#commbadge

This is a photo of part of my Star Trek delta badges collection, which sits atop this groovy gold-weave black lurex I got on Amazon which seemed appropriately 1960s, which itself is pinned to the backing board of a black shadowbox from Michaels.

Featured here is the Quantum Mechanix (QMX) TNG commbadge with magnetic backing. It’s cast from one of the remaining original prop molds so it has fine detailing. (Above it is the QMX Strange New Worlds delta, and below it are a pair of the FanSets Picard S3 badges.)

The one annoying thing about it is that they chose not to use screen-accurate matte finishes; Dupli-Color Instant Gold & Krylon Metallic Silver were used on the originals.

Instead, it has a generic mirror-polished gold/silver look, reminiscent of those cheap stamped pins that were available in the late 80s (see above right for comparison).

Below is a close-up of a screen-used prop from The Propstore London auctions site; It’s chipped and dented, but you can see that the delta doesn’t just have a black border, its sides were black as well.

I tried spray-painting a QMX badge to be screen-accurate, but it’s a set of complex intersecting curved shapes, so masking the delta where it meets the backing oval is nearly impossible.

I ended up with a lot of messy edges, and the clean-cutting vinyl tape I was using as a mask tended to peel the paint back up; I probably needed to rough up the surface and use an appropriate primer.

To get the look in the first picture up top, I started with a new badge, cleaned off any surface dirt and oils using isopropyl alcohol on a Q-tip, then simply misted a few coats of Dupli-Color Matte Clearcoat over it, allowing a couple of hours of drying time between coats, and turning the piece to zap the sides evenly.

The gold is still very yellow compared to the real prop, but the clearcoat kept the metallic sheen visible, while knocking back the reflectivity. It now resembles the matte gold on some FanSets pieces, so I’m calling this a win.

The secret to getting a really accurate finish, including a black-sided delta is to have the badge made of separate interlocking parts - so the next experiment is a 3D printed badge I had made at Shapeways, using files by Pyronuc / LoudMaker.

This design uses a separate oval, delta, and delta inlay, which I had printed in black nylon. This way, I can leave the delta black, and simply prepaint the oval and inlay before assembly.