Pulse Rifle Constuction
sheena_yanai
Join Date: 2002-12-23 Member: 11426Members
Join Date: 2002-12-23 Member: 11426Members
<div class="IPBDescription">for those who are interrested</div> Pulse Rifle Construction (thx to harry harris alien collection)
A brief explanation of the component parts of the practical pulse rifles built for the films. Once the working guns were complete, moulds were taken and lightweight replicas cast for use as non-working background versions.
Fig. 1: showing the Thompson M1A1 sub-machine gun around which the pulse rifle is built. Note the 20-round magazine, which will be attached to the fake magazine butt-plate. Here the wooden stock and foregrip have already been removed. The rear sight will be removed, the barrel replaced and extended, and the wooden grip replaced with a cast one.
A brief explanation of the component parts of the practical pulse rifles built for the films. Once the working guns were complete, moulds were taken and lightweight replicas cast for use as non-working background versions.
Fig. 1: showing the Thompson M1A1 sub-machine gun around which the pulse rifle is built. Note the 20-round magazine, which will be attached to the fake magazine butt-plate. Here the wooden stock and foregrip have already been removed. The rear sight will be removed, the barrel replaced and extended, and the wooden grip replaced with a cast one.
Comments
Machine-gun barrel heatsink/radiator
Shoulder stock (retractable)
Front end for grenade launcher (Franchi) enclosing shotgun barrel
Primary shroud, encasing the whole weapon. This also contains the LED ammunition counter, although shots of the digits actually counting may have been filmed with separate insert pieces.
Component parts of the pulse rifle
The pulse rifle in its practical form was extremely heavy and therefore cumbersome to carry. Lightweight fibreglass replicas were also made for the cast to carry when it was not necessary to show the rifle in operation or in close-up. The pulse rifle shown here is derived from those lightweight replicas. We would never profess that the casting shown was "from the original moulds" - the silicone rubber from which moulds are made only has a life of a few years. For the sake of improving detail the grenade launcher and pump grip have been replaced with original SPAS-12 parts. The original cast-on housing screws have been replaced with real machine screws, and the M1A1 magazine removal lever and spring assembly have been replaced with cast resin ones. The upper barrel has also been replaced, it being slightly bent originally (this version was possibly a third or fourth generation copy).
The pulse rifle has been produced many times in kit form.
Probably the first was the vacuum-form plastic and resin kit by Science Shop.
Next came the far more accurate Star Arms version. Released in November 1989 it was also comprised of vacuform and resin parts*.
Marco Ent. in the USA released a pulse rifle which featured a moving pump grip, working trigger, machine gun sound and illuminating barrel tip and ammo counter display.
UK company Relics produce a rifle in wood parts, incorporating actual SPAS-12 shroud and pump grip.
In 1998 US company Icons released the first officially licensed pulse rifle. However the reference original was rather the worse for wear, and although very neat and clean, the Icons replicas are slightly inaccurate in many ways.
Probably the most accurate pulse rifle was produced by S D Studios in the US. The replicas incorporated actual SPAS-12 parts and deactivated Remington 870 shotguns and Thompson M1A1 weapons. Stocks and barrel ventilation shrouds were fabricated from metal; the carrying enclosure was made from fibreglass. The rifle also included a working ammo counter, reset when the magazine was removed and replaced.
<!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
thx for the url,i lost this adress long time ago <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
There was a time a long, long while back when I saw a supposed prop from the movie up for sale and it got my mind running, so I did loads of research on it. Anyone planning to model the pulse rifle from scratch needs to keep all those ref pics in mind.