calling the "long screen" TNG padd. I made the mistake of leaning the padd up against a block of wood in order to blast paint into the sidewalls, but this had the unfortunate side effect of leaving an imprint on the back of the padd. So I needed to sand that out. It works best when you pour a bunch of water on it. Keeps the paper clean, and the finish smooth.



More in a bit.

More Primer, Putty, Paint

I only found about an hour and a half to work on projects today, but still got some solid work done. I'm focused on three items at the moment, which regular readers of this blog will know is an unusually low quantity.

The rifle is coming along nicely, but I've noticed a few places where the Krlyon black seems to be repelled. It's another case of mis-matched paints. So I went in with some primer and blasted the problematic parts.



Once that had dried, I went back over it with the Krylon and got all of the hard to reach places. It didn't work perfectly, but it's good enough. I plan on weathering the heck out of this piece once the paint dries, so it shouldn't matter all that much.



On the padd front, work continues on the two small TNG style padds. Here's the large window padd after I had done some sanding on the putty. This type of clean up is an iterative process. You clean up one set of problems, then address the next. This is after I had sanded down the first putty attack.



And here it is a few minutes later after a coat of primer. Grey primer really goes a long way in revealing the flaws in a piece. I've learned over time that natural lighting also helps a lot. You cannot just look at a piece in artifical lighting, especially when that lighting is either single source, or not the best.



While that was drying, I spent a little time on the other TNG padd. Just more putty clean up. I'm also trying to clean out the side railing. It's pretty dirty, and not very uniform. Here it is after another coat of primer.



Going back to the part about this being an iterative process, once the primer dried on the large-window padd, I went back in and put putty on the newly revealed problems. This is really meticulous work, which would probably be totally skipped were this a prop for screen use. But since this is something that I want to look good under closer scrutiny, I'm taking the time to get it nice and smooth. I try to limit myself to three of these iterations, as you could just go on forever if you wanted to.



Lastly, a little update on the Zorg remote project. My roll of reflective yellow tape showed up yesterday. It is PERFECT. It looks exactly like the stuff that was used on the screen used one, so I'm stoked.



The remote itself is half way under rubber. I'm still waiting for the mold release spray to show up so I can pour the second half of the mold.

Rifle, Padds, Lions, oh my!

Early this morning, I finished up the final little piece of masking work on the Mangalore Rifle. Yahoo! It's now ready for painting.



So this evening, I blasted down the first couple coats of krylon semi-gloss black. Lookin' good so far. I'm still on the fence about how I'm going to attack the attaching the brass detail bits, but I'll worry about that later.



I also did some minor putty work on the two TNG PADDs that I've got cooking. Nothing spectacular to report really. I'm just cleaning up little pock marks and dents and stuff. I'm not trying to get them perfect, just taking out the major imperfections.



And lastly, here's the next padd I'll be working on. This one was featured heavily in the fourth season episode "The Drumhead". It's painted red with white buttons. This is a very oddball little padd that didn't see much screen time. But I still think it's pretty nifty.



Overall, a pretty productive day. I only put in a little over an hour of work tonight, but seeing that rifle getting painted is a big step. A big psychological "win" for me too, as that's been idle for a long time now.

Almost There: Stay On Target

It's really hard to stay motivated to finish up that Mangalore Rifle. As much as I love the prop, and want a finished one in my collection, it's just SUCH a pain in the butt doing all that masking! The good news is that I've only got one tiny little piece remaining to be masked off, and then I'll be ready to blast away with the Krylon Semi-Gloss black. Nice!

Here's where the rifle stands as of tonight.



I did some clean up work on the TNG PADD, and also started in on a new one. This new one is one of those oddball padds. Not a super "primary" padd, but one that was featured in a number of episodes. Tonight I cleaned up the flash from the casting process, and blasted it with its first coat of primer.



Big-up to a fellow trek-head and prop collector named SurferGeek who provided me with some excellent screen captures of the first TNG era padd I'm working on.





Magic!

Tonight I also dumped rubber on a couple of pieces. One is the Zorg remote that will go with the ZF-1. The other is another oddball TNG era Padd. What can I say? I'm on a roll.



And just to make sure my apartment is still a big draw for the ladies, I hung up my recently framed Time Bandits map the other day. Looks pretty stellar over my couch, n'est ce pas??



I managed to do a bunch of online shopping tonight, to round up some supplies. I got my 1" yellow reflective tape for the Zorg remotes, some mold separator for the Zorg remote mold, and I also ordered an Estes Phoenix rocket kit, which happens to have a set of decals I need for another tiny Fifth Element project that is still far on the back burner.

Oh, and to my absolute shock and horror, I actually had a successful trip to Michaels today. This is a store I absolutely hate. 10 times out of 10, they do not have what I am looking for. WITHOUT FAIL, EVERY time I got there, I leave empty handed and upset. Upset because I just wasted my time. But today was different. But only because I knew as a fact they would have what I was looking for. Then again, knowing them, it's a surprise they were not out of stock of the items I was seeking. I needed some glue for my hot glue gun, and some popsicle sticks. They had both! The glue I use when making boxes for my molds. The sticks come in handy for all kinds of stuff, though I mostly use them to mix up putty.

Anyhow, that's all she wrote for today. Well, that's all *I* wrote for today.

PADD Updates Galore

I've been on a real PADD bender lately. Good stuff.

The other day, I laid down the first coat of the green highlights for this weird alien padd. These will need to be masked off, and then the silver will be painted. If you flip back a few blog entries, you can see where I cleaned this up and primered it. It's looking quite good right now.



I also pulled out an old TNG era padd. I recently watched season 4 of TNG from my DVD library, and this padd shows up all over the place. So I thought I would give it a try. The padd is a little wonky. I think that's partially due to wonkiness in the master, and partially due to some wonkiness in the pull. Not a big deal, as it still looks quite nice.

I spent about an hour cleaning it up and doing some minor puttying. Nothing serious, just filling in some bubble and straightening out some lines.



And then it was on to the primer. I'll need to round up some of the proper Krylon paint to finish this up, but so far so good.



The PADD has remnants of the original graphics on it, so I'll be able to precisely recreate that brown LCARS "T" shape that was on this style of padd. I'll need to get those plotter cut in vinyl, but that's a no brainer.