Category Archives: Useful Sites

Useful Sites

Links for the Weekend

Here’s a story about a prop master who has found a new career killing zombies. I think most props people imagine they would be pretty well equipped to fight zombies.

Adam Savage (of Mythbusters fame) has quite an intense and detailed tutorial on making a silicone rubber mold with a plaster mother mold (or as he calls it, a “hard shell mold”). It is perhaps a bit more involved than most theatrical prop shops would ever need, but a lot of the extra steps he does are to keep the mold from collapsing on itself and to ensure the two halves are lined up perfectly.

What do you want to know about drill bits? How about everything! Ok, so this free PDF guide to drill bits deals only with woodworking (no metal or plastics), but it is still a useful amount of information available at a glance.

This is kind of cool. A classmate of mine from undergrad wrote a play a few years ago called The Love of Three Oranges. One of the productions of this play is documenting the construction of their set and props on a blog.

So, I’ve talked about the invention of the jig saw before; its history is at least somewhat intertwined with the history of fret and scroll saws. Well, Chris Schwartz has a piece on the history of the coping saw, another tool sharing this history. I personally love my coping saw, and consider it one of the indispensable tools in my prop-making bag.

Useful Sites

Proptober Fest Links

Berkeley Rep has posted a video of the set changes in Chinglish. It’s fun and very well made; I saw Chinglish back on Broadway and the scene changes were slick, fast and fluid. I wish more theatres featured their technical and backstage elements like Berkeley Rep has done here; so much of what we do is underrepresented in the media, and it all just disappears once the show closes.

If you like James Bond, a new website called “The Credits” has a short article on some of the famous gadgets in those 22 films. The website also has a cool story and video on Western Costume, one of the large costume rental houses in Los Angeles.

A blog called “She Creates Stuff” has an interesting technique for aging glass bottles with hardening oil rather than paint; this keeps them food safe so they can still be drunk from (found via the Propnomicon blog).

Of the 68,890,282 chemicals used in business and industry today, only about 900 have been tested for cancer-causing abilities. As props people, we are exposed to many chemicals on a daily basis in our paints, adhesives, cleaning products, molding and casting compounds, coatings and even when cutting solid materials. Many of these chemicals are introduced to products without testing whether they are toxic or cause long-term harm. The Safe Chemicals Act means to amend the current laws so that manufacturers have to test chemicals before they sell them to you, rather than the other way around. Currently, it is languishing in the Senate; you can help push it along by contacting Senator Harry Reid, signing this online petition, or by contacting your own Senator to urge action.

Useful Sites

Everybody’s Propping for the Weekend

I love Katz’s Deli in New York City, and I love tiny models of buildings. So it’s no surprise that I love this tiny model of Katz’s Deli. The intricacy of detail in this is simply amazing. Would a tiny Katz be called a Kittenz?

Mike Iverson of Blind Squirrel Props has posted these prop building tips for beginners. I agree with every tip here.

This video interview of Ray Harryhausen is fun to watch. Harryhausen is responsible for some of the most memorable stop-motion creatures from the 1960s through the 1980s, such as One Million Years B.C., Clash of the Titans, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and Jason and the Argonauts.

The prop master for the upcoming sci-fi film Looper told his prop makers to stop being so “precious” when building the futuristic weapons.

Useful Sites

TGI Links

This is from a few years ago, but it should provide a lengthy diversion: The New York Stagehand Glossary. It has a lot of terms which should be familiar to many of us, along with many I have heard for the first time (which is understandable, because I only did a bit of work as a stagehand while living in New York City).

Back in the old days, inventors who applied for a patent also had to submit a model of their invention. These models ranged from simple craft attempts to miniature marvels of engineering. The Rothschild Petersen Patent Model Museum houses one of the largest collections of these models, most dating from the 18th and 19th century. You can also view this set of photographs showing more of the models and exhibits.

Prosthesis
Prosthesis by bjepson, on Flickr

Most props people are familiar with Mortite and floral putty for temporarily securing props to shelves, trays and tables. Sometimes, though, you want something a little stronger; you may even need something clear, such as when you need to secure crystal to a glass surface. Quakehold! has a whole bunch of products intended for securing your collectibles and valuables to shelves at home in case of earthquakes. Materials such as Museum Wax, Museum Putty and Museum Gel should keep your props from tipping or falling, and can be cleanly removed when the show is finished.

I like this tutorial for repairing broken plastic items with solvent welding with one caveat: you need to wear the proper gloves and skin protection as well as provide adequate ventilation and respiratory protection.

At the Props Summit a few weeks ago, they mentioned InFlow, an inventory management software program which can be used to catalog and track inventory. It was suggested that it might be useful for maintaining a photographic database of your stock. I haven’t used it, but the website offers a free download (you are limited to 100 items in your database) in case anyone was interested in trying it out.

Useful Sites

Friday Errata

Sorry for the scant list of links today; I have to get back to budgets and sourcing and stuff. I have some pretty cool projects in the works, though, which I will be showing off on this blog in the coming weeks.

Remember how California was considering legislation to make flesh-detection technology (like the “Saw-Stop”) mandatory in all table saws sold in the state? Well, it looks like that bill is dead. So, for now at least, you do not have to worry about your new table saws becoming several hundred dollars more expensive to protect untrained hobbyists.

This M*A*S*H site has a few articles about some of the more iconic props from that series, such as this one on the appearance and evolution of the homemade still. Lots of photographs illustrate the story of this wonderfully intricate prop.

Any practical use by us prop makers is probably some years off, but this article claims that wood pulp is the new wonder material. Nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC), which is processed from wood pulp, not only has a strength-to-weight ration which is 8 times greater than stainless steel, but it is also transparent and can be made from waste material (sawdust), recycled wood or even twigs and branches.