After years of dragging my feet, I finally decided that it was finally time to get my KTMA bots built. But how could I make this as complicated and stressful as possible? How about waiting until 24 hours before the farewell performance of Cinematic Titanic and likely one of my last chances to talk to the father of the MST3K bots face to face?
We've all heard the story about how Joel built the bots overnight before the first filming, and about how the paint was still wet when the cameras rolled... but was it really possible for a modern bot builder to build screen accurate (or at least as close to screen accurate as possible) in say... 12 hours?
Thus was born "The KTMA Challenge."
Gentlemen (and ladies), let's light this candle.
I present to you the product of countless hours of searching eBay, contacting dozens of experts on European traffic cones, and wondering where all my free time went.
A Makerbot replicated KTMA Servo hoverskirt. Sure, it's not perfect, but until the original part can be found, cast, and made publicly available, this is about as good (and ugly) as it gets.
A confession: Since Joel had the luxury of just buying a cone, and cutting the top off, I call the prep time of my replica a wash in the overall project built time... but for the record, the blue "segments" took an hour and 5 minutes to print, and the red "segments" took an hour and fifteen minutes to print. Eight blue + sixteen red = lots of time baby sitting the 3D printer.
Sanded and Bondo'd!
All the parts in one place. I used screenshots from the old BBI Scrapbook tape, and some screenshots donated by Synamax to try and get the angles right on the pauldrons... it came out OK.
Painting went OK... except that after this shot, my hands were too dirty to pick the camera up again for a while.
Twelve and a half hours, a half dozen trips to the local Lowes, Hobby Lobby, and Academy Sports later....
Yes, those are 40mm ping pong balls.... I had ran out of 38mm... guess I need to get in the time machine and order some.
Fast forward twenty four hours and we're at the CT show!
...and look who I bumped into - Bob Bukoski of MST3KBots.com!
Joel said "Oh, wow!" and pulled out his camera to take a few shots. He was pretty impressed to see some KTMA era bots... and ask me a few questions about construction, and about the 3D printed hoverskirt.
Signing...
Trace was also wowed to see a KTMA era Crow... and he and Mary Jo were kind enough to pose for this picture (after Trace signed the bot)
