galaxy1701d on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/galaxy1701d/art/1701-B-Communicator-Mk-2-Stage-1-Refit-Overview-419084626galaxy1701d

Deviation Actions

galaxy1701d's avatar

1701-B Communicator Mk.2 (Stage 1 Refit Overview)

By
Published:
265 Views

Description

I got the second of two prototype "1701-B Communicators" built by Casey Sullivan of Triple-Fiction Productions and based on flip-top communicator designs that never made it into the prologue of "Star Trek: Generations" in mid-November. A few weeks ago, my friend Brent suggested that it could be improved by sacrificing the tactile felt and "jewel" controls and replacing them with decals instead. 

I decided that although modifying an already completed work was going to be a serious risk, especially since I don't have the ability or the time to build another of these for myself, the proposal needed a proof of concept. It's one thing to talk about refitting a prop design, it's another to have a concept piece and pictures available for reference. And I thought I just might have a plan that could make this work.

Step one of the refit started simple. I examined both my existing prop, known pictures of the original "Generations" Concept Communicator, and the replicas that fans had built over the years. Then I started to work. First, I had already determined that Fabric Fusion could be used as a paint protector and I was keen to take advantage of this characteristic. 

The "microphone" portion of my Enterprise-B Communicator was made from a kind of plastic that did not take paint or adhesive very well. I had previously tried to paint it black, only to find, to my dismay, that the paint easily chipped off. This time, I painted the speaker black, and coated it in Fabric Fusion to protect it, and then used the black as an under-layer. After the glue dried, I repainted the piece silver and used a three-hole punch to punch out a circular piece of felt. This was glued down to the center of the "microphone assembly" using more Fabric Fusion.

While that was drying, I noticed that on the actual Enterprise-B Communicators, there was a red word on the upper left hand corner that said "EMER" and a red "emergency beacon" on the upper right corner. I used my hole-punch to punch out a circular red piece from a Post-It index tab, then went onto Microsoft Word, typed the word EMER in red, and highlighted it in light gray. I printed the new decal out and cut it down to size (very carefully, as I'm not very precise with scissors). 

Then came the delicate and risky part, which I had never attempted before: applying a homemade decal with no sticky backing. When you pop open a bottle of Aleene Fabric Fusion glue, the pressure within the glue bottle often causes a little spherical dot of glue to pop out of the applicator tip. I grabbed the homemade decals with tweezers, gently rubbed them on these little "glue dots," and then delicately applied them to the prop, using a toothpick or another pair of thin tweezers to pin them down while I got my other pair of tweezers (the ones holding the decals) off if they didn't release properly the first time.

Since Aleene Fabric Fusion takes 2-4 hours just to dry, I could easily use a toothpick or my tweezers to make sure the new decals were secured in their proper positions. To help secure them in place, I used a toothpick to apply tiny dots of Fabric Fusion to the edges of the "decals" right at the points where they came into contact with the foil underneath them. I figured that I would just paint over the whole thing with another thin layer of Fabric Fusion as soon as it finished drying, but instead, I got more ambitious and moved onto the next stage of the refit.
Image size
2664x4000px 1.79 MB
Make
Canon
Model
Canon PowerShot ELPH 100 HS
Shutter Speed
1/60 second
Aperture
F/2.8
Focal Length
5 mm
ISO Speed
125
Date Taken
Dec 7, 2013, 12:46:13 AM
Sensor Size
4mm
© 2013 - 2024 galaxy1701d
Comments0
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In