UK sources for aluminium gun knobs?

You cant beat proper metal greeblies, and I’ve been unlucky so far finding anywhere decent where I can find all the knobs for the thrower (front knob by clippard, side discs, top adjustment knob, lever collar shaft and the other large knob underneath)

The only place I’ve seen all those for sale is Epicprops but after my current snafu with an order and communication breakdown (queue Led Zeppelin) I’d rather find them elsewhere.

I know Benofkent does maybe the top knob as aluminium, but that’s as far as I know.

Any suggestions where to look guys? Preferably with uk friendly shipping costs

:whatever:

Thats pretty much it for machined examples in the UK right now, unfortunately :confused:

It’s just one of those parts that most of us tend to have to bite the bullet with and order from overseas.

No worries, as expected.

Any recommendations of places to order from, I know GBfans do top notch knobs but I’m still waiting for my 2 previous orders to ship from them still and I’d rather get these asap as my thrower kit is on the way.

Outside of the GBfans store, freaky geeky although some of them seem to be out of stock at the moment.

Macks factory have also just launched their set.

I’ve wanted to get some stuff from freekygeeky like bits for my pop mech for ages but like you said they always seem to be out of stock of almost everything. I’ll give Mack’s factory a look but I know how in demand his stuff is and most of it hasnt even been released yet!

On the point of pop mech parts, anywhere I can get the catch and lever from, I know CPU64 does bits but he hasnt been taking orders for now.

Shoot RJ at freeky geeky a message, I’m pretty positive he has pop mechs ready to go. He just did a run of them a month or so ago. I don’t know how frequently the site gets updated in terms of in stock/ out of stock.

Freekygeeky is doing a run of the gun knobs soon. I signed up for the waitlist last July, and last I spoke to him just before Xmas he said they’d be “coming up soon”. I’ve just dropped him a line to see how they’re progressing though, so I’ll report back.

I know you’ve had issues with Epic Props anyway, but the quality of the ones they listed looked pretty bad to be honest, so I’d have given them a miss regardless.

There’s this thread that shows you how to make the lever collar one. I did one recently, and it’s come out pretty well. You can make the lever and catch yourself fairly easily with some steel rod and aluminium square rod, I made one last week! You’ll need a vice, drill and some files, but it’s not overly complicated to do.

I had thought to make the lever myself, its 1/8" rod isn’t it? It’s more so getting the bends at the right angles that I’m not sure on.

I had a look at Mack’s factory knobs and I have to say I’m not too keen of the finish, like too soft and weirdly matt looking.

I’ll give RJ a try hopefully I’ll be lucky.

I’ve got 4mm rod on this wand just because someone gave me some they had spare, I’d guess 1/8" is more likely though. If you’ve got a vice it’s not too hard to bend yourself.

Is brass or steel the correct material to use for the lever? Plus what grade should I be looking for for easier time bending. I made the mistake of getting the wrong type before that split.

I was reading some old threads about the lever the other day, and mburkit said it was brass after he handled some of the actual screen used wands at the Sony prop archives. No idea about grade though I’m afraid!

Managed to get in touch with RJ and sorted out the bits I needed, thanks guys.

The one small annoying thing now is to try to find some nycoil banjoes as I’m aiming to build a super hero-esque pack after I’ve finished my current build, albeit a lot more ergonomic version!

They do pop up on eBay from time to time, albeit they’re ■■■■■■ expensive!

Radwell have some but they’re the later gen version with the wide ■■■■■■ where the tubing pushes in :confused:

They can’t actually get them, I asked last year :disappointed_face:

Ah nevermind…

Sorry to ■■■■ on your chips mate! I got my hopes up when I saw them listed but when they looked it into for me they couldn’t source them. Real shame as that’d have been brilliant!

Ah the joys of this hobby!

Only other thing would be to get some brass legris replicas and have the end bored out for whatever the O/D of the red insert is, and do it that way.

The GBFans banjos are really great quality, I’d definitely recommend those as an alternative.

It depends on how much of a rush you are in to get them but keep an eye out on ebay.

Nycoil banjos show up fairly regularly.

Sometimes marked as nycoil banjos or ghostbusters parts but often times they’ll just be under vintage brass pneumatic or new old stock pneumatic fittings.