|
Applying what I had learned from making the pack, I made sure Not to repeat my experimental mistakes nor waste any unnecessary time on making the wand. I used balsam wood and PVC pipes to get me started fast!
No matter by what end of the wand I started, I was gonna have to deal with the grips sooner or later. I had come a long way getting this project as accurate as possible. Same discipline should be applied to every part of it. I drove and drove trying to find close matches for the grips but no luck. I decided to cut my search short. Stop wasting time and just sculpt them out of scratch by using detailed PICS and scaling. I know I could get them to look like the movie wands adding more accuracy to my project. I started.
There are rumors and hypothesis that the wand handles were done out of wood. I want to believe that the handles are found objects and the creamy-yellow stuff under the black paint is weathered rubber. Truth is, it's hard to tell from outside a glass display. I spended 2 weeks sculpting 2 handles so they could be molded and casted along with the wand's shaft. The handles were computer scaled out of front and wand side-shots. A lot of fractions were involved side to side with instinct. It's not just a matter of having grips made, it's also how they are applied to the barrels. Pack replicators get too cough up with neatness and sacrifice tons of detail for it. Packs are supposed to be trashed-out and wands are to be out of place.
Recreating the wand was much harder than the pack. The pack took longer and was a lot of work, but the wand demanded a lot of patience than anything. Handles, Particle thrower, trigger (redone twice) heat sink, knobs, fixtures, brass parts, even tracking down the right light caps. By using some math, freezing frames and instinct, I scaled out the mounting base. The wand barrel was made so the tip can pop-out at the flip of a switch.
I made the front barrel hallow so a resin casted tip held by a spring can fit in. It did took me some work and ahead-thinking to get it to work. A switch in the barrel holds it all steady. All it takes is a thumb flip to pop the tip out.
Another working feature are the special effect lights on the pack. A working power cells bar and cyclotron lights that work in a programed sequenced. The light board circuit was designed by Jim Shima. Jim has recreated many lights and whistles from many different movie props and sent me the light board in only 3 days. The light board works great and the brightness of the LEDs can be seen from 100 feet away. All lights are activated by a flip of a switch on the wand and batteries (2 V9) are replaceable from outside the pack.
I was done by early June of 2000. Paint and finishing was a whole other story. As I was struggling with lack of motivation as this project and all the work involved sucked the life out of me, my dremel died. I sent it to dremel headquaters while I was stuck with a wand plug inside a rubber mold, inside a fiberglass mother-mold. I had the Dumass idea to use my Wheel-saw to cut the fibber glass shell and nearly saw my left thumb off. After bleeding all the way to the bathroom and putting a bandid on it, I went back to work. the Bleeding wouldn't stop and the pain was overwhelming me. After been awake all night at the E.R. and over
10 anti-biotic shots on my arms later, I left the hospital with stitches inside and outside my thumb. My whole wrist and hand was casted to keep it all steady. I was on pain killers for 3 weeks. Many of you saw me at Dragoncon with my arm cast and no Chewbacca suit. I couldn't do any propping or go to the gym for the next 5 months of recovery. Ironically, the Dremel came back THE NEXT DAY of the accident all fixed. If I only had waited 2 days, I could had avoided this. I managed to get some prop work done as part of my recovery therapy. You can only do so much with one hand.
|
