Commlock complete

Job done. With all the stickers and transfers in place, a good coating of satin varnish completes the commlock replica. The finish isn't perfect, but then the paint job on the real props appears to have been pretty tatty, so this is a compromise between the rose-tinted memories of a small boy watching TV and the reality of a hard-working piece of special effects kit.

It's been an interesting project. Digging into the real props reminds me just how crude these things can be, at least in pre-HD TV days. I remember seeing some real Star Trek pistols and being amazed that they were little more than poorly shaped lumps of wood, nothing like the sleek devices I saw on the screen.

The Century Castings kit is easy to assemble and nicely complete. A bit of a bargain too really.

Will I be sporting the commlock as I strut around town? No. I'm not that much of a nerd. If you go to a sci-fi convention, that's great, but I don't feel the need to dress up. Besides, those nylon flairs wouldn't suit me. 

It's MY commlock

One important detail on any commlock is the picture on the side. This shows the owner and presumably indicated the access they have to various parts of the base.

At least it would had the producers been hotter on the detail. Many photos exist of people using a commlock with someone else's photo on the side.  Even if the photo was right, there wasn't a guarantee that it would be the right way up. I'm guessing that there weren't that many props available and so the photo panels were removable.

In the kit, a couple of panels are included - Commander Koenig and Dr Russell, plus a blank one for personalisation. Stick your own photo on the blank bit and write in your name.

I went further and scanned the Koenig one in and then using some graphics software, added my mugshot to his shoulders along with some new text. I think it looks pretty convincing, and probably marks me out as a real nerd. 

Dangling and painting

Painting the commlock is a bit of a challenge. There's no base to sit it on while spraying, or at least nothing that isn't supposed to be covered in paint. I suppose I could have worked one side at a time, but that takes time and I'm doing this between other jobs. 

A little experimenting showed I could wedge some garden wire (I spray in the garage, this stuff is handy) in between the fold-out plastic bits of my spray hood. Then bend a noose and hang the somewhat heavy model on its belt clip.

Jiggling around avoids any unpainted "shadows" and if the inside of the clip doesn't get a proper coat, I can live with that. 

First up is spraying with grey car primer. This isn't a bad match for the TV version, but I prefer to top coat with paint that I can apply with a brush for touching up, so the choice is Humbrol 64, the same as unfitted 16 ton mineral wagons. (It's probably wrong for those too, but I don't care)

After drying, comes masking time. 

Loads of tape to try and get the sides of the buttons, a coat of matt black and then the chance to do the touch -up thing as my masking was back to its useless self. Still, I'm getting quite good at cutting colours accurately with a brush...

Commlock research

What a can of worms this has turned out to be!

If you think that researching a steam loco is tough, just try pinning down the details of a prop made for a 1970s TV show.

Obviously, the very 21st century Internet is your friend. Sci-fi geeks can be relied on to stuff masses of information on-line. They love details and laboriously check everything about their favourite show.

Starting with the excellent Space 1999 catacombs, we find that not all the props shared the same colour scheme.

• Photos on the side were either upright or sideways. 
• The surround to the screen was either black or grey.
• Buttons could move around - especially on the "wonky buttons" proper where they appear to have slid down. 
• Not all the buttons were numbered. 
• The belt clip changed, and could move away from the back to the side. 

The whole thing was, like most TV props, horribly crude. In fact I'd suggest the Century Castings version is actually better then the real props. I'm going to make a best guess that looks nice to me. I might be nerdy, but not enough to closely examine a single episode and pic a specific example. It is fascinating though and a bit of an insight into the TV magic that produces these shows. I suppose the props didn't get a lot of love at the time, they were just "things" to be held and used to make the show. Certainly not the objects of veneration fans now consider them. Most ended up in a skip at the end of the series.

And the colour? A Ford grey is suggested, but I think Humbrol 64 will do the job. How battered I make it look is down to me.

Photos of a non-working prop. 
Photos of a prop with a working TV screen.
A suprisingly good Lego version.

Century Castings Commlock

I've built a lot of models, but never had a go at a full-size film or TV prop before.

One of my favourite TV shows is Gerry Anderson's Space 1999 - at least series one of this before the curse of Fred Freiberger hit. It had the best looking and most practical spaceship in the Eagle Transporter and the special effects were great. OK, the stories could be a bit rubbish, but whisper it quietly, quite a lot of the Anderson plots weren't much cop and were saved by the fantastic stuff on the screen.

Anway, every member of the Moonbase Alpha crew carried a commlock around with them. It's a multi-purpose device that is part mobile phone and part door key. Like Dr Who's sonic screwdriver, it can do other things depending on plot requirements, but fortunately, unlike the Dr's tool, never morphed into a magic want to save them the bother of coming up with a convincing plot.

Century Castings produce a vast range of full-size prop copies and the commlock is one of the cheaper ones. It looked simple and a lot of fun.

The main parts are resin castings which need to be joined together. As heavy lumps, I felt some strengthening would be a good idea, so drilled a hole in the middle of the main parts, dropped a bit of brass tube in and then glued everything up with epoxy.

The belt clip needs to be strong and while it fits in a shallow depression, the join has all the appearance of one that won't survive long, so there is more epoxy and some bits of wire.

With assembly complete and any dodgy joins filled, the final stage is a dip in some washing up liquid to remove any grease or mould release before painting.

But what colour? Time for some research...