Avast, me hearties! A wee bit o’ prop makin’
by Cookster on Apr.16, 2009, under Costumes, Props
Ahoy, ye scurvy dogs, let’s face it, pirates have fascinated us for centuries. Pirate costumes and accessories won’t be going away anytime soon with the anticipation of Pirates of the Caribbean 4 set to arrive sometime in 2012.
A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to make a pirate costume for a friend, David, who had always wanted one. Although I was responsible for the majority of the clothing, it was a very time consuming project. Therefore, I thought it would be more fun to have David work on some of his own props.
As soon as The Halloween Express stores (www.halloweenexpress.com) were open we decided to scope out the various pirate pistols and swords. The sword was from Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean line of costume accessories. It is about 32 inches long and has a really nice heavy plastic sheath. Unfortunately, I don’t think it is still available for sale anywhere. Hopefully it will make a return when the new movie is finished.
David bought a couple of pistols and quickly disassembled them to sand any imperfections in the molds. After putting them back together, modeling putty (I think JB Weld might work better) was applied to fill cracks and holes that shouldn’t be there. With various latex paint mixtures and David’s talented eye for modeling replicas, he had some really nice looking prop pistols.
The sword, on the other hand, was a little more involved as it had a sheath cover that needed sewing. That was left up to me. I will cover the makin’ of the scabbard in the next post.
April 22nd, 2009 on 5:16 pm
Great job! Wow I can’t tell you how real the Pistols look and what a difference some paint/filler makes. I always love to see what others are doing and then I think “why didn’t I think of that?” LOL Great stuff!
Sarah
PS I hope you don’t mind multipal messages! :O)
April 22nd, 2009 on 6:37 pm
Are you kidding! I’m so happy someone is even reading these posts! So far David has been my only supporter.
January 21st, 2010 on 7:12 am
Hi!
I ran across your site while looking for pirate pistol props. Those guns look
great. I was wondering if you could tell me where you found those, maybe online?
BTW, the sword you updated is back at the online stores again! I’ll have to pick
a few of tem up for my Halloween display.
Nice blog, thanks for sharing.
January 29th, 2010 on 11:41 am
Thanks! Dave,
I got the pistols at a local Halloween Express who also have a website (if I remember correctly).
Looks like you did a great job on your rifle. I think making props from scratch is a lot of fun. My son, Todd, built a vacu-form table from online instructions for his ghostbuster parts. I hope you got a chance to look at some of the props he makes. They’re pretty fantastic!
February 11th, 2010 on 12:28 am
“I will cover the makin’ of the scabbard in the next post.”
Did you ever write about this?
February 11th, 2010 on 12:29 am
Duh! I see you did. You can delete these two dumb comments now…. :^P
February 11th, 2010 on 10:27 am
Hey David,
Don’t feel bad! These posts were written way back in April 2009. You were gracious enough to comment on almost all of my posts. You can’t remember them all.