The night I went to Rhode Island to visit the Regular Joes to watch them do their podcast, I was not really expecting Jason Isaacs (Captain Lorca) to pop by and sit with us for a half-hour or so going into great detail about his new show “Star Trek: Discovery”, but it was amazing.

You really need to hear this interview, and you can do so by catching The Regular Joes Podcast, Episode 214 – Rhode Island Comic Con 2017.

During that evening, Tod Pleasant talked about how he was currently printing the new Discovery Phaser, after having downloaded it from Thingiverse.

When I went home, I downloaded it and printed it.

Not satisfied with the solid black model, I immediately began cutting it up into pieces for full-color printing, and without going into detail, here are some pics of my final product:

The original model was in four pieces, which I originally printed in black, with a silver nozzle. The new version prints in five colors, and 31 pieces.

I use magnets to attach the nozzle and the Phaser I hand unit to the main unit. This way the nozzle can spin.

I use translucent blue for the setting indicator ring, which I can also print in translucent red if I want to set it to KILL!

A slot in front for the emitter, and a magnet at the back, allow the Phaser I hand unit to come out and snap back in easily.

As you can see, the middle one is set to Kill.

I also made an appropriate display base, with the new Insignia with pips.

The Phaser I hand unit has a translucent emitter the same color as the setting. Eventually I want to add more functionality here, to allow the targeting sight screen to flip up.

I made five, one for me, and one for each of the Regular Joes.

I sell my 3D prints in various ways.

I have an ETSY shop called MoonbaseBeta to sell my Space 1999 Dinky Eagle pods, which are pods that never existed on the market, but many collectors want because they did appear on the show. These, I 3D print at home, assemble, and ship. Start to finish, it’s all me.

I have a Shapeways shop called FourthD in which I sell things for various collectors. Models for Space 1999 Dinky Eagles, for example, to replace parts or augment their collection with new parts that never existed on the market, like new pods, moon buggies to scale, etc. Plus some GI Joe scaled ray guns and pistols, etc. Shapeways does all the work. They print, they ship, all I do is upload my models and make them available to people.

On Shapeways, they print the model for their cost and profit. Then I get to add a bit for myself as markup which is how I make money. I usually charge anywhere between a few dimes to a few bucks, depending on how much of a percentage that is of the total price.

Yesterday I noticed one model up there I had left up for people to see and buy inadvertently during a mass editing session. But hey, fair game, the model was there, and someone ordered it. I got 0% markup. No harm no foul. I really didn’t care about that sale. So I edited the file to add a $1.28 markup fee.

Then this morning I saw this Correspondence on my Shapeways shop site, and here was my response.

I ask you: am I being unreasonable???

Announcing the first wave of my new Dinky Space 1999 Eagle Restoration/Repair Project!

I restored a Dinky a few months ago. I ordered some side attitude jets on eBay and they were very nice. But I was thinking I could make my own, and make them available on Shapeways. And for that matter, any part I wanted to restore, I could make myself and print it at Shapeways.

As of today, since my package of test prints has returned, and I have pushed all of the parts onto a Dinky Eagle I’m about to restore, I thought it would be a good time to announce to the collecting community that these are now purchasable on My Shapeways Store.

ATTITUDE JETS

(Click to be taken directly to the Shapeways item)

I started with the Attitude jets. Mine are modeled in the same way as the originals, except the rocket bells are not half-cylinders, they are fully round.

They come on a tree as a four-pack. You need only buy one item to get all four.

They are availble in white, red, yellow, silver, frosted, and raw aluminum.

RETRO JETS

(Click to be taken directly to the Shapeways item)

The original Dinky Retro Jets are paired with a connecting object that has no basis in reality. I decided to make these retro jets individual, which is far more accurate.

They are available in white, red, yellow, silver, frosted, polished nickel steel, and raw aluminum. (I LOVE the polished nickel steel!)

ENHANCED LANDING LEGS

(Click to be taken directly to the Shapeways item)

Also, I was thinking about how short and stubby the Dinky Eagle’s legs were, and how they were lacking fundamental detail. I opted to lengthen the legs to a more correct height, and add detail to the foot, and the hinged “heel” at the back.

They are available in white, metallic silver plastic, frosted plastic, stainless steel and polished nickel steel. Stainless Steel is my favorite of these. Frosted Ultra Detail seems a bit brittle and might break easier in play. The Strong & Flexible might take some doing to break.

REPLACEMENT LANDING LEGS

(Click to be taken directly to the Shapeways item)

Since this all really started with this Eagle I’m restoring having only 3 legs, I first modeled a leg after the original. These are also available. I have no pics but the connecting points are identical, so I am confident they will work fine.

No pics, since I have not yet printed one for myself.

VARIOUS PARTS, VARIOUS MATERIALS

Here are the prototypes I received today. There are other variations of each. See details on the individual items’ pages.

Future items I hope to include

• Replacement spine in Strong & Flexible White Polished (other colors and materials may not work.)
• Enhanced Spine that replaces the existing trough on the Dinky, and adds greebling underneath where it will screw onto the Eagle. Probably only in metals, which will be prohibitively expensive for most, but nice to have anyway.
• Replacement Engine Tanks, more accurately modeled
• Replacement Main Engine Bells with Baffles.
• Landing Legs for Passenger Pod
• Replacement Nuclear Canister

I recently added a new item to my Moonbase Beta ETSY Store: A Konami Scaled Landing Pad Display Base. The display base is rather large in comparison to the Eagle, but it is only a bit undersized, and looks really awesome when done.

I liked it enough to make a kit out of it that was nice enough that I would be willing to sell it as a kit so people could make their own very affordable Konami display. It would take some work on their end, but not anything really difficult. This was a very fast project.

As I had the 3D parts already designed for a smaller base I had made for Konamis (which I sell on Shapeways as a series of separate parts) scaling them up, adapting them to work at this scale, was not that hard.

(NOTE: This kit does not include the Long Building. I figured no one would be able to display it anywhere, and if you want to add that, it shouldn’t be very hard with some foam-core or matte board and a sharp X-Acto knife.)

I separated out the parts so the rim is made up of 9 – 10 (depending on the diameter you use) separate pieces which have a slot for the foam-core base, and the House could fit on my printer in two parts, and the docking tube could extend/retract. I also made lights for the landing pad.

The Kit Includes

The kit features all of the 3D printed parts needed:

• 10 Rim Pieces – (two variants so you can break up the design)
• House Rear Section
• House Front Section (with slot for docking tube)
• Docking Tube (extendable)
• Window Inserts
• Landing Lights – You get way more than enough

The Kit Does NOT Include

This is what the user has to provide:

• Black (or painted) foam core board – one circle measuring 28cm or 11″ in diameter
• Red paper (or white paper) printed with the cross design – one cross with each segment measuring 2 3/4″ or 7.5cm. (I searched the internet and found a few interesting landing pad designs which I printed on red paper which worked beautifully!)
• Crazy Glue to glue the two house halves together. Also to glue the windows in. You can also glue the rim edges together if you like, though they stay fairly nicely in place by friction, which allows you the bonus of breaking the display down and storing it easily. Crazy Glue can also be used for the lights, but I recommend White Glue for that job.
• Konami Eagles!!! I presume you have at least one of these if you’re buying this kit.

Instructions

1) Cut a 28cm (or 11″) diameter circle from black foam core (or any other color painted black). I used Dollar Tree black foam core.

You will note it doesn’t have to be a perfect for the final result to look great!

2) Red Landing Cross. I took red paper and overprinted a gray pattern on it that I found on the internet. Without getting specific, search here and you will find some.

Print it as large on an 8.5 x 11″ sheet as you can. The Cross width (per section) is 7cm (2 3/4″). The whole cross can fit on one sheet.

3) Glue the two halves of the House together:

4) Slot in the Rim Edges. (Depending on your exact diameter, there may be a gap, but that goes under the house out of sight.) I include enough pieces to fit a base somewhat larger than I suggest. 9 pieces will fit mine, with a gap. I provide 10 pieces just in case.

5) Add Lights – This is the tricky part. Don’t worry, I include way more lights than you need. I start at one inner corner and put down the first light. Then I  add a light on one outer corner so the distance is the same from the corner to the light. Do this all around the landing cross.

• Add Lights To All Corners, so they are the same distance from each corner, outer and inner:

• Add a light to each mid-length between each corner light:

(Repeat all around the cross.)

• Add a light in between each middle light and its corner:

(Repeat all around the cross)

This is a great method because it’s far easier to find a mid-point between two things than try to line up 5 of something with perfect spacing. DIVIDE AND CONQUER!

6) Glue in the windows (or if you like, use black cardboard. Whatever works for you.)

That’s really it. You’re done. And when you’re done it should look something like this:

(Forgive my rough quick placement of the rim pieces… I really banged this project out in an hour once the parts were printed.)

Variants:

• Cut the cross out of the foam-core for a sunken landing cross

I have made some items for sale on Shapeways that pertain to Space:1999, the TV show.

These include items I’ve blogged about before, mostly during development when the models were printed on my home printer. Those were ok, but the size (especially of the smaller scaled items) meant that my home printer’s integrity was nearing minimum – ie: It was nearing the smallest scale I could print well.

However, Shapeways can print at a higher resolution, and I found the results quite clean and presentable.

Dinky Scaled Eagle Pods

The wonderful Dinky Eagles, produced in the 1970s, are revered by toy collectors and fans of the TV show. They came with one pod each, and Dinky made two versions: one with a passenger pod, and one with a freighter pod. The passenger pod was surprisingly accurate, though the freighter pod looked nothing like the pod used in the TV show. It was fun, however, and had a magnetic winch and four hazardous waste containers. But completely inaccurate.

So I made a pod model that plays the part of two of the alternate pods from the TV show: the pallet pod (which is a flatbed pod suitable for carrying multiple waste containers) and a winch pod (which is used to hoist and store containers in the nuclear waste depots.)

Here is the Dinky-scaled pod, which comes in two pieces: The pod itself, which is a flatbed pallet pod, but with a second part that is the winch.

Here it is as seen in the TV show:

A little paint and you can have a very accurate model. However, since the toy is not weathered, the pod works pretty well completely untouched. (Though it’s advisable to paint the underside legs and engine bells.

Here is the pod alone, without the winch:

I also have available on Shapeways the nuclear waste container. (Originally I modeled this in multiple pieces so I could print it at home in white and black so the black stripes would be clean and perfect. This didn’t translate well to Shapeways. The parts were too tight. So I made a single solid barrel available instead.)

It is hard to see with these photos, but the flatbed is ridged like the original, not smooth. The Shapeways render makes this more obvious:

This is what the pallet pod looked like in the TV show being unloaded by conveyor belt:

You may notice the bars at the top. These do not exist on the real pod model, but for the Dinky to pick it up and drop it, those had to be added. And the mechanism feels great! Fits perfectly!

Here is my home-printed pallet pod with containers, next to the Konami version.

Dinky Scaled Laboratory Pod

This has been in demand. I have had a lot of people in Gerry Anderson or Space:1999 forums request this one. It’s now available on Shapeways. It’s the Laboratory pod, seen here in a highly accurate larger model.

Here it is, printed on my home printers, cut up into appropriate pieces and printed in two colors:

This is Shapeways’ rendering of it:

Booster for Dinky Eagle

A companion piece for Laboratory Pods.

This is the ETSY preview image:

Dinky Scaled Passenger Pod (Replacement)

Sometimes people buy an Eagle incomplete, or they lost their original passenger pod. This is a vairly accurate pod that replaces the original. Fits perfectly, and is a bit more show-accurate than the original.

Here are links to the models, if you are interested:

Dinky-Scaled Pod (acts as either pallet or winch pod)

Dinky-Scaled Winch (sits on the floor of the flatbed pod)

Dinky-Scaled Waste Container (sits on the floor of the flatbed pod)

Dinky-Scaled Laboratory Pod (does not yet have the booster pack on top)

Dinky-Scaled Booster Pack (goes well with Laboratory pod)

Dinky-Scaled Passenger Pod (good for replacement of lost pods)

I also made available decal sheets (which you can print on sticker paper or decal paper) that wrap around the barrels, and looks like this (this is a sub-section. The full sheet includes many more copies of the barrel decal and the Alpha symbol, and also contains the smaller Konami version.

You can download the full sheet as a PDF (very clean vector art) here – Dinky And Konami Eagle Decal Sheet PDF File – and the instructions on how to use them here – Dinky And Konami Decal Instruction Sheet PDF File

Konami Scaled Eagle Pods

I also created Konami-scaled Eagle Pods, which are just over 4cm long. They fit nicely into the Konami Eagle, and do not need extra “stuff” on top of the pod to make it fit like the Dinky did.

Here is a photo of one. I painted the winch barrels grey. You don’t have to.

Winch Pod

And the whole kit, unassembled:

Shapeways rendering for better detail:

Pallet Pod

Here it is unassembled, (shown with decal sheet, not included, but you can download it at the bottom of this section)

Shapeways rendering (for better detail)

These two pods come as two different models, rather than a single pod, with add-ons. This is only because I made the Dinky version more efficient, and have not had time to convert the Konami pods. But this way, you don’t have to share the pod itself. Get the whole kit for either the Winch or Pallet pods.

Konami Scaled Winch Pod (all parts, including winch barrels and housing, legs, engine cones, unassembled)

Konami Scaled Pallet Pod (all parts, including 8 waste containers, legs, engine cones, unassembled)

You can download the full sheet as a PDF (very clean vector art) here – Dinky And Konami Eagle Decal Sheet PDF File – and the instructions on how to use them here – Dinky And Konami Decal Instruction Sheet PDF File

Moon Buggy

I won’t go into too much detail here, since I don’t have a lot of photos of these, but for now you can find links to my Moon Buggies on Shapeways, and see the few photos I do have.

What you should know, however, is that they come in two separate pieces you must order separately because Shapeways does not offer a convenient way to package projects that require multiple parts:

Moon Buggy for 22″ Round 2/MPC Eagle Model

This version is scaled to the new 22″ Eagle model kit.

Note: This one is far more accurate. I worked with an Amphicat enthusiast to fix some scaling and proportion issues, as well as adding a fair amount of more accurate detail. This one adds ridge detail at the back, the engine vents, engine bumps under the seats, even exhaust ports, more accurate dash, and a lot of other details you would not catch in the smaller ones. I also made the wheels more accurate.

I don’t have the 22″ Eagle, so I can’t show a photo posed next to one, but here are the Shapeways renderings:

22 Inch Scaled Moon Buggy Body – Comes in yellow, so you don’t have to paint it.

22 Inch Scaled Moon Buggy Seats and Wheels – Comes on a single sprue. Simply clip and glue. Comes in black, so you don’t have to paint it.

I recommend going there and using the 360 degree preview (blue box in the image row).

Here are some images of the same model, printed on my own home printer: Even this is pretty darned good, though the Shapeways resolution is higher.

Here it is, pictured with two 12″ PE Eagles, alongside the 12″-scaled version.

Moon Buggy for 12″ AMT/ERTL/Product Enterprise

This version is scaled to go with the 12″ Eagles.

As with the Dinky, it is available in two separate orders from Shapeways:

12″ Scaled Moon Buggy Body – Comes in yellow, so you don’t have to paint it.

12″ Scaled Moon Buggy Seats and Wheels – Comes on a single sprue. Simply clip and glue. Comes in black, so you don’t have to paint it.

Moon Buggy for Dinky

This model is very small, but poses nicely with the Dinky Eagle:

The model comes in two parts:

Dinky Scaled Moon Buggy Body – Comes in yellow, so you don’t have to paint it.

Dinky Scaled Moon Buggy Seats And Wheels – Comes on a single sprue. Simply clip and glue. Comes in black, so you don’t have to paint it.

Stun Gun

I make a 1:6 scale Stun Gun available to fit 12″ Action Figures like this one:

This gun comes in two pieces for convenience:

Easier to paint this way. Also, the guns themselves can be printed in silver. Some painting will be required to add the colored details. I show one here that I left in white, as a proposed Commander’s Special, or VIP Special version.

1:6 Scale Stun Gun Bodies (x4)

1:6 Scale Stun Gun Grips (x4)

Mattell Eagle Mini Stun Gun Replacement

The wonderful 3″ Eagle made by Mattell in the 1970s came with figures and scaled hand-weapons. People often lost these.

This is an awfully small size to print, so detail is a bit less than perfect, but if you want replacements for your lost Mattell Eagles, these aren’t bad.

Mattell Replacement Stun Guns

Launch Pads

The 1970s original Moonbase Alpha model kit was inaccurate in many ways, not least of which was the scale of the landing pads. The problems are described in this blog entry from a while back.

The main issue is that there are only 3 pads. There are 5 surrounding Moonbase Alpha, and for those who want to make a more accurate version, you can purchase a version of the landing pad scaled to these original ones.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I added a tiny bit of detail. The house now has a docking arm.

I made these in two scales – to match the original, oversized landing pads, and I made a version scaled accurately to the rest of the Moonbase model kit parts.

There was a later re-issue of this kit, just a couple of years ago by MPC/Fundimensions that fixes this problem and provides 5 accurately-scaled landing pads. But if you can’t find that, or need extras:

Moonbase Alpha Landing Pad Original Scale – with docking arm

Moonbase Alpha Landing Pad Accurate Scale – with docking arm

Cargo Crates

I modeled these to fit 44″ Eagles. A lot of people scratch-build these, and I figured they might like a set of crates to fit:

44 Inch Scaled Cargo Crates

I scaled these to fit the Product Enterprise and 12″ Eagle Model Kits, but found the detail gets lost so I didn’t bother putting them up on Shapeways.