- October 4th, 2013, 6:52 pm#461993
After hours of phone calls and emails, and research, I am presenting the most definitive history of this particular shell. A lot of this info comes from Arron as it started off with him. Along with many things I offer, and invested in and worked hard at keeping it within the community, I offer you this extensive look back at this piece and where it stands today.
It is a large read so I ask you kindly reserve your judgments and opinions until after you look over the entire read.
Statements made in bold outside of the excerpts are mine.
Excerpts are all from my conversations with Arron about the history of his project with the stunt casting he acquired
Numbers above the text are in reference to the image diagram below.
1
(Email excerpt from September 22 and 28 of 2013)
"The original casting came out if the original mold from Columbia studios. It was made after the first movie.
I worked on the pack master along with others I hired along the way. The work was paid for so it's work for hire. That means I directed the work and the results of the work belong to me. The 3 people involved who actually touched them master were myself, Paul Cash (@acme-zenith studio) , Scott Brodeen (@hms). Brent may have helped as well. I can't remember.
The original casting of the pack I received directly from a good friend which I have left out of the story as all he did was hold the pack on a shelf for years and did no work. As for the person who has the origin mold and pull the casting I did not give out that information as its not customary to give out original sources. "
"He made only a few castings. Each made of Bondo and each time he cast a pack the mold shifted and the cuts did not line up. This is why everyone that got a casting eventually ended up reworking it.
This is was discussing the castings made from the Stunt molds. Those castings were either sold or given to a few people. One to Richard Coyle that is the casting I was given, other casting was used by Prosper FX to make the Stunt packs for universal studios. Later the same shop made a reproduction that made its way to Planet Hollywood and was on display. Another pack was given to a very famous Hollywood collector/writer/actor. He had believed it to be original. But it was not. That pack was later sold."
NOTE: Another name, assuming the third person who acquired a casting from this mold is a man named Peter Mosen
(Email excerpt from May 21 of 2013 )
"...Next that person made several castings. I had one, and a few others. One of those did go to another shop but it was not Hms, it was Proper FX. That casting was cleaned up and used for the universal studios packs. And I can tell you for certain that it was cleaned up completely different than my pack. They look 100 percent different. Now proper effects split up years ago. Half of the people went off on their own and that became Hms. My pack is not the proper FX pack. There is no merging of the two."
(Email excerpt from May 23 of 2013)
"The casting came directly out of the stunt pack mold from the first movie. So it is a first generation casting there were no other molds made in between.
This was the source of three problems.
1. The original mold was pulled from a dumpster after production was over. But before it was thrown out someone took a utility knife and slashed the mold. Two huge cuts were made across it. These went all the way through the rubber.
2. The person who found the mold was not an expert at casting. So he use the materials he had to make the castings.
3. He made only a few castings. Each time he cast a pack, the mold shifted and the cuts did not line up. This is why everyone that got a casting eventually ended up reworking it.
(3 castings were made but that is another story.)
So what you will see is that the bottom edge of the pack is curled and bent. And the surface is wavy. Later (at stage 3) to fix this we needed to heat it with a heat gun and set it straight. We would heat a section and clamp it to a plate till it cooled.
Stage 1
At the first stage of clean up I tried to do it the simplest way I could. That was to fill in the steps in the surface and level out where the cuts were. I also tried to clean up the filled in areas around the pipes. The results were not good. And had I kept going the pack would have looked exactly like the first version of the Universal Studios packs.
(As a side note the person who made the universal packs also used a casting from this same mold.)
So after I realized that this was not going to look good I went to stage two as seen I am these photos.
Stage 2
What you see here is an attempt to make the pack a bit cleaner. At this time in history I was lacking a lot of I formation on how the packs should look. Most of the research came from screen captures.
I decided not to remove the filled in areas or rework the entire pack. I simply removed the parts that were not worth saving. That was the center tube with heat sink, the smaller angled tube next to it, the battery tubes, and half of the tower. A piece of particular board was glued to the back to keep the casting from falling apart. Another piece was placed at the mid point of the tower and one more next to the battery tubes.
The tower was cut off for two reasons: to turn it around, and to make the mold smaller once this went back into running rubber.
I would have stopped here but I eventually found new images of the packs. Some were sent by fans who visited PH. Other were from Brent.
These pictures show the pack at the second round of clean up.
I'll need to explain round 3 and 4 later and the story of how I got the pack.
Photos will be sent in another email. "
Whatever happened to the original studio mold?
(email excerpt from Spetember 28 of 2013)
" They ended up at ICONS. And some good castings were made from the molds. I'm not sure what happened to the molds then. I'm under the impression they were destroyed."
Knowing people that worked at ICONS, some being close friends, there was no sign of the castings that came from the mold nor have surfaced.
2
The master as it was cleaned up went through different stages and revisions.
(Excerpt from emails from September 22 and 23 of 2013 in response to Brent's actual involvement in this project )
"The story as described below did not happen.
I believe I had covered the story in a very early email.
The Stunt mold was cut up. It was disposed of by Columbia not Sony. Sony did not own the team at that time.
The mold was pulled from the trash by another person whom in and others know. That person made the castings many years before I took possession. The casting sat in the shop of Richard Coyle for all of those years. I acquired it at the end of the 80s.
I can not give the original persons name but it was not Brent. "
"...about Brent working on the pack. He did research, sourced small parts, reference pictures, costumes, pke, and other bits.
He worked on assembly of the 5 packs and wands with several of us. I don't recall us taking any pictures of each other working. "
3
The mold was made privately.
Five castings were then made for the kits, with a couple of rejects along the way.
(Excerpt from May 20 of 2013)
"...My mold was made by Jim Kenny. A personal friend. And an ex mattel master mold maker. I contracted my mold directly. I dropped off the master and picked up the mold and master. It was absolutely not to related to hms."
(Email excerpt from May 20 and 21 of 2013)
More information on the packs
"Hms only made the metal parts on the packs. The tubes.
The main body of the guns and a few critical parts were made at appled effects. They were made by two great guys. Christian calqhune (check spelling) and Eric harlestasd (check spelling) christian worked on the packs from the second movie. Both followed my plans and Construction direction. Just to note I led all aspects of the project. All construction decisions, measurements, and materials choices were mine.
All the gun parts were made by another machinest. I did the plans for the knobs. Regardless of what fans may think my measurement are correct. I measured of my castings. Just to note all of the knobs on all of the original packs are slightly different. So nothing is correct or standard. The v hooks were made by Brent. The heat sinks were found. They are the closest we could find to the originals. They are one fin off in Count. "
"I dropped the mold off with hms and they used my preferred layup expert. Just name is Paul shmid.
He has done a lot of work in the industry for many years. He also worked at Disney. Currently he works for mattel. "
***To update this statement,... although Arron referred Paul, I later found out and confirmed just last week when I spoke with Larry Reed ( worked on MIB, Dexter and Revolution) whom is good friends with Mike Moore of HMS, that he was the one that cast the shells for Arron. A few rejects were made. The problems with them were "spidering" which is where the gelcoat was too thin and causes the brush strokes to appear on the surface. Numerous distortions and warping would also occur in these rejects. He said the rejects were fixable, but Arron insisted on having new ones made without these problems hence the five that were made for the kits.***
In 2010, myself and two others collectively purchased the entire project among other things.
4
Later in 2011 HMS had a yard sale in which a casting of a pack shell surfaced. It was immediately sold to Ross Arbuckle
Comparing it to an orignal stunt pack from "name protected" he confirmed everything lined up.
This was to believed to be one of the rejects that Larry confirmed laying up.
Arron confirmed recently its one of his....
(Email excerpt from May 21 of 2013 about the reject casting bought by Ross Arbuckle at HMS' "yard sale.")
"The reject in the picture is one of mine. It would seem that Hms sold it. I had asked them about that but they said no. (I don't believe them). "
Ross was told by whomever at HMS that he could remold it. This resulted in the molding and distribution of several sold through the RPF and privately via Facebook etc. making this a 3rd generations casting of Arron's original work.
One eventually made it into the hands of Bob Mosely AKA VideoBob making this a 4th genration casting of Arron's original work. It has been said he has remolded one of his own castings making it a potential 5th or even 6th generation casting.
Another referred to a "poduction shell" made it into the hands of NickaTron props making this a 4th genration casting of Arron's original work.
Other castings have appeared on Ebay under seller names of "Kenobiz" out of L.A., and "propsaganda" out of Canada making these fifth and sixth generation castings.
In conclusion, this is all a representation of Arron Macks original piece, hard work and collaborative craftsmanship.
In relation to this, there is no Production shell nor HMS shell, it is and has always been an Arron Mack shell.
A certain topic was best discussed here in regards to what some of my details may indicate so if you have not watched this, I highly encourage you to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKPJzuVs ... u:thumbsup
Here is a larger version of the below image
Image removed by moderator.
Image removed by moderator.
It is a large read so I ask you kindly reserve your judgments and opinions until after you look over the entire read.
Statements made in bold outside of the excerpts are mine.
Excerpts are all from my conversations with Arron about the history of his project with the stunt casting he acquired
Numbers above the text are in reference to the image diagram below.
1
(Email excerpt from September 22 and 28 of 2013)
"The original casting came out if the original mold from Columbia studios. It was made after the first movie.
I worked on the pack master along with others I hired along the way. The work was paid for so it's work for hire. That means I directed the work and the results of the work belong to me. The 3 people involved who actually touched them master were myself, Paul Cash (@acme-zenith studio) , Scott Brodeen (@hms). Brent may have helped as well. I can't remember.
The original casting of the pack I received directly from a good friend which I have left out of the story as all he did was hold the pack on a shelf for years and did no work. As for the person who has the origin mold and pull the casting I did not give out that information as its not customary to give out original sources. "
"He made only a few castings. Each made of Bondo and each time he cast a pack the mold shifted and the cuts did not line up. This is why everyone that got a casting eventually ended up reworking it.
This is was discussing the castings made from the Stunt molds. Those castings were either sold or given to a few people. One to Richard Coyle that is the casting I was given, other casting was used by Prosper FX to make the Stunt packs for universal studios. Later the same shop made a reproduction that made its way to Planet Hollywood and was on display. Another pack was given to a very famous Hollywood collector/writer/actor. He had believed it to be original. But it was not. That pack was later sold."
NOTE: Another name, assuming the third person who acquired a casting from this mold is a man named Peter Mosen
(Email excerpt from May 21 of 2013 )
"...Next that person made several castings. I had one, and a few others. One of those did go to another shop but it was not Hms, it was Proper FX. That casting was cleaned up and used for the universal studios packs. And I can tell you for certain that it was cleaned up completely different than my pack. They look 100 percent different. Now proper effects split up years ago. Half of the people went off on their own and that became Hms. My pack is not the proper FX pack. There is no merging of the two."
(Email excerpt from May 23 of 2013)
"The casting came directly out of the stunt pack mold from the first movie. So it is a first generation casting there were no other molds made in between.
This was the source of three problems.
1. The original mold was pulled from a dumpster after production was over. But before it was thrown out someone took a utility knife and slashed the mold. Two huge cuts were made across it. These went all the way through the rubber.
2. The person who found the mold was not an expert at casting. So he use the materials he had to make the castings.
3. He made only a few castings. Each time he cast a pack, the mold shifted and the cuts did not line up. This is why everyone that got a casting eventually ended up reworking it.
(3 castings were made but that is another story.)
So what you will see is that the bottom edge of the pack is curled and bent. And the surface is wavy. Later (at stage 3) to fix this we needed to heat it with a heat gun and set it straight. We would heat a section and clamp it to a plate till it cooled.
Stage 1
At the first stage of clean up I tried to do it the simplest way I could. That was to fill in the steps in the surface and level out where the cuts were. I also tried to clean up the filled in areas around the pipes. The results were not good. And had I kept going the pack would have looked exactly like the first version of the Universal Studios packs.
(As a side note the person who made the universal packs also used a casting from this same mold.)
So after I realized that this was not going to look good I went to stage two as seen I am these photos.
Stage 2
What you see here is an attempt to make the pack a bit cleaner. At this time in history I was lacking a lot of I formation on how the packs should look. Most of the research came from screen captures.
I decided not to remove the filled in areas or rework the entire pack. I simply removed the parts that were not worth saving. That was the center tube with heat sink, the smaller angled tube next to it, the battery tubes, and half of the tower. A piece of particular board was glued to the back to keep the casting from falling apart. Another piece was placed at the mid point of the tower and one more next to the battery tubes.
The tower was cut off for two reasons: to turn it around, and to make the mold smaller once this went back into running rubber.
I would have stopped here but I eventually found new images of the packs. Some were sent by fans who visited PH. Other were from Brent.
These pictures show the pack at the second round of clean up.
I'll need to explain round 3 and 4 later and the story of how I got the pack.
Photos will be sent in another email. "
Whatever happened to the original studio mold?
(email excerpt from Spetember 28 of 2013)
" They ended up at ICONS. And some good castings were made from the molds. I'm not sure what happened to the molds then. I'm under the impression they were destroyed."
Knowing people that worked at ICONS, some being close friends, there was no sign of the castings that came from the mold nor have surfaced.
2
The master as it was cleaned up went through different stages and revisions.
(Excerpt from emails from September 22 and 23 of 2013 in response to Brent's actual involvement in this project )
"The story as described below did not happen.
I believe I had covered the story in a very early email.
The Stunt mold was cut up. It was disposed of by Columbia not Sony. Sony did not own the team at that time.
The mold was pulled from the trash by another person whom in and others know. That person made the castings many years before I took possession. The casting sat in the shop of Richard Coyle for all of those years. I acquired it at the end of the 80s.
I can not give the original persons name but it was not Brent. "
"...about Brent working on the pack. He did research, sourced small parts, reference pictures, costumes, pke, and other bits.
He worked on assembly of the 5 packs and wands with several of us. I don't recall us taking any pictures of each other working. "
3
The mold was made privately.
Five castings were then made for the kits, with a couple of rejects along the way.
(Excerpt from May 20 of 2013)
"...My mold was made by Jim Kenny. A personal friend. And an ex mattel master mold maker. I contracted my mold directly. I dropped off the master and picked up the mold and master. It was absolutely not to related to hms."
(Email excerpt from May 20 and 21 of 2013)
More information on the packs
"Hms only made the metal parts on the packs. The tubes.
The main body of the guns and a few critical parts were made at appled effects. They were made by two great guys. Christian calqhune (check spelling) and Eric harlestasd (check spelling) christian worked on the packs from the second movie. Both followed my plans and Construction direction. Just to note I led all aspects of the project. All construction decisions, measurements, and materials choices were mine.
All the gun parts were made by another machinest. I did the plans for the knobs. Regardless of what fans may think my measurement are correct. I measured of my castings. Just to note all of the knobs on all of the original packs are slightly different. So nothing is correct or standard. The v hooks were made by Brent. The heat sinks were found. They are the closest we could find to the originals. They are one fin off in Count. "
"I dropped the mold off with hms and they used my preferred layup expert. Just name is Paul shmid.
He has done a lot of work in the industry for many years. He also worked at Disney. Currently he works for mattel. "
***To update this statement,... although Arron referred Paul, I later found out and confirmed just last week when I spoke with Larry Reed ( worked on MIB, Dexter and Revolution) whom is good friends with Mike Moore of HMS, that he was the one that cast the shells for Arron. A few rejects were made. The problems with them were "spidering" which is where the gelcoat was too thin and causes the brush strokes to appear on the surface. Numerous distortions and warping would also occur in these rejects. He said the rejects were fixable, but Arron insisted on having new ones made without these problems hence the five that were made for the kits.***
In 2010, myself and two others collectively purchased the entire project among other things.
4
Later in 2011 HMS had a yard sale in which a casting of a pack shell surfaced. It was immediately sold to Ross Arbuckle
Comparing it to an orignal stunt pack from "name protected" he confirmed everything lined up.
This was to believed to be one of the rejects that Larry confirmed laying up.
Arron confirmed recently its one of his....
(Email excerpt from May 21 of 2013 about the reject casting bought by Ross Arbuckle at HMS' "yard sale.")
"The reject in the picture is one of mine. It would seem that Hms sold it. I had asked them about that but they said no. (I don't believe them). "
Ross was told by whomever at HMS that he could remold it. This resulted in the molding and distribution of several sold through the RPF and privately via Facebook etc. making this a 3rd generations casting of Arron's original work.
One eventually made it into the hands of Bob Mosely AKA VideoBob making this a 4th genration casting of Arron's original work. It has been said he has remolded one of his own castings making it a potential 5th or even 6th generation casting.
Another referred to a "poduction shell" made it into the hands of NickaTron props making this a 4th genration casting of Arron's original work.
Other castings have appeared on Ebay under seller names of "Kenobiz" out of L.A., and "propsaganda" out of Canada making these fifth and sixth generation castings.
In conclusion, this is all a representation of Arron Macks original piece, hard work and collaborative craftsmanship.
In relation to this, there is no Production shell nor HMS shell, it is and has always been an Arron Mack shell.
A certain topic was best discussed here in regards to what some of my details may indicate so if you have not watched this, I highly encourage you to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKPJzuVs ... u:thumbsup
Here is a larger version of the below image
Image removed by moderator.
Image removed by moderator.
Last edited by JoeLuna33 on October 6th, 2013, 2:42 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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