A few months ago I purchased the hero assault phaser from the Original Memorabilia Company, where the tip lights up when you pull the trigger; This piece was definitely one of my grails and to boot they were offering a two week trial on the piece, so I could buy it and then return it if I was not happy with it; return postage was a small price to pay to hold something iconic like this in my hand anyway.
When I got the package and tore off the bubble wrap I knew that I was holding one of the coolest Trek props ever made. It did have a couple if issues though, the first being that the removable power pack would not stay in the phaser (fixed that by wrapping more gaffers tape around it in the two spots where the tape had already been wrapped, thus when it was pushed inside the phaser the tape held it in place) and the second being that while the original tip of the phaser was present, the barrel portion of the phaser was missing. So I thought I'd contact Rich Coyle, who designed the tip, and see if he could make the barrel for me
Rich was great and got right back to me when I emailed him, told me he would be happy to make the piece for me! He then told me that my phaser may have been missing this piece because in Star Trek 6 they planned to change out the original barrel and tip for a different barrel and tip made of pewter, so they may have used my phaser in six and not replaced the original barrel when they were done; whether it was actually used in six however is a question that will never be answered.
Anyway, when Rich contacted me he told me that he had a production made barrel that he could copy for me, so I asked Rich to go ahead and make me a barrel and he did! He had me send him my tip first to make sure it fit his production made barrel, which kind of freaked me out because I didn’t know if it would screw up the electronics if I removed it. Rich said that the tip should just pull right off, and he was right! The electronics (with the bulb) are all self contained and the barrel and tip just slide right over the bulb! So I sent him the tip and he told me it fit his production made barrel perfectly.
Since it is a 30 step process to make the barrel (yes, you read that right, it takes 30 separate steps to make the barrel) it took him quite a while to make it, and unfortunately the first barrel that he made has a couple of nicks in it when the part got loose in the chuck as he was finishing it up, so he is going to make me another one but in the meantime I have the one with the nicks in it to display on my phaser! The nicks are up under the cowling so you don’t even see them.
I have included a shot of the barrel that Rich made for me straight off the press, before he cleaned it up!
