Set Phasers to RAD!

So I'm sitting here and I says to myself, I says "it's time for a new post." So here it is guys. It's the one and only TNG Phaser mod by yours truly. Now I know what you're thinking. You're wondering how you got to this site and also why I'm making a post featuring a mod and not some awesome new Raygun of my own. Well it's hard to find new materials in my neck of the woods so this is what you get!

Here's the setup. It's Halloween. I like William T. Riker. My wife likes William T. Riker. So I decided to take a shot at it. It's not too hard since you can buy the TNG officer shirt at any costume shop and they wore plain slacks with loafers on the show. But I wanted to put some zazz into the whole situation somehow so I decided to mod the phaser.

I got this bad boy at a costume shop online for about 10 bucks. It was actually pretty decent for a crappy plastic cast prop. It has sounds and everything!

The first step was to take it apart. Oh me oh my!

That orange thing is the worst. I can understand putting those on toys that actually look like guns but this is a TNG phaser. It looks like a dead cobra on a good day. Not to say that I don't like it. Either way I had a silver that was pretty close to the original paint so I threw some on to make it match.

I decided that the paint job sortof looked a lot like crap. So I masked off the silver parts to get an even coat of black in all the right places. This took a while but I learned a lot about masking by doing it.

Then I pulled off the cheap little sticker and cut out a window for the LED's with my dremel. I think it turned out pretty good.

Next up was actually getting those LED's up and running. I started this by cutting out 6 slots in some styrene plastic to set them in.

I glued the whole rig up with hot glue to get it set and soldered the leads together.

Here is is after I got everything hooked up.

BTW I used a 9 volt to power these. Don't forget to use resistors!!!

In the end it turned out pretttyyyy good. I put a little switch on the bottom to turn the lights on and off and made it look grimy with some paint.  Looks like I just came back from a dirty, sexy away mission.

Dannnng giiiiiiirl them lights look good.

I made a last minute holster out of some styrene and fleece. I started by making a pattern that made no sense than then proceeded to wing it.

After getting the right shape I glued the pieces together to see what I had. It was a box. Sortof.

While making the belt clip I looked down and saw this little guy. I ended up not using it but it still made me laugh.  Looks like a shocked whale.

Here it is with the felt glued on and fit to the phaser.

I'll leave you with this rare video footage. A shuttlecraft has been seen in the neutral zone. Shaking it's shit in order to get back home. So moving.

Until next time...