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Blade Runner Take TwoPage TwoOnce completed, I made new molds and found that the new parts
fit together perfectly – just like they were made for each other, Craig also kept pestering me about the placement and fit of the grips. And I had to agree they were off a little. First I found that I had placed the angle of the grip frame a bit too far forward. I also heard from a couple of fellow propmakers in LA that owned stunt castings of the prop, who also pointed out that the grips looked too narrow. Taking another hard look at a good stunt copy I had to work from, I found their observations to be correct. So I powered up my trusty old band saw and commenced to whack away the grips from one of the copies of the stunt castings. After yet another discussion with Craig about the use of the two flat head screw in the grip frame, I reaffirmed my longstanding belief that they were used to help hold the Bulldog grip frame inside the new oversized frame that they (the original Propmakers on the film) had fabricated for this prop.
Hitting a Gun Show on the weekend, I at last found something to better reproduce the diamond crosshatch pattern on the Blaster grips: an Air Soft toy gun model with nearly flat large grips, the same pattern, and no screw holes. As cast rubber, the original stunt prop did not received a very a good impression of the original raised diamond pattern. Air bubbles had been trapped in the diamond recesses causing relatively poor detail reproduction. This was the last flaw that needed to be fixed on our model.
I cast a mold over them so that I could make a few expendables
to try, just in case I should need extras This technique worked perfectly, and with a little sanding and trimming, some filling and painting, and a new set of molds cast over the new clean grips, the last small flaw was gone. Sometimes all you need is gentle but persistent persuasion from a true fan.
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