Sadly this is a prop that for the time being is going to be on the shelf waiting for assembly, as I have things of higher priority ahead of it, such as finishing off the run of handles for the 7th Doctor’s umbrella I’m making, and the small level of work I need to perform on my Proton Pack before I attend MCM Expo on Halloween.
Still, it’s one I’m eagerly anticipating starting work on:
The shell is one of Guntakella’s. At first I thought they were rather pricey, but having handled it my hand, I have to say it is a superb piece of craftmanship. The two halves of the shell slot together beautifully, and hold together without the need for glues or screws, although it will be screwed together when it’s finished. I purchased this shell from Crix for $90, the wings pictured are gbdan’s, and probably won’t be in the final prop.
I also purchased one of Hyperdyne’s PKE light kits from noslliT, and it’s awesome. I’m aware of must of the public-noted issues that have so far been documented with Hyperdyne’s kit, so I think I’m going into that pretty well educated… the lighting kit was $260.
Guntah’s have more room to them, and will require less work to fit the wing boards from Hyperdyne’s kit. Although you’ll have to make the covers for dan’s wings (or fill them in), they offer more freedom for the light placement, and have a lot of material for attaching the movement mechanism to.
They’re both good, but in different ways. Guntah’s seem good for light kits with cut boards, dan’s seem good for wings that need to contain a lot of wiring, but I’m an amatuer in the PKE field, this is all new to me.
I would just like to wish you good luck on this build. At times it might get a little frustrating but it will totally be worth the work in the end; I guess the key is to be very patient. I have the same shell and light kit and I’ve been working on it on and off for about a month now and I just about figured how to get everything to fit inside the shell without modifying the shape of the shell wing openings or the wings themselves. The wings that came with my kit required a LOT of cleaning out to allow space for the wing boards so keep that in mind. My wings don’t look anything like what they did on the inside now; compared to what they did when I first got them.
My wings are based on HProp’s template. Over the last year I’ve come to find they aren’t quite big enough if you use Hyperdyne’s kit, but a custom job could work. Since Ken based the template off of his PKE, which Hyperdyne made their first PKE electronics for, my assumption is that Ken’s doesn’t have the wing boards.
Obviously if I can, I’d like to use the boards that came with the kit… and a few people have managed to fit them into Guntah’s wings with modification. A tad daunting, but it’s too late to start getting concerned.
I struggled with building a PKE for years. I finally got it finished a few months ago, with the same specs. Hyperdyne’s lights and Guntah’s body. This was not my First PKE body however, I started with a real Iona. Then I got a kit (It may have been an older Guntah’s, I can’t remember. Due to spacial issues, and Laziness, I took the Stripping from the back and the faceplate from the kit and put them on the Iona…None of this matters.
The reason I posted was to offer another option on wings. Because of damage to Guntah’s during shipping, I made my own, and it was incredibly easy. I got two sheets of styrene, (I guess it was 1/8 and 1/16?) traced my remaining Guntah wing onto the plastic, cut and sanded them to be identical. The way Hyperdyne’s wings are set up, you can center the LEDs in the center of the wing, by putting the 1/8" cutout on the “Busy” side of the motherboard (side with Solder) and the 1/16" peice on the alternate side.
Anyway, Just glue the two strips to the circuit board with Elmer’s White Glue. Put a healthy amount of glue on one side of the circuit and the matching styrene. As it dries, you can adjust placement. Then do the same thing to the other side of the board. you shouldn’t even need to use bondo to fill the gaps, just shave/sand down the excess white glue. As a personal Preference, From the top of the wing, you can see the three seperate pieces: Both Styrene’s and the circuit board. And I like it, gives it a realistic “Built by Egon” Feel to it.
I suffered a disaster with my camera recently, so all I have is my cameraphone, it anybody really wants to see how they turned out, let me know
Thanks for the info Ernie. I’ve been looking into getting some new wings made up that’ll allow me to choose the placement of the LEDs, however there’s no guarantee it’ll go through, so your idea is a good fallback plan.
