40withegg: a tasty, filling meal for your mind: Posts

Adam Savage: my Blade Runner gun

Joseph's shared items in Google Reader — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:46:58 -0600

I made my first Blade Runner pistol when I was 18, while living in Hell's Kitchen, NYC. I stared at the VHS version on pause and made sketches. Put it together from toys and model kit parts. It's lovely and terrible:

(Years later the internet would teach me that the six dollar plastic gun I bought on Canal street in NYC and cannibalized for the grip was created by Edison Giacattoli, a legendary toy gun designer)

I made a crazy accurate scratch-built when I was 30, from resin and bondo. I had great picture reference but shitty size reference, it was 20% too small. Fuck!

I even had it chrome plated at one point and I weathered it:

In 2006, the screen-used original surfaced after 25 some-odd years and sold at auction last year for $256,000.00. ~~Supposedly to Paul Allen~~ [That myth has been busted -- Mark]:

This is the final iteration:

It's 95% finished. My hand-built baby. About 30-40 hours of labor spread out over (at least) 6 years. An original Steyr-Mannlicher .222 target rifle receiver and magazine and a Charter Arms Bulldog .44, both demilled and gunsmithed by me (working with hardened steel -- FUN!) with custom machined aluminum and steel parts (barrel, grip, butt) and made as close as possible, in every respect, to the original. Painstaking.

That is all I have to say on the subject (probably not). I can't even describe how good it feels to hold it in my hand.

[Click thumbnails below for enlargements]

Execution really matters

Joseph's shared items in Google Reader — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:40:40 -0600

Shared by Jared
Gotta say it's about as engaging of a 3 minute video of someone ironing as your going to get.

Yes, anyone can say that they value a nicely pressed shirt, that their employees are 100% aligned behind delivering a world-class pressed shirt experience, that their shirts are the mostly likely to be properly ironed, etc...

But can you actually do it? Over and over and over? Until it feels as natural as breathing, when it becomes the thing you just do?

Thus are reputations made. And reputation is the stuff really great brands and careers are made of.

William Shatner Reads @ShitMyDadSays

Joseph's shared items in Google Reader — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:54:18 -0600

William Shatner reading @ShitMyDadSays from last week’s Shorty Awards.

Shatner will be playing the Dad in the televsion version of “Shit My Dad Says” on CBS.

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid, subscribe via RSS, Email, Twitter & Facebook.

- William Shatner Recites Sarah Palin’s Farewell Speech In The Form of a Beat Poem

- William Shatner Month @ Bad Movie Night

- Mr. T & William Shatner Featured in World of Warcraft Commercials

- @shitmydadsays, Justin’s Dad Is A Funny Guy

- Jumping Fabric Photography by William Hundley