Dave Foster said to me a few weeks before DAR 2003 (the UK's biggest and brightest SF modelling show) “I bet you can’t make the Handling Machine that appears in “War of the Worlds.........?!” At this time I had just finished repairing one of the 3 models made for an aborted photo-novel back in the early 1980’s. I had given the model to Dave a couple of years before and he had started to repair it. However, the job was almost impossible since he didn’t have assess to the right colours nor equipment necessary to rebuild what had once been an undamaged model. At this point I must just point out, before he hits me, that it wasn’t him who broke it. I’d lent the model to an exhibition some years ago and it had come back in bits! (a normal occurrence) Anyway, back to the point: The Martian Fighting Machine now stood before us all gleaming and newly sprayed and as nearly restored to its original form as was possible using modern paints and materials. (see photo 1) The most difficult part of this had been respaying the “cowl” (or “head”). This had been badly cracked and needed complete rubbing down to it’s perspex and fibreglass basic shape before respraying with several coats of primer-filler and then rubbing down with 400 grade wet & dry paper before finally spraying it in its original coppery colour. (originally I’d used “Roman Bronze” -the same colour as I used on the original Blakes 7 teleport bracelets) photo 1 This also meant I had to respray the “eyes” onto the front section which involved some fine masking (see photo 2) to achieve the look of the original. These are of course not eyes at all, they are in fact meant to represent the grill screens through which the actual Martian creature sees out. But at the same time I wanted to give the machine the appearance of somehow having eyes. photo 2 I need to digress for a moment to talk about the “paint situation”, and make the distinction between modern paints and those around back in 1980, because there has been a complete change in the make up of the car spray paint I use on most models. Once upon a time it had been cellulose based. (a wonderful, stable, quick-drying paint that never gave any trouble -paint manufacturers take note!) Today what we have in those car colour-match cans is supposedly acrylic paint. Its been changed, we are told, because its healthier (healthier!?! -cough, choke!) Actually, I’m reliably informed its just as evil stuff to breath in, so don’t be fooled. What’s in those cans is an acrylic and sometimes water (yes, water) based, unstable and horrid thin “paint” that is liable to pickle, crack, craze and not even dry properly. It can, and has caused me more grief than any other aspect of model making I can ever think of. I’ve wasted more hours than I care to mention trying to repair and rectify the problems caused when trying to mask up one colour on top of another only to find the bottom colour peel away from the primer like a skin. This is because acrylic doesn’t attack and key to the paint surface under it, unlike cellulose, and it is this HUGE difference that causes awful, time-wasting problems. (Sorry for that little rant, but I put it in just in case you think you’re the only person having problems with the new paint “technology”) Now where was I? Yes, so anyway, now there was the Fighting machine sitting on the bench, complete with new basket for catching and keeping its food (humans) for Martian consumption, new legs re-fitted by Dave, some replacement tentacles, and a complete respray. But it also now had an entirely different look too it than it had done. ALL the leg sections and main body, except the hood, were now covered in this strange crazed paint finish (now you see why I went into that bit about the difference in paints!) I had assumed (wrongly) that the paint was one that “does exactly what it says on the tin”, which is that “Acrylic is totally compatible with cellulose”. OH NO IT’S NOT! And the proof was in front of us. However, always being one to turn these little set-backs to my advantage, both Dave and I agreed the crazed paint finish actually made the model look better! It somehow looked more alien and strange; great on a Martian but not so good if I had been painting a car!

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 The Martian Handling Machine first appears in the book described thus “first it presented a sort of metallic spider with 5 jointed, agile legs, and with an extraordinary number of jointed levers, bars, and reaching and clutching tentacles about its body”. Having obviously already made the Fighting Machine I had already conceived of a style design that I felt represented a Victorian idea of how the Martians would look. In other words how H.G.Wells himself would perhaps have conceived these machines from a Victorian standpoint. And here I must say I am very flattered by Ian Ward’s kind comments in a recent DRONE; where he said he felt I had come closer than anybody to the concept of how the Martian machines might appear. So at least someone thinks I got it right -Thanks Ian! So now with the Handling Machine I wanted to give it that same type of Victorian technology look. I had a fairly strong picture in my mind of how the Handling Machine would look and did a “quickie” sketch (below). As with the Fighting Machine, I machined the lower body from a piece of 1 inch thick solid perspex. I then put this essentially triangular section in the lathe and turned out the centre section to create an area where the controlling Martian would sit. I machined the 5 legs out of 1/4 inch (6mm for all you youngsters) perspex and cut slots into the places where the joints are. Wells makes great issue of the fact that “the Martians make singularly little use of the fixed pivot” In engineering practise this means there are very few, if any, circular pivots. So I had to think of a way of making the joint move but not by putting a single pivot or rod through one section of the leg and into the other in order to create a movable “hinge”. Instead I needed to get the “sham musculature” Wells describes by making each joint slide up and over one another. And this is the rub, it is almost impossible to get a working, movable model to do this other than by making all the moving parts out of metal and having them stick together by magnetising them! -something that would have been virtually impossible on a model this size. It’s a case of something being easy to describe in a book, but putting it into working practise is rather more difficult, to say the least. However, unlike my Fighting machine, which originally was movable and had many sliding and moving joints, the Handling Machine was made as a static model. This meant I could just stick the joints together in the appropriate pose and use a series of small brass plates to fit into the slots in the ends of the legs where they join. Once I had the basic pieces made (see photo 3) I glued the model together with liquid cement. I then clad the model with a liberal amount of brass etch. (see photos of finished model) This brass etch was left over from working on ALIEN, so get your magnifying glasses out and see how many bits you can spot in the photo 3 film! (little clue: look at Ripley’s helmet in the closing sequences) I had also used this on the fighting machine and once again, along with plenty of rivets, it gave the model a very Victorian look. My initial inspiration for the tripod design had been an old Victorian theodolite and I felt the brass etch gave it the right look. I made the domed top of the machine by cutting the sides off the top of a talcum powder case (my wife uses a lot of these and they’re always great for making models from -indeed I used one of these same tops for the “turret” on top of my RAMCAT model) I then just rounded the edges off and fitted a small hinge to the front to allow the Martian creature access to its machine. Other components for the model included the use of 2 parts from electric drill motors for the 2 front tentacle housings, 2 sections cut from Marks & Spencer coat hangers, several plastic tea stirrers and some rather interesting small disc shapes I found by tearing apart some word processor cartridges (see photo 4) and tentacles made from lead. I heated this and poured it into a rough channel cut into wood. Then by holding this in a large drill chuck I was able to file it down to a tapering rounded shape. These were finished off on the lathe with very rough 40 grade “garnet” paper which gave the tentacles a nice deep circular pattern, again as I had done for the Fighting Machine. The Martian creature was made in “Supersculpy” and baked in the oven before being painted first with spray paint and then with a dry matt enamel dry-brushed on. Once again I followed Wells’ description: with its 2 sets of 8 tentacles each side of the mouth, tympanic membrane (ear to you and me!) and 2 huge bulging eyes.

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