I had the awesome opportunity to take my children to Disney World recently. As my family enjoyed the rides, food and entertainment, I was distracted by the construction and fabrication of the objects around the park. My Favorite was Galaxy’s Edge. As soon as you enter the park your transported to a new planet, filled with items and artifacts that really sell the Star Wars world theme. I found myself looking at all the fabricated parts. There’s everything from light fixtures to robots and a whole bunch mechanical objects sprinkle throughout the park. Assuming you know, I am building a Star Wars office space at the moment, and I have a great appreciation of how all of these objects were created. And here are some samples of the objects that I saw around the park. I would love the opportunity to talk to the fabrication shop or the fabricators that built some of these components. I’d love to pick their brain and see how they did it. I’m sure they have lots of stories to tell so if you know, who did this, please reach out and contact me. here are some sample pictures of a lot of the items that I saw around the Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge.
Wow Jason, that trip must’ve provided you with enough inspiration to last a lifetime… & a couple of office builds!! I do hope someone is able to give you some leads to the shops that were involved with the creation of this exhibit. Thanks for sharing the photos!
–Larry
@LarryFahnoe I can make just about everything in the photos. But here’s the interesting part, there were dozens or hundreds of the same or similar details around the park. This would make it difficult to set up a jig or fixture and bang them out. The paint, lighting and materials that the objects were created with would be really helpful to recreate similar details for my office. I really hope to find the person, company or designer. Unfortunately Disney probably had some sort of gag order 66 on everything. Not one YouTube video to be found on the making of the park objects. I’m also suspicious that Disney might of had some or most of the fabrications done overseas to save money and time.
It starts with the story boards for the film and then the set designers get involved. From there it goes to the prop shop for the build. Lots of stuff out there on prop building, as well as weathering details.
Yes there’s some great information on YouTube that show weathering, but what I noticed is the materials they used aren’t cheap prop one time use foam. They also are outside in the weather, rain and sun. So the build construction needs to be robust enough to withstand the elements. When inspecting the props up close most of it felt like metal or a hard plastic. The metal parts are easy but the plastic is difficult. We’re they parts form something else or 3D printed? Some are quite large to be printed. I guess these are the questions I’d ask the creators.
So let’s discuss this Wait time display box at the entrance of a ride. How would you make the box? Plywood, metal, foam, plastic? What’s the box made out of? How would you make it if someone asked you to build something like this?
How would you make the box? Plywood, metal, foam, plastic?
MDF for the flats and possibly 2" (depending on size) PVC pipe quartered for the corners … and of course, Fireball fixture table for assembly Also great foam site https://hotwirefoamfactory.com/
For a single one, I’d use a combination of steel and carbon fiber or fiberglass.
How long would it take you to make? Start to finish paint? What would you charge?
No clue on time these days Jason. I haven’t worked with fiberglass much in the last 25 years, other than some spot repairs. Too many projects stacked up these days and very little space to work on them.
I did think about how to make it though, at work last night while waiting on some paperwork. I would probably make the box in 4 sections…the front, a top, a bottom and the back. Use blue foam or similar to glue and carve the basic form and then overlay with a couple of layers of glass and resin. If you do the form shallow enough, you can vacuum bag it and make it pretty light. Might have to do a couple of layers.
On the tops and bottom, I’d form it so there is a joggle and then they would be bonded together after curing and trimming. Once bonded, some filler and smoothing to make it look like it was molded in one piece.
You would need to weld up a lightweight support structure to fit inside and bond to the glass to support it all, with some additional glass work to hide the steel.
Front and rear panels would be trimmed acrylic or plex, tinted or painted as one chose, with areas for the digits very carefully masked off prior to paint or tinting. Mounting would be via glassed in flanges, with something like nutplates or PEMnuts for installation hardware. If you are really old school, display would be using nixie tubes rather than leds. 
I worked as a metal fabricator for DH Morgan in La Selva Beach, and we made the Disney CaroSeussel among other things like Space Mountain coaster and more. A lot of the large scale fabrications were done in foam (like the Tea Coaster ride) and then molds made, gel coat, fiberglas…and repeat. If anyone lives in MN, Morgan mfg made the Vanity Fair coaster- at the time it was the tallest coaster in the US.
I work with a man that used to work at a Six Flags as a mechanic/welder. They had a substantial welding and machine shop to keep the place from falling apart. They had one of those legendary old machinists that could make anything out of nothing.
Any chance of sharing what material was used for the walls of the room?
It looks like that would be a fun project to work on.
As a kid of the early 80s, I love this. We watched Star Wars all the time.
Do you think it’s largely sheet metal or plate?
Seems like these prop guys tend to think way outside the box. There are some seriously creative humans out there.
you would be surprised how much is not metal, there is a lot of metal but also
Resin, FRP / fiberglass, drywall interior
weld bead can be simulated with a hot glue gun.
want to geek out
https://www.smooth-on.com/tutorials/
coatings to give metal look