(WARNING: long post, links to old topics)
Hi all,
Here's what I hope will be a most unusual first post. I'm a long-time model builder and prop replica maker, and I also have a few screen-used props, but none from QL yet. I've been lurking here while doing web research on the handlink for several weeks.
Ever since QL was in first-run broadcast, I've wanted my own "Gummi Bear" handlink. Although this website is probably the best source of info on the original props currently to be found on the web, there is some erroneous info here too. Since most of it is found in very old topics, rather than resurrecting a bunch of them, I thought it might be better to post a new one and put all of my corrections in one place. I'm also adding a couple of things I've discovered on my own (though I'm probably not the first), which I couldn't find online anywhere.
Topics with posts about handlink sounds:
Ziggy noises
A Long Shot
Need some help with Handlink audio files
Need some sounds for fanvids
Though technically the sounds weren't part of the prop, since replica builders often want their props to make sounds, and clips from the show are invariably noisy or contain unwanted sounds, I've included info relating to the handlink sounds here. I have found clear and mostly-clean copies of several of the exact sound effects that were dubbed in for the handlink, in some CD collections of cartoon sound effects from Hanna-Barbera. These sounds were used in many of the classic cartoons from the 1960s through the '80s, such as The Flintstones; Scooby Doo, Where Are You?; The Jetsons; Super Friends; etc. I first recognized a brief montage containing several of the handlink sounds when I channel-surfed into an episode of Scooby Doo where he hides in a barrel, pokes his tail out the top and bends it then pivots it around like a periscope, then peeks out through a knot hole in the side. I haven't listened to all of the Hanna-Barbera collections CDs yet but I would not be surprised if all of the HL sounds are in there. The collection CDs are not cheap, but they and some of the individual tracks containing HL sounds (and even some shorter clips edited from those tracks) can be found online if you search enough. Even if the HL sounds are not all found in the H-B CD collections, I'm fairly sure the missing ones can be found somewhere in the H-B library of cartoons. I haven't been able to find or identify the handlink "Ziggy squeals" yet, but I believe they may be the voice of some cute unintelligible cartoon creature, and are probably not included in the sound effects library. They may have been altered in pitch for the handlink by filtering and/or being played at a different speed than in the original cartoon.
Topic with posts about LED colors, plastic names, colors and colors changing, gluing:
My Handlink Replica
The LED colors used in the hero props were green, red and yellow (in all prop versions), plus a few orange in at least two versions. The green LEDs often appeared yellow (especially in the era of VHS tapes and pre-HD TV), and the orange and red may appear the same also, so if you don't have the highest quality of source material and screen, you might think the LEDs used were only red and yellow.
Regarding the different names of plastics that have been mentioned as being used-- Lucite, Perspex and Plexiglas are all trade names for the same thing: poly(methyl methacrylate), also known as PMMA, and usually referred to generically as "acrylic", though in reality "acrylic" more correctly refers to a family of chemically-related plastics, of which PMMA is only one member.
The original transparent plastic colors used were: clear, fluorescent pink (sometimes appears orangeish), fluorescent green (often looks more like yellow), light blue, dark blue and amber (a medium yellow/orange shade). The epoxy bodies of the LEDs were the following transparent colors: yellow, pale green, pink, red and orange. Some versions of the prop had a small area in a darker shade of green near the upper left corner of the front side, which was sometimes one of the LED blocks and sometimes just plastic or resin with no LEDs. Additional false colors (such as various purple/lavender shades) were often formed when light came through the prop, mixing different colors from its front and back sides. In some screenshots and photos of the real prop now owned by Deborah Pratt, you can see that repairs or modifications were made replacing some of the transparent acrylic tiles with new tiles of different, opaque yellow and orange colors.
Regarding the gluing of acrylic without fogging or cracking it, you can get glues made for this purpose from suppliers of raw plastics. Some that I have used are SciGrip 4SC and SciGrip 16, both made by Weld-On. They work much better on acrylics than "super glue" or "krazy glue" type adhesives. However, per the Wikipedia article, acrylic that has been laser-cut will usually crack when glued unless it has been properly annealed, a procedure which requires hours of processing in a special precisely temperature-controlled oven. For that reason, it's usually better to cut acrylic that will later be glued by either the score-and-snap method or by careful use of a saw with finely-pitched teeth.
Topics with posts about the battery used in the hero props:
Just a small thing i noticed
Handlink/PQL Technology Shots
Handlink Replica's!!!
3D/CG Handlink
In the first topic linked just above, there is a claim of the actual prop using 4 dime-sized "coin cell" type batteries. I don't have a clue where that info comes from; I've never seen images or read about such an arrangement anywhere else, so I consider it as most likely false. Several other posts mention a 9-volt battery. The actual battery type used (and visible) in the hero props was a "Type J" 6-volt battery, used primarily in Polaroid instant cameras. Different brands were used at various times, as can be seen in some of the high-resolution screenshots posted in the Handlink/PQL Technology Shots link above: Duracell, and Radio Shack. Though I'm thankful they didn't, I often wonder why the prop makers didn't use the standard method of "hiding" things in transparent items: wrap the battery in chrome! Cover the thing you want to hide in Pop-Tarts wrappers and it will be practically invisible.
If anyone reading this has ever opened up a standard 9-volt battery, you have seen that they contain 6 skinny "AAAA" size cells. The J battery has 4 of the exact same cells inside it. These cells are slightly unusual though, at least in the batteries I've opened, because they are negative (-) polarity at the "pin" end and positive (+) on the flat end, the opposite of normal AAAA cells. This info could be useful in case J batteries become difficult to obtain, because if you split one open carefully along the seam, you can simply use it as a holder for AAAA cells, as long as you get the polarity right when you install them. If AAAA cells become hard to get too, you can still get them by cutting open 9 volt batteries.
It's a shame about the scammers who posted here. I'm glad to see that preventive action was taken apparently before "MrDashbo" was able to con anyone with his bogus lightless replica, and I am sorry for those who were robbed by Brad "NeuroMason" Bowlin. That episode is especially distasteful considering his seemingly genuine talent -- in analyzing his images posted here and elsewhere I see that he constructed no less than six different reasonably faithful "gummi bear" handlink replicas (possibly more), so I have to wonder, just why didn't he deliver them as promised?
Anyway, sorry for the long-windedness but I hope this post helps out others like me who are trying to research this fascinating prop to find what they want to know and make sense of the conflicting information that is available.
Hi all,
Here's what I hope will be a most unusual first post. I'm a long-time model builder and prop replica maker, and I also have a few screen-used props, but none from QL yet. I've been lurking here while doing web research on the handlink for several weeks.
Ever since QL was in first-run broadcast, I've wanted my own "Gummi Bear" handlink. Although this website is probably the best source of info on the original props currently to be found on the web, there is some erroneous info here too. Since most of it is found in very old topics, rather than resurrecting a bunch of them, I thought it might be better to post a new one and put all of my corrections in one place. I'm also adding a couple of things I've discovered on my own (though I'm probably not the first), which I couldn't find online anywhere.
Topics with posts about handlink sounds:
Ziggy noises
A Long Shot
Need some help with Handlink audio files
Need some sounds for fanvids
Though technically the sounds weren't part of the prop, since replica builders often want their props to make sounds, and clips from the show are invariably noisy or contain unwanted sounds, I've included info relating to the handlink sounds here. I have found clear and mostly-clean copies of several of the exact sound effects that were dubbed in for the handlink, in some CD collections of cartoon sound effects from Hanna-Barbera. These sounds were used in many of the classic cartoons from the 1960s through the '80s, such as The Flintstones; Scooby Doo, Where Are You?; The Jetsons; Super Friends; etc. I first recognized a brief montage containing several of the handlink sounds when I channel-surfed into an episode of Scooby Doo where he hides in a barrel, pokes his tail out the top and bends it then pivots it around like a periscope, then peeks out through a knot hole in the side. I haven't listened to all of the Hanna-Barbera collections CDs yet but I would not be surprised if all of the HL sounds are in there. The collection CDs are not cheap, but they and some of the individual tracks containing HL sounds (and even some shorter clips edited from those tracks) can be found online if you search enough. Even if the HL sounds are not all found in the H-B CD collections, I'm fairly sure the missing ones can be found somewhere in the H-B library of cartoons. I haven't been able to find or identify the handlink "Ziggy squeals" yet, but I believe they may be the voice of some cute unintelligible cartoon creature, and are probably not included in the sound effects library. They may have been altered in pitch for the handlink by filtering and/or being played at a different speed than in the original cartoon.
Topic with posts about LED colors, plastic names, colors and colors changing, gluing:
My Handlink Replica
The LED colors used in the hero props were green, red and yellow (in all prop versions), plus a few orange in at least two versions. The green LEDs often appeared yellow (especially in the era of VHS tapes and pre-HD TV), and the orange and red may appear the same also, so if you don't have the highest quality of source material and screen, you might think the LEDs used were only red and yellow.
Regarding the different names of plastics that have been mentioned as being used-- Lucite, Perspex and Plexiglas are all trade names for the same thing: poly(methyl methacrylate), also known as PMMA, and usually referred to generically as "acrylic", though in reality "acrylic" more correctly refers to a family of chemically-related plastics, of which PMMA is only one member.
The original transparent plastic colors used were: clear, fluorescent pink (sometimes appears orangeish), fluorescent green (often looks more like yellow), light blue, dark blue and amber (a medium yellow/orange shade). The epoxy bodies of the LEDs were the following transparent colors: yellow, pale green, pink, red and orange. Some versions of the prop had a small area in a darker shade of green near the upper left corner of the front side, which was sometimes one of the LED blocks and sometimes just plastic or resin with no LEDs. Additional false colors (such as various purple/lavender shades) were often formed when light came through the prop, mixing different colors from its front and back sides. In some screenshots and photos of the real prop now owned by Deborah Pratt, you can see that repairs or modifications were made replacing some of the transparent acrylic tiles with new tiles of different, opaque yellow and orange colors.
Regarding the gluing of acrylic without fogging or cracking it, you can get glues made for this purpose from suppliers of raw plastics. Some that I have used are SciGrip 4SC and SciGrip 16, both made by Weld-On. They work much better on acrylics than "super glue" or "krazy glue" type adhesives. However, per the Wikipedia article, acrylic that has been laser-cut will usually crack when glued unless it has been properly annealed, a procedure which requires hours of processing in a special precisely temperature-controlled oven. For that reason, it's usually better to cut acrylic that will later be glued by either the score-and-snap method or by careful use of a saw with finely-pitched teeth.
Topics with posts about the battery used in the hero props:
Just a small thing i noticed
Handlink/PQL Technology Shots
Handlink Replica's!!!
3D/CG Handlink
In the first topic linked just above, there is a claim of the actual prop using 4 dime-sized "coin cell" type batteries. I don't have a clue where that info comes from; I've never seen images or read about such an arrangement anywhere else, so I consider it as most likely false. Several other posts mention a 9-volt battery. The actual battery type used (and visible) in the hero props was a "Type J" 6-volt battery, used primarily in Polaroid instant cameras. Different brands were used at various times, as can be seen in some of the high-resolution screenshots posted in the Handlink/PQL Technology Shots link above: Duracell, and Radio Shack. Though I'm thankful they didn't, I often wonder why the prop makers didn't use the standard method of "hiding" things in transparent items: wrap the battery in chrome! Cover the thing you want to hide in Pop-Tarts wrappers and it will be practically invisible.
If anyone reading this has ever opened up a standard 9-volt battery, you have seen that they contain 6 skinny "AAAA" size cells. The J battery has 4 of the exact same cells inside it. These cells are slightly unusual though, at least in the batteries I've opened, because they are negative (-) polarity at the "pin" end and positive (+) on the flat end, the opposite of normal AAAA cells. This info could be useful in case J batteries become difficult to obtain, because if you split one open carefully along the seam, you can simply use it as a holder for AAAA cells, as long as you get the polarity right when you install them. If AAAA cells become hard to get too, you can still get them by cutting open 9 volt batteries.
It's a shame about the scammers who posted here. I'm glad to see that preventive action was taken apparently before "MrDashbo" was able to con anyone with his bogus lightless replica, and I am sorry for those who were robbed by Brad "NeuroMason" Bowlin. That episode is especially distasteful considering his seemingly genuine talent -- in analyzing his images posted here and elsewhere I see that he constructed no less than six different reasonably faithful "gummi bear" handlink replicas (possibly more), so I have to wonder, just why didn't he deliver them as promised?
Anyway, sorry for the long-windedness but I hope this post helps out others like me who are trying to research this fascinating prop to find what they want to know and make sense of the conflicting information that is available.
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