Transcript
Some people are just downright generous. It’s always surprising to realize that, huh? Take for example TrevorInCalifornia. I’m driving home from a shoot one day and he just flags me down, right off the side of the road and gifts me … a sword. A blade of his own making no less. Not only that, he’s presenting it in the form of a model kit. Now, what could be cooler than that?
I guess throwing in a bonus sword qualifies. Which he did.
Greetings good humans and welcome to Tabletop Alchemy, where sometimes a dear viewer shares some of their incredibly cool craftsmanship with the channel. And we salute the generosity of our patrons, thank you guys very much.
All right, check this out. A couple of months ago a viewer of the channel with the handle TrevorInCalifornia reached out after seeing the Model Expo field trip video. He recognized something about the geography and wondered if it was indeed the area he thought it might be. I confirmed for him that it was and he said two things that intrigued me:
I make tabletop game stuff and I gotta rid of some of my collection because I’m moving out of the country at some point and I can’t take them with me. It’d be nice to find a good home for them and I thought maybe you could use them as set dressing if you wanted.
And then he sent me a pic of what he was talking about and I was like, whoa! That’s super cool and it’s designed specifically in the Warmachine aesthetic. Which I dig, I like Privateer Press’s stuff, I’ve got a bunch of their miniatures even though I’ve never played the actual game.
So I was like, you really wanna part with these? He assured me he was good to go so I was like, well, damn. I can drive out your way one day and we can meet up if that works. So we set up a time that was convenient for both of us and we met up in a supermarket parking lot that was close to his place and right off the freeway for me when I was traveling home from a shoot.
Now we all know meeting new folks when you know you’ve already got at least one thing in common is pretty cool. That’s why conventions are fun, right? Trevor and I found each other in the parking lot and we just started talking hobby stuff right away and he was super cool to chat with.
I was so curious about his background after seeing the two swords he’d made. He’s a machinist by trade and he does what every good hobbyist does – figures out how to leverage his work space to engage with hobby every chance he can, putting his available skills and resources to maximum advantage.
Turns out Trevor’s way into building props as well as tabletop minis and terrain and, man, checking out some of his work, it’s so cool! I believe a lot of these blasters he made for various scratch building contests. These are just rad, I want to put them in a short film or something. I like the take on the grip and the muzzle of this sci-fi version of a sawed-off shotgun.
This one is super cool and by his own admission, heavy as BARK. I think it’s a heavily customized LeMat revolver from the replica company Denix, it looks like it would have been right at home on the set of Firefly, right? The historical LeMat revolver I think chambered eight 45 caliber bullets plus a small shotgun shell, it’s the preferred weapon of The Man In Black in the Westworld HBO series. Trevor machined all these brass parts to give it a chunkier cool sci-fi look.
Here’s a classic Star Wars blaster, looks awesome.
And his take on the Blade Runner PKD pistol, very nice.
Now here are my two favorites: this one is just super fun and it caught my eye right away, both with the color and the overall shape. What’s even cooler about this raygun thing is how he made it – it’s primarily a cocktail mixer he found in a second-hand shop. Now that’s creativity!
And this one of course I just love the aesthetic of, absolutely perfect for space pirates or, you know, Games Workshop’s Rogue Trader series, right? Again, this is based, I think, on a Denix replica.
Now these might look silly at first glance, but he explained that his buddy was trying to shoot a Star Wars fan film, but his buddy needed a bunch of stormtrooper weapons, super cheap and super fast. So Trevor basically built up silhouettes out of PVC and when they’re painted black and held by someone in the background of a shot, they worked like a charm. That’s like straight up filmmaker thinking right there.
He also showed me his scratch built light sabers when he wanted to have some miniatures for Star Wars RPGs back before there were any actual branded minis produced for these games. These old Reaper figures look great with these things, they totally capture the Jedi vibe, right?
He’s done a ton of kit bashing for various games, these are just a few of the pics he sent me. Some lizard men bounty hunters and, again, space pirate shenanigans before GW ever thought of making their own space pirates.
All in all, these are just like the tip of the iceberg according to Trevor. He explained to me that he plays a bunch of different games and likes all these different aspects of the hobby.
Then, he takes this package out of the back of his car and hands it to me. He warns me about the weight of it and he was not kidding! This little box weighs five and a half pounds! And then he hands me this, which is another 8 pounds! Obviously these are the blades and when he opens the box to explain what everything is, I realize he’s essentially handing me a 1 to 1 scale model kit of a sword! Isn’t that just freaking cool?! Tthe answer is yes, yes it is cool.
He’s quick to inform me that with a lot of these larger, heavier props he incorporates as much modularity in their designs as possible for the very purpose of assembly disassembly. That’s a very engineer thought process, right? Most of the time I wish I thought more like an engineer and less like a crazy person.
And then, as a final bonus, he hands me this bad boy right here. He said it was just a little extra thing he thought he’d throw in for fun. It’s all aluminum and is kind of futuristic like an energy police baton type of prop. It’s super slick and I could totally see this kind of thing being incorporated into some kind of security force in a movie, maybe like a sidearm for the cops in the Fifth Element or something like that.
All right, it’s time. Let’s build this thing and see how we can incorporate it into the set here. Whatever it looks like, it’s freakishly heavy, so I’m gonna have to put some nails in the wall through the backdrop, but hey, sometimes sacrifices gotta be made, right?
So rad, both blades are in here! A matched pair, long and short swords, so cool! I like the perforated blade, and these things are machined out of steel, so those holes have punched out some weight. These are not a joke, holy cow. Ah, that’s right, he mentioned he hadn’t finished one of the blades, so you can see the Sharpie marks where he was going to machine out matching voids. Maybe I’ll take this to a machine shop near me and get that added one day. Gah, this is a heavy chunk of steel! I like this stylish notch too – see, notches are great design elements!
All right, let’s see what’s in the parts box. Ooh, this … this must be an extra grip for something, it doesn’t look like it matches either of the blades. Interesting. Okay, here’s one side of a cross guard, machined outta solid brass. Trevor just isn’t messing around! We had a machine shop in the special fx place I worked at and I always loved the idea of shaping stuff out of solid metal, it’s just cool.
This looks like it should go in a small frame, like the designer’s notes or something, a little plaque with original design sketches. Very cool.
Here’s a pommel for one of the swords, and it has a little pin to lock the rotation it looks like. Again, pretty slick. These pieces seem to be really well thought out.
Some screws for various parts and oh, this is really cool, this is one of the end caps for one of the blades, the big one I think. This brass is so nice. And two of these will sandwich the blade to create that signature Privateer Press look.
Here’s the other side of the cross guard, nice. I like how they look put together. This is just getting more awesome by the minute.
And this is the cross guard for the short sword, already assembled. Trevor mentioned that some of the brass needed some polishing because it had been on display for quite a while, so I’ll have to go get some Brasso. Brasso – the last time I used that stuff I worked in a movie theater. Best job ever. Working at a movie theater, not working with Brasso.
More screws, all nicely labeled and separated, which is excellent for a person like me. Laminate pieces for the hilts, very nice. These are machined out of some kind of polymer, I’m not sure what it is. Some kind of machinable plastic, very dense but lightweight.
All right, here are the end caps for the short blade, again, nicely machined solid brass. A couple of unpackaged machine screws – I’m sure we’ll find where those go. Oh, and it looks like he was planning on either printing or engraving some Privateer Press inspired designs on the blade. That would be awesome to maybe get done at some point, too.
Well, this is fantastic. If I were reviewing a model kit, I’d say at this point that I was highly impressed and found the organization top notch.
All right, let’s build the short sword first. I think Trevor calls the big blade Beast, so I’m guessing this one is called Beauty. We’ll put the end cap on first, one side at time. He’s designed the holes and the sizes of the screws to allow opposing screws to thread into the blade opposite each other, nice and neat. This is so cool! I know I’ve said that seventeen times, but, you know … drink!
The first two screws on each side pin the brass to the steel, the third screw on each side appears to be essentially decorative, just threading in to become a design element, balancing out the other screws.
Beauty’s cross guard just slides on, it’s just loose enough to let it do that and now I’ll just tighten down the existing screws and lock it in place. The grip plates pop on and simply tighten down with three screws each. And now for the pommel with the locking pin. I’m not quite sure what’s going on here, like the screw extending from the pommel spins freely so how do you attach it to the – oh! Removing the end cap screw reveals a hole down inside of which is trapped the machine screw that is extending out through the underside of the pommel. That’s a clever move right there. And, this is typical Ignatius right here – I forgot to put the alignment pin in before screwing the pommel on. So, you know what I always say: measure once, cut fifty times. That’s the way to live life. Okay, now I’ve got it in there correctly and we can put that end screw in to seal it up and this sword is finished! No doubt it’s a heavy slab of a sword but it looks just awesome, I really like it! It’s super cool – DRINK!
All right, time for the Beast! Starting with the end caps again, I just really like these chunks of brass. Three screws attach each side of the brass caps to the blade, with one of those three being larger for a bit of visual design kick. As opposed to Beauty’s final decorative screw, Beast’s end cap is not only attached to the steel but also attached brass to brass with this pair of off-set length screws, one threading through both pieces and the other capping the empty side to match the design layout. Again, nice engineering here.
Each side of the cross guard is attached to the steel with four screws, again two different sizes for aesthetic purposes and then on the ends the brass is attached to itself in the same way as the end cap was, with a long and short screw opposing each other, so the final look is mirrored on both sides. I have to say, this assembly process has been very smooth and super easy, definitely the hallmark of good design.
The grip plates go on, again, simply attached with four screws on each side and the pommel on this thing is simpler than the other one, this is where we use those two loose machine screws, they thread right through the pommel and into the blade’s tang and done is done! This thing is truly a beast! It’s gotta weigh 7 or 8 pounds. I could do curls with this thing. And like get buffer. I mean … we’re not gonna go there.
Look at them! What a pair, right? Super cool. And yeah, drink, damn you, drink! Drink to Trevor and drink to these ridiculous props, drink to their amazing-ness!
Trevor, if you’re still out there, man, my sincerest thanks again for sharing this incredible stuff with me and the dear viewers. And I hope I didn’t bum you out by taking so long to get these things into a video!
Man these are so cool.
So, now I gotta go off-script here, ‘cause I wanna check these out up on the wall, but I don’t know what that’s gonna be like until I do it, which is now, so I can’t write – I mean I couldn’t write – the script for this bit because I hadn’t done it, but I’m doing it now. Yeah.
Okay, so I just realized a couple of things there. I mean number one, the large sword just, my frame is not quite wide enough to fit the sword top to bottom and I really like the bottom end of the sword and I really like the pommel of the sword and I don’t really wanna obscure those. And of course now we’ve got Beauty back there, sorry this side, and, um, the focus shift I forget how much it changes the frame because you know these lenses I use don’t cost fifty thousand dollars. Yeah I should have actually brought it a little more into the frame. Uh, hmm. I can move it over you know it’s just moving nails over a little bit, but it’s also kind of a bummer that I don’t get to see the bottom and of course it’s all soft focus so doesn’t really matter. Um, let’s look at one more thing, real quick.
So the two swords thing is – someday my camera will go in focus there – the uh the two swords, the two swords thing is pretty cool I get weird shadows from my back light. Right, from the swords – it kinda doesn’t matter, I don’t know I have to see what this looks like in post, in color correction, I actually do like the two swords coming up over my shoulder. Make me look like a badass! Anyway, at some point I’ll – I’ll figure out a way to get the second sword up there cause I really like that look. You guys let me know what you think.
So, there we go, a new addition to the set. I’m pretty stoked. I’ts very cool, right? Dare I say: it’s super cool! Count on me to keep ya drinking to the very end.
Well … go build a prop. I’ve done that a couple of times. I put this in the background on the shelf in a couple of videos, and I actually built it out of a plastic pirate gun and an actual cheap hand crossbow thingy from a toy shop. Building props can be just as cool as building terrain and painting miniatures. So if you haven’t ever thought about fabricating a prop, hey, maybe you got some inspiration here. You can build something decorative that just goes up on your wall or put it in your DnD room or you know whatever. There’s just – it’s kinda cool.
And if you didn’t get any inspiration here today, at least you got to drink, don’t complain.
See ya!