Spellbinder99 wrote:
Please, take the time to tell us a little about yourself and what your particular interest in the Aliens movies is.
Cheers
Tony
Hello everyone!!!!
Very glad to be here. I’ve known about AL for many years and have ‘lurked’ once in awhile but, due to work constraints and tending to filling orders from my website (
http://www.thespyboys.com), have not had the time to devote in participating in the forums.
I already have very many friends that are already here and well known to you all (Harry Harris, Mike Rush, Steve Radler, Marcel Rulli, ‘Spat’, Frank Cerney, John Pisa-relli, etc, etc) and hope to make many more from this board.
I count myself lucky to have gotten to know these fellow fans and very talented and knowledable friends. The ALIENS community, as well as myself, have benefited from both their talent and dedication to the series.
About me….hmmmm…Well, I’ve been ‘hooked’ on the series since the beginning but went ‘Crazy Nuts’ after seeing ALIENS. I still remember (and don’t regret) paying $86.00 for the VHS release of the film the day it was released. VHS tape was very well made in those days otherwise it would have snapped after all the repeated viewings and constant pausing and advancing it frame by frame to observe details about…everything!!!
And yes…I bought it again on Laserdisc (both versions) and then on DVD and Blue-Ray in every release and boxset. Each time is like watching it for the first time…well, almost. Nothing was quite like seeing it for the first time on a big screen with surround sound with a packed audience (which by the way went crazy as the theatre speakers shook the floor with each of the powerloaders steps and at Ripley’s “GET AWAY FROM HER, YOU BITCH’ line)
Jump ahead a few years when I met Steve Dymszo through a mutual friend (Jimi Rooney-Black) who told me Steve had scratch-built a Pulse rifle. Well, I HAD to meet him and was VERY impressed with his work. I believe I still have some photos of that and will post them in the near future.
Originally, Steve was making it for Jimi but the cost began to get much higher than Jimi could afford.
I suspect Steve kept raising the price because he wanted to keep it (who wouldn’t) I later sold that one for Steve to a friend in Trenton , NJ whom I’ve since lost contact with.
Little does he suspect the rarity of that PR or the amount of money it would fetch today as an Original SD Studios prototype PR#001
It was sold because I convinced Steve that I could assist him in making a better PR by obtaining some real Thompson and Spas-12 shotgun parts. At the time only a few parts were available to us such as the switches, Magazines, and other misc. parts. Steve had both the Upper and lower receiver as well as the shroud machined out of aluminum and scratch built the rest of the remaining parts.
Only 2 were made…Yes, I still have mine and it weighs a ton!!!
Well, we thought we were the ‘Ultimate Badasses’ as we were probably the only 2 fans on the planet to have these pulse rifles. But…were we REALLY satisfied……NO!!!
I felt we could make it even better so back to that VHS tape where we studied it frame by frame trying to see what was the shotgun being used INSIDE the Spas-12 shroud? Suddenly, I spotted a part I recognized and immediately ran into my back room (where all my treasures are kept) and returned with my shotgun. It was a 100% match to what we were looking at on the screen!!!!
OK, that clinched it….it was time for an UPGRADE!!!!!!
I researched and found a company through a newspaper called SHOTGUN NEWS that a company called SARCO carried original deactivated Thompson parts for $200.00 apiece…..ROAD TIP!!!
We drove out there and bought 14 of these kits. 12 were to be turned into Pulse Rifles for a dozen lucky collectors or, as Frank Cerney called us “The 12 Apostles”
Shameless plug here: Frank produced an exceptionally excellent model that I assisted with, although in a very minimal way, of a Facehugger in a Statis tube in 1/6 scale that should be in anyone’s collection.
The remaining 2 were to be made into standard M1A1 Thompson replicas….WHY? Because Steve and I are also ‘Gun Nuts’ and thought it would be cool to have them in their original configuration in our collections.
After obtaining and spending hours de-greasing the cosmoline off the parts…yuk! We then obtained the needed Spas-12 Cage and Remington shotguns from a local gunshop. The shotguns were rendered inoperable of firing so they could be inserted inside the cage.
Steve had the shrouds made by, I believe, a company called Hyperdine and then had the ammo counter custom made. We wanted the counter to turn on by inserting the magazine into the mag well but it then had to rapidly count down and stop at 95 as we saw it do when Ripley inserts it into her PR.
Pulse rifle grenades were made to fit into and cycle through the chamber thanks to Harry having sent me a resin copy of one of the real grenades.
The twelve “Apostle’ Pulse rifles had to be EXTA special so suggested a padded military wood case be made as well as having a TM (Technical Manual) be supplied with the PR as well as having it tagged. We wanted the collector to receive his PR as if it were being delivered by the Quartermaster.
Twelve wooden crates were expertly assembled by my Brother-in-Law, Tony Kunz, whose years of woodworking skills and hardware experience created the perfect delivery system for these Pulse rifles.
I wrote and assembled the Technical Manual with photos of the Pulse Rifle. This manual was later enhanced by Derrick Baena into a superb and much superior version to the one I did (although mine was pretty good…LOL) Derrick was kind enough to include mine and Steves name in the credits of his manual.
An interesting and little known fact is that this project nearly killed Steve!!! I called one day only to find that he was in the hospital. Seems like he wasn’t wearing any kind of mask as he spent hours grinding and cutting metal for the PR’s and he inhaled quite a bit of metal dust into his lungs!!!
He later went on to manufacture a few more PR’s with Phil Steinschneider which, as you all know are considered the ‘Holy Grail’ by quite a few collectors.
Ok, getting back to me…..I’ve written articles and supplied artwork (some on ALIENS of course) for MODEL & TOY COLLECTOR, THE GARAGE KIT THAT ATE MY WALLET by Terry Webb, KIT BUILDERS AND GLUE SNIFFERS by Gordy Dutt, HOBBY F/X & HFX MAGAZINE by Jimi Black, contributed artwork to an ALIENS fanzine and a few more than I can remember.
I was partners in a resin model company NECRONOMI-CONCEPTS that produced a series of models in the garage kit industry.
I further worked with Steve (SD STUDIOS) when he had his Bond license and got to meet some of the actors, producers and SPFX people in that genre.
I currently offer replicas of props from the various Bond films as well as reproduction animation cel replicas of which you can sample at this link:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/thespyboys/sets/I’ve recently had the honor of providing resin replicas of the spearguns currently on the last two surviving original SPECTRE Tow Sleds from the Bond film THUNDERBALL.
I had my last collaboration with Steve when I designed the Yoda Lightsaber that was later used in the STAR WARS films.
I guess if you want to more info…just Google: Ed Maggiani
Anyway, this turned out to be quite a Looooong intro to myself. I hope to provide some interesting info and photos that you will all enjoy. If anyone has any questions feel free to contact me.
Ed
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