Even if I had to deal with a few setbacks, the work went forward quite smoothly and pretty much the way I had imagined it. However, some serious precision work was necessary to make the parts as accurate and clean as they turned out to be, which was no easy task at all! As you can see in the pictures below, I shaped the wooden raw material with knives, saws, files and of course different kinds of sandpaper until I was satisfied with the results, while permanently applying coats of primer in between to reveal rough spots and other blemishes yet to be smoothed out. The most useful tool in this process? My caliper, which I used to continuously measure the thickness of the ribs, the spacing between them, etc. Without it, the parts undoubtedly wouldn’t have turned out this nice.

Of course, the pieces are not 100% symmetrical or exactly like my schematics, but I’m very pleased with the results nonetheless. The three parts I made in this manner are the ribbed middle section as well as the two back pieces. I decided to do the latter ones separately so I could make seamless resin castings of them later by using a one-piece silicone mold for each in contrast to a two-part mold for a bigger piece, which would possess a seam line by default.

So, without further ado, here are the pictures. First, the finished parts:

The original prop and my schematics for comparison:

And here are some progress pictures:

Very useful for making flat surfaces truly flat: a belt sander.

Humble beginnings…

Expanding the grooves.

Cutting deeper to match my schematics.

Some filing action to accurately shape the ribs.

Splash coat applied to reveal all kinds of blemishes.

The final cut to trim the piece from the excess wood.

The next part of the probe I want to tackle is the tip of the tool, which I will have to scratch build since I wasn’t able to identify the nose hair trimmer part that was originally used for this purpose.

Keep watching the blog for more updates. If you want to catch additional info between my blog entries, follow me on Twitter: @trekprops!

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For what it’s worth, here’s a look at the test piece I was playing with to get accustomed to working with a lathe:

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As with most of these props, it was used as a medical instrument as well as an engineering tool. However, with this one, the scientific use was seen more often.

Here are some screenshots from “Star Trek: Captain’s Chair“:

And here are two shots from the “It’s A Wrap”-Auction where two of these were sold:

Lastly, here’s the sequence of the lights from the show:

Even if it’s not very clear in the animation above, I know that the last LED of the sequence is green whereas the rest of the lights are of a warm yellow/orange color.

Using these references and with some help from people in the know, I was able to figure out proportions and measurements for this prop. Also, I learned that the tip was taken from a nose hair trimmer and the ribbed middle part was loosely based on a Star Wars lightsaber handle. The back piece was custom made from aluminum.

Here are some schematics I put together:

This drawing will be the basis for my replica. The dimensions should be pretty accurate to the original.

The next step will be to manufacture the ribbed middle section as well as the two back pieces. I will try to accomplish this by turning these parts from wood.

Stay tuned for more progress pics in the coming weeks!

Any questions or suggestions as to how I should proceed with this? Or do you know which nose hair trimmer model was used for the tip of the Neutrino Probe? Leave a comment and let me know!

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Thirdly, the color of the prop was way too light. Additionally, the backside of it wasn’t painted at all! The naked resin revealed itself which was simply unacceptable for me.

Here are a few pictures:

No doubt about it, I had to do some face-lifting work there.

My first step was to sand down the old paint completely and to remove the circuit graphic. I removed the paint residue from the “ground” of the circuit depression using an appropriate attachment for my dremel. This technique however didn’t work with the four upper small slots.

Next up was the backside. Since there was the raw resin visible – being everything but flat and even, I decided to strengthen it with styrene.

Some putty and sanding work helped here to make it look much better. There were however still imperfections left to eliminate.

After I had repaired all of the blemishes with spot putty, I could then primer and paint the piece. Since the original color – Plasti-kote 7173 – was never available in Germany and the original composition has been changed even in the US, I used a custom mixed equivalent that is indistinguishable from the original color.

Now I had to attend to the four small vents on the top of the prop. They had to be painted black again. Not an easy task to cover all of the insides with paint without messing up the front…

After I had cut the new circuit graphic, adjusted it to fit inside the depression and glued it in, I was satisfied with the result:

Looking back to the beginning I think that reworking this prop was worth the effort. The color is now accurate and the surface looks a lot cleaner and smoother. Only one question remains: How can I activate the darn thing…?

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Because the finished prop was supposed to contain an electric circuit with a super bright red LED and five green sequencing lights, the mold had to be done in a way so that the later resin casting is hollow. This could only be achieved by doing two resin halves which were then put together. This circumstance didn’t make the task of molding the prototype any easier…

Here’s again the finished master model just like it was about to be duplicated. To reveal small imperfections, I already applied some coats of primer and then repaired whatever didn’t seem right.

Since both halves of the cast resin parts should be as symmetrical as possible, I marked the middle of the body using a pencil. This helped me to accurately shape the clay bed later.

Next I had to make sure the work surface was leveled. This is checked best using a spirit level. If the work surface is not leveled now, the seam line of the two resin halves will not be straight later and they won’t fit together.

The next step is the most difficult and time consuming part of making a two part mold: The master model has to be half embedded in clay to create the first half of the mold. The above mentioned marking on the body of the prototype now helped me.

Be sure not to use just some material for this but non-reactive clay to avoid inhibiting the chemical reaction of the two silicone rubber components. To ensure that, I use a clay that doesn’t contain any sulfates and is oil-based. It works very well together with the additive cross-linked precision casting silicone I use.

The master model has be mounted evenly on the work surface. I achieved that by sticking chunks of clay under it to stabilize it:

Next up is the task of shaping the clay bed. I started by putting material close around the prototype body and then worked my way away from it.

Now the mold box had to be created. It determines the final size of the mold. Most people use styrene or wood to construct this box and seal the corners with clay but I found that LEGO bricks work very well because they can be re-used every time to create boxes of different sizes and the buildup of the box is fast and easy..

Now comes the tricky part: The important thing is that exactly half of the model has to be embedded in the clay. This just alleviates the buildup of the kit later. Also very important is the fact that the clay needs to be aligned exactly to the body. There mustn’t appear any gaps between the model and the clay. This could be repaired later, but it’s easier to do it right here. So, precise modeling work is in order here!

Of course, the entire inside of the mold box has to be filled with clay. As you can see here, I first did this only roughly and then did the fine tuning later to get the surface smooth and to close all the gaps between prototype and clay.

Still quite some work to do here!

The next picture shows a pretty good progress on the clay bed. To do the shaping I use a putty knife which makes it easy to reach tricky areas, for example corners.

Remeber to wear gloves! Otherwise the clay will get stuck under your fingernails which is quite uncomfortable. Furthermore, the clay will get dirty rather quickly if it is exposed directly to your fingers even if you washed your hands before!

Here’s the result after a lot of work: The surface is now very smooth and there are no more gaps anywhere.

Next I used a pen shaped tool to create several small indentations in the clay around the model. They will later become pins as the silicone flows into them and cures. The other mold half will then again show these troughs and both halves will be perfectly aligned to each other.

This is important for creating solid castings by pouring the resin into the mold while both halves are closed. Even though this was not the type of casting I wanted to do, I nevertheless chose to implement this step because it’s not possible to add it later.

After I had enlarged the mold box up to the desired height, I was ready to pour the mixed silicone rubber into it:

The deepest areas have to be filled with rubber first to avoid air bubbles. For the same reason you should pour a thin stream so that bubbles cannot occur in the first place and those created by the mixing of the silicone components can break.

When the prototype is completely covered with silicone, you need to add at least one more centimeter in height to make sure the “base” of the mold is thick enough.

After the silicone has cured, the entire mold can be turned around, …

… the LEGO bricks can be dismantled and the clay can be removed. Be careful not to move the master model in any way. Note the above mentioned pins in the silicone.

Remaining clay residue has to be removed.

Most silicones are self-seperating, which means that the master model won’t get stuck to the rubber so it can easily be demolded. This however isn’t the case when silicone is poured onto silicone. In this case, the two rubber parts would bond together and become one piece.

So, to avoid enclosing the prototype into a solid block of rubber, I had to apply a release agent to the first mold half. I used vaseline for this, which I brushed on carefully. Don’t be stingy with the release agent! The more you apply, the easier the demolding process will be. Remember to mask the master model off to avoid blemishing it with brush marks which would be transferred to the new mold half.

After I had removed the masking tape, I repeated the above pictured step of pouring the silicone into the mold, waited until it had cured, demolded the prototype and disassembled the LEGO frame. Here’s the result:

The silicone mold is now finished and ready to be used for resin casting. However, if I had used this mold as it is to cast parts, they would have been solid just like the master model. This however, wasn’t my goal. I wanted to create two resin shells in which I could install electronics. So, I had to do a little more work on this mold to make that happen.

In order to get hollow resin shells I had to find a way to displace the resin that I would pour into the mold halves. The first step to achieve this was to use clay again to shape “walls” which had exactly the thickness that I wanted for the resin pieces later. Everything that I made out of clay here, would become resin later.

Note the recess for the LEDs!

Next, I placed wooden slats with screws in them over the mold. The screw heads had the purpose to attach themselves to the silicone rubber I was about to pour into the clay lined mold. This way I would have a comfortable handle to place the inner silicone displacement piece inside the mold later.

Here’s the result of this rather complex mold making process: two two-part mold halves (front side and back side, only one half is pictured) which produce two resin shells that fit exactly together (well, more or less since there’s always some excess resin that needs to be sanded off).

The development of the two most important parts for the ODN Scanner kit is thus complete and the buildup of the hero prop can now begin!

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With every building project, there’s one essential question: What material am I gonna use? Well, in prop building there’s most of the time only one answer to this question and that is “styrene“. Styrene is nothing more than sheets of plastic which is available in several thicknesses. It is also used in other model building efforts, for example architectural models.

So, the first step of building the prototype was to cut out all of the needed pieces from styrene (I used styrene with a thickness of 1 mm). After I had determined the shape of these parts by drawing a blueprint, I printed them out and glued them onto the sheet of styrene using spray glue. Next up was cutting the pieces which I did using a sharp precision knife. After scorching the sheet two or three times, they can easily be broken off along a straight edge.

After that it’s no problem to remove the paper from the styrene. If it doesn’t come off easily, simply put it in luke warm water for a few minutes. Then, the edges of the styrene parts had to be sanded lightly to create clean edges. The opening which would later become the display window proved to be especially difficult. A lot of sanding work was necessary to achieve really straight lines and rounded corners. Very useful in this step was sanding under running water which requires a special kind of sandpaper but results in very little dust and a very smooth edge.

Here are all 24 seperate pieces which I marked with the respective codes to know which one belonged where.

To see if these pieces could fit together to result in the object of my wishes, I did a test fit and glued them together using removable masking tape:

Styrene is best glued together with a special plastic glue which joins the parts permanently:

I filled the inside of this open box with putty to gain additional material for the later sanding process of the corners and edges. I wanted to prevent creating a hole in the body which I would not be able to close again.

After I had closed the body, I sanded the hole object roughly to remove all of the sharp edges and corners.

Next up was the handle. Here I also did a test fit first to determine how I would have to glue the pieces together. Because the handle would have been too thin consisting of 1 mm styrene, I glued two identically shaped parts together to make it thicker.

To perfectly fit the handle onto the main body, I actually attached the respective parts to it while glueing them together.

As you can see, the edges of the handle were very raw. Because of this I again had to use putty and a lot of time to give the handle a sleek shape and a smooth surface. The complex form obviously didn’t make this easy for me. However, the time was well spent as you can see here:

Fits like a glove! However, the main body being curved and the inside of the handle being straight, small holes were visible in between which again had to be filled and sanded smooth.

After that, the complete body had to be sanded very carefully to make every surface smooth and to achieve the desired degree of roundness on all edges and corners. Because silicone rubber transfers each and every imperfection to the mold very rigorously, the master model has be as perfect as the final kit or prop is supposed to be. Mistakes made here are being carried all the way through to the final product and then have to be corrected on each casted part anew. So, a lot of work can be saved here by thinking everything through and doing things right.

I here fabricated one set of greeblies, which are normally being put on as the last step in the buildup of a prop, to see what the final look of the prop would be:

In the same way I did the handle, I also made the scanner array on the top of the prop above the recessed display area. This way I could simply plunge it on and then attach it.

Even if it doesn’t look that way, the construction of such a prop from scratch using the methods shown here is a lot of work! Sanding is by far the most time consuming task because you always spot another small blemish which has to be repaired or areas you are not satisfied with. Also, the whole process requires a lot of patience because it just takes very long if you want to do it right. Anyhow, the effort is well worth it especially when you see yourself making progress and getting the project somewhere.

So far, so good. The master model is finished. Next is Part II in which I describe how I made the silicone mold.

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Matt’s PADD kits contain three black acrylic plates which have been precision cut with a laser using the accurate shapes traced from an original prop. The thickness of the plates is also correct (3 mm).

Along with these plates I got a set of graphics for the display and the control buttons. I also got another display graphic so I could choose my favorite one. Furthermore, there’s a sticker of brushed aluminum vinyl included for the big button in the right control window. Looks sweet!

Here are all of the kit pieces at a glance:

There is a protective paper backing on the acrylic plates. This is a necessary part of the laser cutting process.

This paper has to be removed first, but only on the “inner” sides of the front and back plate:

These are the two plates without the paper. Note that the right (front) plate is lying on the table reversed showing it’s “inner” side.

Next these plates are carefully glued together so that they are perfectly aligned to each other and the edges are flush. This is just a temporary fixation and will be unfixed later. So I didn’t use a non-removable glue, but double sided adhesive tape instead.

I left the paper attached to the front and back side to protect them during the next step.

The corners and edges of the PADD need to be rounded. Since acrylic is a pretty hard material, you won’t have much success using sandpaper. For this you need either a dremel with an appropriate attachment, a router or a big file. I decided to use the latter to keep a higher degree of manual control.

This is a rather tricky process. The curvature should be clearly visible, but it shouldn’t be too round. It wasn’t easy to remove an equal amount of material all around and on each side to make it look symmetrical.

The file work is of course only a means to add the bevel to the plates. You won’t be able to get the surface smooth that way. To achieve that, I used sandpaper going from lower to higher grit numbers. This works best using wet sandpaper under running water!

During sanding I then disassembled the two plates to also sand the “inner” edges slightly – not to round them, but to remove flashes left over from the laser cutting process.

Finally, I also removed the paper backing to check the curvature of the two plates and used sandpaper to do corrections.

Here’s the result of my work with file and sandpaper:

Next up is priming the PADD.

Since the plates are later glued together, the areas where the glue will be applied need to be masked. This is done because glue attaches itself more easily to “naked” acrylic than to primer or paint. This way you won’t have to use sandpaper later to rough up the surface.

To prime the pieces, I placed them on paper without suspending them in any way! This way I didn’t have to worry about overspray getting on the other side of the plates and making them look ugly. I didn’t prime the edges in this step because they could get stuck to the paper.

When the primer was dry, I turned the plates over and then did suspend them on small blocks of wood. I primered the pieces again and also applied some to the edges. Because the plates are suspended, they can’t get stuck to the paper and I don’t have to worry about overspray because most parts of the inner side will not be visible.

I repeated this step with my Plasti-kote 7173 equivalent spray paint,  suspending the pieces when doing the outsides and laying them flat when doing the inner sides.

Next up are the graphics. They have to be cut precisely to fit inside the windows of the front plate. This requires some patience.

Also the brushed aluminum vinyl sticker has to be applied to the gray area on the bigger control graphics using a pair of tweezers. The sticker has the exact same size as the rectangle and is not removable, so I had to be very precise!

Once the paint has dried, …

… I removed the tape from the inner side of the plates.

Now all the parts have to be assembled. I used 5-minute epoxy glue to join the acrylic plates together permanently. Be careful with this stuff and always wear gloves to avoid glueing your fingers together!

First, I removed the paper from the middle plate. No additional work is necessary on this one. Then, I glued it onto the back plate like so:

I had to be careful to align the smaller plate correctly (the shape is not symmetrical) and to place is exactly in the middle of the back plate. I used the working time of the 5-minute epoxy glue to correct any errors.

Next up is the front plate which is glued onto the middle plate. Again, careful aligning of the edges is in order.

The last step is to apply the graphics. They are self-adhesive so you merely have to peel them off and place them where they belong:

That’s it, the PADD is finished!

Bottom line: A very inexpensive prop that is quickly and easily built and looks just plain cool lying on a desk!

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As a special feature, this kit allowed you to take a look inside the phaser. To implement this into the finished replica, the builder is supposed to cut a piece of styrene to fit as a thumbpad which then could be slid out to reveal the “circuits”.

Note the two struts at the rear end of the body. They are caused by the resin being poured into the mold and also getting into the air vents that probably had been created to allow the air to escape as the resin was poured. They of course need to be sanded off.

Another thing you can see in this picture very well is that the sides of the casting were pretty raw. This was probably caused by the seam line running here, which is inevitable with all two part silicone molds.

This is after the first filling work was done. I filled the defects on the sides using polyester putty and sanded it down. Also the first splash-coat is already applied here. It revealed where I had to do more repair work.

As you can see, the muzzle of the phaser was originally solid and supposed to be implemented using paint only. However, I had other plans for it. More on that later though…

I then filled small holes and imperfections using spot putty. Don’t apply too much of it unless you want to make the sanding process any more difficult than it has to be.

The phaser during priming. Several thin coats are in order to prevent paint running down the body.

Here you can see the controls. They are nothing more than styrene cut and sanded to shape to fit into the respective recesses on the body.

Fits like a glove!

Next up was the cover for the “inner workings” of the phaser. After I had cut a piece of styrene to fit the designated area, I realized that it didn’t fill all the gaps present. Also, there was no way to make it fit in perfectly and keep the functionality of sliding it out.

Because of this, and because there was never seen a open “cricket” phaser in TNG or elsewhere, I decided to seal the thumb pad using putty and to make a solid prop out of it:

Sanding all of these edges and corners smooth was a challenge, especially because the corners were supposed to keep their curvatures.

Here’s the result of several puttying and sanding passes. The remodeling of this area was extremely elaborate and required a lot of patience.

After I had applied a coat of primer here , I realized that the area of the thumb pad was too small and also that the recess of the cover was too deep. So, I repeated the last step and cut another piece of styrene to fit. Then I once again had to use putty to seal all the gaps.

Here’s the final result after the last coat of primer:

The rear end required some effort, too. I had to join the pieces of styrene with the resin body to make it look smooth and “natural”.

Now back to the muzzle: As I said, I had a special plan for that. Instead of simply painting it red, I wanted to insert a seperate piece as an emitter. I thought that would look more authentic and I also used this picture from “Star Trek: The Next Generation – Technical Manual” as a reference:

So, I took a small round file and removed some material from the front of the phaser until I thought it looked right:

Next I shaped the muzzle insert from a spare piece of resin. It nicely re-completed the forward shape of the phaser and fitted inside the opening very well. Since we’re talking about very small sizes here, the task of modeling the muzzle was not an easy one. My own fingers often were in the way holding the piece of resin.

It would have been nice to do the muzzle piece from a translucent red material, but I decided not to pursue this because the muzzle should have the same appearance as the particle vents on the pre-fire chamber. Since there was no way to do them transparent on this build, I chose to do the muzzle piece opaque as well.

Here’s the emitter being test fitted into the phaser body:

Now all of the seperate pieces were finished and I could move along to painting them!

First I painted the phaser body using the standard color for Starfleet equipment: Plasti-kote 7173. This paint is of course not available in its original form in Germany and that’s why I went to a spray paint specialist and got me the accurate color custom mixed using a color sample of the original paint.

All of the areas that are not supposed to come in contact with the paint have to be masked off before spraying. In this case I masked the recesses of the controls so that the coats of paint won’t make them smaller to make sure my buttons would still fit in there later.

Just with the primer it’s extremely important to spray several thin coats instead of one thick layer of paint. It’s alright if the primer is still visible after the first coat! With the subsequent coats the paint then becomes more and more dominant until the surface is perfectly covered. Between coats you should wait 5 to 10 minutes to let them dry.

Try this trick to avoid ugly paint blobs: Place the can into warm water for a few minutes to heaten up the paint. It then disperses a lot finer.

Here’s the result:

The second color was next: Bronze. Again, I masked all the areas except the thumb pad. To help attach the masking tape I sometimes use toothpicks in tricky situations. It’s important to stick the tape very tight onto the surface to prevent paint from getting under it which would make the paint line look messy.

Everything but the thumb pad had been masked off:

The power bar was also ready to be painted now. This piece of styrene is merely 25 millimetres long and the strips of masking tape were 1 millimetre thick. Masking this tiny thing required some patience.

If I were to do this today, I’d probably use a printed graphic instead of painting styrene…

This is the phaser after the second color had been applied and the tape had been removed:

Very nice!

These are all the finished greeblies: Muzzle emitter, power bar, control buttons and the trigger. I glued golden paper onto the styrene control buttons to make them neither too glossy nor too dull. Then I used a black marker to paint the sides. The trigger is also styrene painted silver.

Several masking and painting passes later the forward part and the muzzle of the phaser were finished. It still looked quite unfinished though.

Next the greeblies had to be attached. The emitter had to be inserted into the muzzle, the power bar and the control buttons had to be glued into the appropriate indentations and the trigger had to be attached to the thumb pad. To provide the glue with a better grip to bite on, I carefully roughened up the respective surfaces using sandpaper.

Now only one other thing was missing: The particle vents on the prefire chamber. A lot of replicas show them to be angular. However, the originals always had straight vents. To make my phaser as accurate as possible, I of course decided to make them straight as well. On the top and bottom side, there are one large and four small vents each. On each side there are three of them. Originally I wanted to put them on using red paint. It then however became clear that red vinyl tape was the better solution for this. It is less error-prone and also looked better.

And here is the finished phaser:

Although there are some things that I could have done better in this build, I’m still very satisfied with it.

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