Tag Archives: copper

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Welcome Weekend Props Links

Meet Douriean Fletcher, Special Costume Manufacturer on Black Panther – If you haven’t seen Black Panther yet, you are missing out on a visual feast. Yes, the story and characters are very compelling, but just the props and costumes are worth the price of admission. Douriean Fletcher is a metalsmith with the Motion Picture Costumers union (IATSE 705) who created a lot of special costume pieces for the film, from jewelry pieces up to the full-metal armor of the Dora Milaje.

Let’s Talk About Sewing Machine Needles – Infographic – An oldie but a goodie. Sewing Parts Online has made a nifty little infographic to help guide you as you choose a needle for your sewing machine depending on what materials you are stitching. Of course, for it to be fully useful for a props person, you would also need to know which needle is good for sewing neoprene to lauan, but hey, it’s a start.

Inside Tony Winner Clint Ramos’s Creative Process – I promise this hasn’t turned into a costume blog while you weren’t looking. Clint Ramos is also a set designer and a friend of props shops all over, and it is fascinating to learn about his creative process. We should always celebrate when a backstage theatre worker is featured in such a fancy magazine as Town & Country.

How to Rivet Furniture Parts Together – In this riveting article, Christopher Schwartz guides us through how to use copper rivets to make pivoting furniture joints. Many of us are familiar with the pop rivet guns you can get at the hardware store, but here we learn how easy it is to use traditional riveting techniques.

Waldorf Astoria Archives – Buried behind the walls of this landmark NY hotel is a treasure trove of artifacts dating back to the hotel’s opening in the 1890’s. Some unknown person hoarded items like vintage postcards, menus, cocktail lists, ledgers, photographs, and bellhop uniforms. You have to visit the archives in person, but hopefully it will make its way online soon so we can use it in our research.

 

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Link-o-Rama

This is great: Michael Fichtenmayer experimented with a number of available art products to create copper finishes and showed off his results. It’s incredibly helpful to see them all together so you can do a quick comparison.

Here is a tutorial to build a homemade plastic bender. Now, remember to do this only with adequate ventilation; heating plastics can release all sorts of chemicals. No one really knows what we’re breathing. The MSDS for the plastic won’t tell you either, because they only have to disclose what the plastic is made of, not what it turns into with the application of heat.

Haunt Forum has a great thread on making a rusty and crusty texture with sand and oatmeal.

Prop Phone is an app that allows you to trigger an iPhone or iPod Touch to ring over WiFi or Bluetooth. They have a video up showing how to make sure the phone can’t receive calls during a performance; I didn’t realize you could out an iPhone in Airplane mode and then turn WiFi back on; I know, I’m practically Amish.

Check out this documentary about the company that made Scar Stuff, Vampire Blood, and Evil Teeth. Yeah, props people rarely use those drug store blood kits, but it’s a fascinating story nonetheless. I love the part where they discover a store has discounted their product as a loss leader, so they buy it all up and resell it to the stores.