UFO Large Model

Marc said

>Yeah, the "big" UFO model (seen crashlanding in QOP) >was my favorite
>of the bunch. Unfortunately, this version of the model is >rarely
>seen in UFO, and I don't think I've ever seen a publicity or
>behind-the-scenes photo which shows it well. Nor a >collector who
>has it. It seems to quite mysterious... perhaps they blew
>it up? (!)

>Seemingly, all we've got are the episodes themselves... >where's
>a frame capture?! :-)

If you look closely at the UFO in QOP you will see that it is
of quite a rough construction.The model itself was made from styrene,acrylic and according to Derek Meddings
perspex.He suggested the centre cone to which the paddles were attached was made from perspex,he does,nt say what the paddles or the disks attached to them were made from.What I do know is that the centre cone,paddles and disks were covered with
highly reflective chrome tape.I,m not sure how wide this tape was,but its likely it was no bigger than an ordinary roll of sellotape.As you,d expect from professional model makers
however it was very carefully applied so that it laid as smoothly as possible on the plastic parts.At first I thought the model was chrome plated using some kind of industrial process and was very surprised to hear from Meddings himself that it was covered with chrome tape.The fact that the parts were made from plastic also surprised me.

Having said this ,if you look at the QOP UFO you will see what looks like extensive repairs to the chrome covered paddles,while the acrylic see through canopy,s are
almost mis-shapened and crudely cut.
The suggestion from the modelmaker working for Derek Meddings is that not many UFO models were built and that repairs did indeed take place.He also went on to say that
most of the models were destroyed after the show was completed.Whether he meant when they realised a second series was,nt going to be made, I,m not sure.


Regards Mark


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I used to have some of this tape I think. I had some in a near-
mirror finish aluminum tape and one in a nearly image quality mirror
finish stainless steel foil. It was 3 inches wide! (I still have a
piece stuck to a box.) It was hard to handle without creasing it but
very cool.

"GOT*SKY?"
Shawn Kelly
www.sdaa.org
www.darksky.org

--- In SHADO@y..., "Mark Davies" <aonq79@d...> wrote:
> Marc said
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