Moebius EVA Pod - Camera Cone and Hand Wheel
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Product Description
This is a combined detail set - consisting of a replacement camera cone and hand wheel for the Moebius 1:8 EVA Pod kit. The parts are all sprued together to save you a little money over buying both separately.
Replacement camera cone alone
Replacement hand wheel alone
Full set of camera dishes, including the cone (but no hand wheel)
First Part: Camera Cone
The pod’s upper sphere has four objects marked on the blueprint as “cameras”. Three are recessed, and one sticks out at the tip of a cone. The idea behind these cameras (and the two on the lower sphere at the back) is to permit the pilot to look around the vehicle via the viewscreens. Personally the design seems odd - I would think that slightly raised fisheye lenses would have provided better coverage - but there you go. It appears, incidentally, that the protruding cone was probably done that way to provide clearance for the door.
The cone as modelled by Moebius looks too pointy to me. The original movie cone was flatter, and the ring surrounding the camera tube was wider.
Accordingly this is a glue-on replacement cone for the Moebius part. It’s hard to know precisely what the exact dimensions should be, as there is little surviving blueprint evidence documenting the sizes of the movie cones. But this cone looks more accurate to me than the Moebius part.
Now, there is one error in this replacement part, and that is that the actual movie metal cylinder at the very top of the cone, where the lens is recessed, had fluted sides. I didn't add the fluting to this version of the cone. Because then you'd have to replace all the other camera cylinders on the pod for consistency, since Moebius didn't add the correct fluting either. However, if you want the full screen-accurate set, I've also made that!
Ridges
The 3D print will unavoidably have a little visible ridging caused by the print process. This can be eliminated with some gentle sanding with extra-fine sandpaper.
Paint
The bulk of the cone should white, like most of the pod. The projecting tube and the ring around its base should be shiny chrome silver. They're printed as separate parts for ease of painting.
Extra detail
Since the metal tubes were supposed to contain cameras, an extra fun detail is to put a small drop of clear epoxy or something functionally similar (Micro Krystal Klear, etc) into the tube to simulate a lens.
Second Part: Hand Wheel
There’s a round six-pointed hand wheel or knob to the left of the door. It’s been long presumed bby fans to be some sort of manual door release for those times when you don’t have an obedient HAL 9000 to open it for you. However, the UHD 4K disc means we finally have a good look at the details of the wheel, and it's actually labelled "REACTANT CELL INSERT". So perhaps it was supposed to be a release mechanism for the red object to the immediate left. The 4K disc clearly shows that the black recess beneath the wheel was used to indicate open and closed positions on the wheel.
Regardless of what it's supposed to be, the Moebius handle is moulded into the dish as a single piece. And it simply doesn’t look like a separate hand-rotatable knob as a result. Hence this replacement detail.
The replacement parts
So this is a drop-in piece that comes as three separate 3D-printed parts. Having separate parts lets you paint them separately with ease, and means there’s a little gap between the bottom of the handle and the top of the dish.
The hole in the dish runs all the way through. It has a ring which sets the default height. I've also included a ring piece that fits around the end of the shaft. If glued carefully, the handwheel can be made a freely rotating part. This will allow you to turn it to set it to different positions if you want.
Additionally there are a couple of other details from the film set - a grooved line and a recessed circle - in the original that aren’t on Moebius part, so I’ve modelled those as well. As the handle has subtle curves to its upper surface, some scalloped ridging from the 3D printing process will be apparent - again, a light bit of sanding will eliminate that.
Painting
It looks to me from set photos that the outer ring (including its inner wall) was white, the bottom of the dish was medium grey or possibly matt silver, and the handle itself was also grey or matt silver.
My recommendation is to install the outer ring into the shell, and putty up the uneven gaps between ring and shell – the Moebius opening isn't a true circle. Then paint the whole pod white.
Paint the base of the dish and the star-shaped handle separately, glue them together, and then glue them into the ring from behind. If you want a freely-turning handle, glue the separate ring to the tip of the handle shaft with care, so you don't glue it down by mistake.
Release 2, 27 May 2019
I visited the Kubrick Archives and was able to review hundreds of photos in their collection. I found some shots of the back of the pods and obtained extra details about the handwheel shape. I thus updated the wheel to more closely match the film set wheels. (the previous revision had very slightly longer projecting sections) I also added the extra ring part to make the handwheel freely rotatable if desired.
Replacement camera cone alone
Replacement hand wheel alone
Full set of camera dishes, including the cone (but no hand wheel)
First Part: Camera Cone
The pod’s upper sphere has four objects marked on the blueprint as “cameras”. Three are recessed, and one sticks out at the tip of a cone. The idea behind these cameras (and the two on the lower sphere at the back) is to permit the pilot to look around the vehicle via the viewscreens. Personally the design seems odd - I would think that slightly raised fisheye lenses would have provided better coverage - but there you go. It appears, incidentally, that the protruding cone was probably done that way to provide clearance for the door.
The cone as modelled by Moebius looks too pointy to me. The original movie cone was flatter, and the ring surrounding the camera tube was wider.
Accordingly this is a glue-on replacement cone for the Moebius part. It’s hard to know precisely what the exact dimensions should be, as there is little surviving blueprint evidence documenting the sizes of the movie cones. But this cone looks more accurate to me than the Moebius part.
Now, there is one error in this replacement part, and that is that the actual movie metal cylinder at the very top of the cone, where the lens is recessed, had fluted sides. I didn't add the fluting to this version of the cone. Because then you'd have to replace all the other camera cylinders on the pod for consistency, since Moebius didn't add the correct fluting either. However, if you want the full screen-accurate set, I've also made that!
Ridges
The 3D print will unavoidably have a little visible ridging caused by the print process. This can be eliminated with some gentle sanding with extra-fine sandpaper.
Paint
The bulk of the cone should white, like most of the pod. The projecting tube and the ring around its base should be shiny chrome silver. They're printed as separate parts for ease of painting.
Extra detail
Since the metal tubes were supposed to contain cameras, an extra fun detail is to put a small drop of clear epoxy or something functionally similar (Micro Krystal Klear, etc) into the tube to simulate a lens.
Second Part: Hand Wheel
There’s a round six-pointed hand wheel or knob to the left of the door. It’s been long presumed bby fans to be some sort of manual door release for those times when you don’t have an obedient HAL 9000 to open it for you. However, the UHD 4K disc means we finally have a good look at the details of the wheel, and it's actually labelled "REACTANT CELL INSERT". So perhaps it was supposed to be a release mechanism for the red object to the immediate left. The 4K disc clearly shows that the black recess beneath the wheel was used to indicate open and closed positions on the wheel.
Regardless of what it's supposed to be, the Moebius handle is moulded into the dish as a single piece. And it simply doesn’t look like a separate hand-rotatable knob as a result. Hence this replacement detail.
The replacement parts
So this is a drop-in piece that comes as three separate 3D-printed parts. Having separate parts lets you paint them separately with ease, and means there’s a little gap between the bottom of the handle and the top of the dish.
The hole in the dish runs all the way through. It has a ring which sets the default height. I've also included a ring piece that fits around the end of the shaft. If glued carefully, the handwheel can be made a freely rotating part. This will allow you to turn it to set it to different positions if you want.
Additionally there are a couple of other details from the film set - a grooved line and a recessed circle - in the original that aren’t on Moebius part, so I’ve modelled those as well. As the handle has subtle curves to its upper surface, some scalloped ridging from the 3D printing process will be apparent - again, a light bit of sanding will eliminate that.
Painting
It looks to me from set photos that the outer ring (including its inner wall) was white, the bottom of the dish was medium grey or possibly matt silver, and the handle itself was also grey or matt silver.
My recommendation is to install the outer ring into the shell, and putty up the uneven gaps between ring and shell – the Moebius opening isn't a true circle. Then paint the whole pod white.
Paint the base of the dish and the star-shaped handle separately, glue them together, and then glue them into the ring from behind. If you want a freely-turning handle, glue the separate ring to the tip of the handle shaft with care, so you don't glue it down by mistake.
Release 2, 27 May 2019
I visited the Kubrick Archives and was able to review hundreds of photos in their collection. I found some shots of the back of the pods and obtained extra details about the handwheel shape. I thus updated the wheel to more closely match the film set wheels. (the previous revision had very slightly longer projecting sections) I also added the extra ring part to make the handwheel freely rotatable if desired.
Details
What's in the box:
EVA Pod Handle and Cone
Dimensions:
Success Rate:
First To try.
What's this?
Rating:
Mature audiences only.
