This is a great exhibit currently at our Museum of Arts and Culture (MAC) that is a traveling exhibit and super cool. It is an exhibit of various props and costumes from different movies. I went to check it out and was very impressed with what they actually had.
All the exhibits were in their own lighted showcase with a little blurb about the costume, who wore them, the movie, and any significance of the costume or actor or movie or whatever. They also had information about different heroes and evil villains and interesting tidbits about costume design and decisions... It really is a great exhibit and I encourage anyone in the area to see it. Most of the costumes (maybe even all of them) are from the Paul Allen collection. ~Must be nice to be a Microsoft partner!~ Oh and related information, if you like this exhibit you have to see the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle, WA. Also a Paul Allen Collection, it is his museum and has some amazing props and collections!
The following is a list of some of the more memorable costumes on display...
~There was the quintiscential Indiana Jones leather coat and whip, along with the god of fertility and the holy grail (the cup of a carpenter indeed!)
~The Gorn from Star Trek TOS. I realized after seeing him that his eyes were actually made out of a bunch of swavorski crystals, just like the ones on some of the communicators (who would've thought!)
~Captain Kirk's dress wrap shirt
~Batman's body suit from when George Clooney was batman was there and looked HOT!
~A Robin outfit from the original Batman TV series
~A Starship Trooper Helmet and blaster gun
~The Riddler suit from Batman Forever that Jim Carey wore
~The Wicked Witch of the West's hat on the Wizard of Oz
~Terminator jacket and the electronic face...
~Klingon Battle Dress
~Darth Vader ~ Did you know his cape is actually a priest cassock? I had no idea that is where they got that!
Monday, August 24, 2009
Science Fiction Museum
WOW! I went to the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle WA, right next to the Space Needle and it is so NEAT! They have props from every sci fi movie ever! I think the highlight of being there was seeing the original tricorder, communicator, and Dr. McCoy scanner from the Original Series of Star Trek. It was soooo cool. I was really suprised that the 'jewels' in that original tricorder were actually the heads of straight pins. How creative was Wah Chang?! They also had a phaser one that was neat and looked well used :) They had the death star from Star Wars that you could light up from the inside. You could see the outside on one side that the hollow inside from another. When we went there they also had an exhibit on the Muppets that was pretty fun to check out. That exhibit was really interactive and people with kids, the kids DUG it!
Okay what else was neat at the museum besides like um everything. Oh my gosh they had an original Captain Kirk Chair from the Enterprise and some of the control panels. They also had a lot of the original costumes from Star Trek TOS that were neat to see. There were some original scripts signed by various 'crew members'. They had a Master Replicas Yoda and a Starship Trooper that looked so real and kinda scary/creepy at the same time...
The tricorder, communicator and scanner were still the best though! I am going back next chance I get.
Note to anyone who decides to go, I think admission is like $15 or so, which isn't bad, but they do not allow photography inside the exhibits and they have staff walking around to ensure you're not snapping pictures of the exhibits. I failed to notice all the obvious 'No Photography' signs and was so told to put my camera away, but it is still the best experience ever!
Okay what else was neat at the museum besides like um everything. Oh my gosh they had an original Captain Kirk Chair from the Enterprise and some of the control panels. They also had a lot of the original costumes from Star Trek TOS that were neat to see. There were some original scripts signed by various 'crew members'. They had a Master Replicas Yoda and a Starship Trooper that looked so real and kinda scary/creepy at the same time...
The tricorder, communicator and scanner were still the best though! I am going back next chance I get.
Note to anyone who decides to go, I think admission is like $15 or so, which isn't bad, but they do not allow photography inside the exhibits and they have staff walking around to ensure you're not snapping pictures of the exhibits. I failed to notice all the obvious 'No Photography' signs and was so told to put my camera away, but it is still the best experience ever!
How to Customize a Star Trek TOS Communicator
Communicators are great little toys, and very fun to play with. Entertainment Earth carries the basic version that lights up and talks to you for around $30. My friend and I bought some of these and enjoyed them immensley for awhile. After researching the original communicators and learning of the specifications on the only 10 made by Wah Chang on HeroComm.com we decided to customize our own to be more like the originals. The following is my trials and tribulations in partially achieving the look we were striving for after many attempts...
The Moire
The first thing you will realize when you get your communicator delivered is that the stock moires are horrible! They usually have a large black smudge somewhere in the middle that makes the moire less than impressive when it spins. Turns out, getting the moire fixed is not an easy task. HeroComm has ideas ranging from finding the original Moire pattern book and cutting out the originals, to printing your own (not very effective on my home printer), to getting them printed off at Kinkos (slightly better than my home computer, but not by much), to finding a company that still uses one of the old imagesetters to print you off a sheet of the moire pattern for the alpha... I wasn't willing to look and wait around for an original book of the patterns to come up, I attempted to print my own, but becuase of the detail of the lines my printer kind of smudged them all together the closer to the center it got. I took the downloaded images from HeroComm to Kinkos and had a sheet printed out on transparency paper and on cardstock for $1.07. This was an improvement over my home printer, but definitely not perfect. I could not find a local place with an imagesetter that was willing to print off a sheet for me. Ultimately, my Kinko's copies did the trick until I was able to find a guy on ebay who installed really great looking ones in 4 communicators that I sent him.
One thing to remember, is that with the Kinko's copies on transparency, the transparency is really thin and needs to be reinforced with a thicker clear plastic (which must be done without smudging the moire lines on the transparency). I actually just cut a circle out of clear plastic from a toy wrapper (the kind of plastic that is always so difficult to open becuase of the way they package whatever you are buying...). I put a tiny bit of superglue on the plastic and attached the transparency so the printed lines were facing the plastic sheeting. Once they were glued together I inserted those into the bezel ring and glued them in lightly.
The Bezel Ring
I also sanded down the bezel ring slightly with my dremel so the seems were not so obvious and touched up the paint with a silver marker. I am hoping to get metal parts to replace the bezel ring, but have not gotten that far yet...
The Mic Grille
I painted the mic carefully with a Sharpie gold marker. It really stands out from the mic grille this way and looks much better than having all of it silver...
The Control Panel
Originally I tried to paint the mic grille a more chrome looking color, this was not effective or to my liking. I bought some small aluminum sheet metal squares (4X4) from JoAnne's fabric store and tried to cut these to fit on top of the existing plastic mic grill. They look alright, but once you smooth it down it gets all these warbles and bumps in it and is not a brushed smooth aluminum finish at all! Then I bought a thin sheet of brushed aluminum and tried to cut out the mic area and circles for the buttons. I tried cutting them with scissors, nippers, a dremel, really no luck. There was not way to make it uniform and look the way I wanted to. The best outcome I had was from getting contact paper that is made to look like brushed steel (they carry this at Lowes). It is self adhesive and easy to cut since it is paper. I was able to cut out the basic rectangle with scissors. I cut out the mic area with a scalpel and just used a 1/4" hole punch for the two button areas. It sticks right onto the plastic mic grill and looks pretty real, especially with the new t-jet hubs on there!
The Buttons ~ Control Knobs
I took apart the communicator with a small screwdriver to get off the hull shell, then again to get into the electronics area. Then I had to unscrew the electronics board carefully. All the wires stay attached, so the sides will not completely separate. Once you take off the front electronic board you can remove the buttons from the board. I cut the tips off the buttons (down to the existing seem line) with wire cutters and then reattached them to the electronics board. I ordered some t-jet hubs off the net and glued these to the 'stubs' of the original buttons. Ta-Da t-jet functioning buttons that look much more authentic!
The Jewels
I decided that I didn't want my communicator to light up, since the originals did not have lights, they had swarovski crystals. Crystals2love has a great selection of swavorski crystals and you can get them in packs of 10 for cheap. I originally was buying them from Michaels at $7 for a pack of 30 and that is just unreasonable and they have a very limited selection. I sanded down the existing plastic jewels with my dremel. I painted the bottom silver to get the look of the hub under the jewels and then superglued a swavorski cyrstal on top of that. I found out that the light still shown around the crystal and through the painted base and I did not like that. I had to completely take apart the entire communicator, removing the electronic board again and figure out a way to cover up the lights. Those lights are very small and very effectively bright. I tried duct tape, electric tape, masking tape, paper with tape, and various other ideas. What finally worked was placing a small square of aluminum foil over the light and putting electric tape over that to keep it on the electronics board. This was able to completely block out the light emitted from these little LEDs so my crystals would shine on their own. After screwing all the pieces of the comm back together I chose a triology of colors that was on one of the original Chang communicators, and I really like the look of the real crystals as opposed to the cheap plastic and lights.
The Screws
The original screws on the communicators, from what I gathered from various sources are said to be brass and flat. After searching at various stores, I found some that were fairly close to the original look at Lowes in their miscilaneous drawers of screws. They come in a packet of 6 and are 6/32 and _______________. Then you just remove the stock 4 screws in the back of the comm and replace them with these new nifty brass screws.
The Body
When you buy the communicator it has a 'try me' tab that is pulled out to allow you to use it. This creates a small hole in the side of the communicator. I wanted the body of my communicator to be seemless so I wanted to seal this off.
The Midplate
I admit I would really like to have a real metal midplate, but am currently devising a plan on how to make that happen, any ideas or suggestions are welcome!
The Moire
The first thing you will realize when you get your communicator delivered is that the stock moires are horrible! They usually have a large black smudge somewhere in the middle that makes the moire less than impressive when it spins. Turns out, getting the moire fixed is not an easy task. HeroComm has ideas ranging from finding the original Moire pattern book and cutting out the originals, to printing your own (not very effective on my home printer), to getting them printed off at Kinkos (slightly better than my home computer, but not by much), to finding a company that still uses one of the old imagesetters to print you off a sheet of the moire pattern for the alpha... I wasn't willing to look and wait around for an original book of the patterns to come up, I attempted to print my own, but becuase of the detail of the lines my printer kind of smudged them all together the closer to the center it got. I took the downloaded images from HeroComm to Kinkos and had a sheet printed out on transparency paper and on cardstock for $1.07. This was an improvement over my home printer, but definitely not perfect. I could not find a local place with an imagesetter that was willing to print off a sheet for me. Ultimately, my Kinko's copies did the trick until I was able to find a guy on ebay who installed really great looking ones in 4 communicators that I sent him.
One thing to remember, is that with the Kinko's copies on transparency, the transparency is really thin and needs to be reinforced with a thicker clear plastic (which must be done without smudging the moire lines on the transparency). I actually just cut a circle out of clear plastic from a toy wrapper (the kind of plastic that is always so difficult to open becuase of the way they package whatever you are buying...). I put a tiny bit of superglue on the plastic and attached the transparency so the printed lines were facing the plastic sheeting. Once they were glued together I inserted those into the bezel ring and glued them in lightly.
The Bezel Ring
I also sanded down the bezel ring slightly with my dremel so the seems were not so obvious and touched up the paint with a silver marker. I am hoping to get metal parts to replace the bezel ring, but have not gotten that far yet...
The Mic Grille
I painted the mic carefully with a Sharpie gold marker. It really stands out from the mic grille this way and looks much better than having all of it silver...
The Control Panel
Originally I tried to paint the mic grille a more chrome looking color, this was not effective or to my liking. I bought some small aluminum sheet metal squares (4X4) from JoAnne's fabric store and tried to cut these to fit on top of the existing plastic mic grill. They look alright, but once you smooth it down it gets all these warbles and bumps in it and is not a brushed smooth aluminum finish at all! Then I bought a thin sheet of brushed aluminum and tried to cut out the mic area and circles for the buttons. I tried cutting them with scissors, nippers, a dremel, really no luck. There was not way to make it uniform and look the way I wanted to. The best outcome I had was from getting contact paper that is made to look like brushed steel (they carry this at Lowes). It is self adhesive and easy to cut since it is paper. I was able to cut out the basic rectangle with scissors. I cut out the mic area with a scalpel and just used a 1/4" hole punch for the two button areas. It sticks right onto the plastic mic grill and looks pretty real, especially with the new t-jet hubs on there!
The Buttons ~ Control Knobs
I took apart the communicator with a small screwdriver to get off the hull shell, then again to get into the electronics area. Then I had to unscrew the electronics board carefully. All the wires stay attached, so the sides will not completely separate. Once you take off the front electronic board you can remove the buttons from the board. I cut the tips off the buttons (down to the existing seem line) with wire cutters and then reattached them to the electronics board. I ordered some t-jet hubs off the net and glued these to the 'stubs' of the original buttons. Ta-Da t-jet functioning buttons that look much more authentic!
The Jewels
I decided that I didn't want my communicator to light up, since the originals did not have lights, they had swarovski crystals. Crystals2love has a great selection of swavorski crystals and you can get them in packs of 10 for cheap. I originally was buying them from Michaels at $7 for a pack of 30 and that is just unreasonable and they have a very limited selection. I sanded down the existing plastic jewels with my dremel. I painted the bottom silver to get the look of the hub under the jewels and then superglued a swavorski cyrstal on top of that. I found out that the light still shown around the crystal and through the painted base and I did not like that. I had to completely take apart the entire communicator, removing the electronic board again and figure out a way to cover up the lights. Those lights are very small and very effectively bright. I tried duct tape, electric tape, masking tape, paper with tape, and various other ideas. What finally worked was placing a small square of aluminum foil over the light and putting electric tape over that to keep it on the electronics board. This was able to completely block out the light emitted from these little LEDs so my crystals would shine on their own. After screwing all the pieces of the comm back together I chose a triology of colors that was on one of the original Chang communicators, and I really like the look of the real crystals as opposed to the cheap plastic and lights.
The Screws
The original screws on the communicators, from what I gathered from various sources are said to be brass and flat. After searching at various stores, I found some that were fairly close to the original look at Lowes in their miscilaneous drawers of screws. They come in a packet of 6 and are 6/32 and _______________. Then you just remove the stock 4 screws in the back of the comm and replace them with these new nifty brass screws.
The Body
When you buy the communicator it has a 'try me' tab that is pulled out to allow you to use it. This creates a small hole in the side of the communicator. I wanted the body of my communicator to be seemless so I wanted to seal this off.
The Midplate
I admit I would really like to have a real metal midplate, but am currently devising a plan on how to make that happen, any ideas or suggestions are welcome!
Star Trek TOS Phaser 1 ~ all black
A friend and I have found a new love in 'refurbishing' old Original Series Star Trek toys and customizing them to our liking. This particular project was invented to produce an all black phaser (body and handle). All the silver parts were meant to stay silver.
This seemed like a basic and easy project, I taped off all the silver places I didn't want black and lightly buffed the rest of the phaser with a sandpaper block. I figured the easiest way to get the uniform black color I wanted was to spray paint it, so I did some searching and found some black paint just for plastics. I spray painted each side separately with 3-4 light coats of pain. Initially it looked great, but as the paint dried, the original paint on the phaser handle started to peel up under the spray paint. Needless to say, that did not look clean and sleek like I had intended...
I sanded down the handle and parts of the phaser again and this time switched to ________________ paint. I didn't completely get all the peeled up areas off the phaser handle, especially in between the 'power pack' groove. But the new paint is a big improvement.
For finishing touches, I took off the tape and touched up the silver areas with some chrome nail polish that was a perfect match. It isn't a completely perfect all black phaser, but it will work for my needs.
This seemed like a basic and easy project, I taped off all the silver places I didn't want black and lightly buffed the rest of the phaser with a sandpaper block. I figured the easiest way to get the uniform black color I wanted was to spray paint it, so I did some searching and found some black paint just for plastics. I spray painted each side separately with 3-4 light coats of pain. Initially it looked great, but as the paint dried, the original paint on the phaser handle started to peel up under the spray paint. Needless to say, that did not look clean and sleek like I had intended...
I sanded down the handle and parts of the phaser again and this time switched to ________________ paint. I didn't completely get all the peeled up areas off the phaser handle, especially in between the 'power pack' groove. But the new paint is a big improvement.
For finishing touches, I took off the tape and touched up the silver areas with some chrome nail polish that was a perfect match. It isn't a completely perfect all black phaser, but it will work for my needs.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
