With a little help from my friends... or, Calling in the Big Dawgs!

So, my ambition for the Bison requires that a whole lot of plastic be replaced. That brings up two problems. One of the problems is that I am a nerd of limited artistic ability. I have been a science fiction fan forever. I have been a science fiction collector for about fifteen years. In my years of collecting, I've met guys who can paint the hell out of space ship models, capturing the tiniest detail that you might possibly see on the big screen. A few of them can kit bash with the best of them.

Bending some copper tubing to the correct configuration is about all I can do. But maybe I could enlist the help of one of them. You know, call in one of the "Top Guns". Like my buddy Steve.

So I'm talking to my buddy Steve about it on the phone.

And what is the first thing Steve, my good friend, buddy, ol' pal, does? Shoot me down with a cold dose of reality.

We have come to a problem which I am going to call the Patchwork Paradox. But that is a subject for another post.

POST #3 : EVERY BIKER KNOWS: LOUD PIPES SAVE LIVES!

One of the skills I learned during my apprenticeship to become a Journeyman Pipefitter was bending coppe tubing. On a bench for the larger stuff. With a hand bender for the smaller.

So when I looked at the side tubing on the Righteous Bison, I thought: "I wonder what real copper pipes would add to that?"

So, a small amount of tubing and some time with a SNAPON tube bender later, I had my real copper pipes.

Unfortunately, my next thought was "Well... that's all I got!"

NEXT: Calling in the big dawgs!

POST #2: FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

The paint job on the Bison is lovely. It sure doesn't look like plastic.

But the weight ... One of the subtle qualities of the real Doctor Grordbort's Rayguns is their heft. Whether it is a Manmelter 3600 ZX subaomic disentigrator or the F.M.O.M. Industries Wave Disruptor gun, the RAYGUNS feel like real pieces of equipment. "If you run out of Aether Oscillator power, you can always just bludgeon a Moonman to death," I would joke. But the Bison... well, you hold it in your hand and it feels... like a plastic raygun. A toy.

"That can probabaly be altered," I figured. "But then what?"

"It's gonna take a lot to make this feel like a real RAYGUN."

NEXT: COPPER PIPES AND THE "PATCHWORK QUANDRY".

POST #1: A NOBEL CRUSADE... ELEVATING THE BISON

Some animals are immortalized in poetry and song. The Gazelle for its grace. The Lion? Its ferocity.

But some animals are not regaled in song. Some creatures are not fated to be glorified in poetry. Some beasts do not fire the imaginations of men. These creatures will never be immortalized, never become legendary.

Such a beast is the Bison. Among the first creatures domesticated by man, the bison has been there almost from the beginning. It slogged through knee deep mud in the rice paddies of distant east Asia. It sweated under boiling African sun as man carved the stone blocks of the pyramids.

Prized for its brute strength. Admired for it's iron hided constitution. But never loved.

When Weta decided to test a new, low cost version of the weapons in its RAYGUNS line, it was this humblest of creatures that they decided to name it after. The Bison. The RIGHTEOUS BISON.

"A nonmetal [ that's marketing lingo for plastic ] RAYGUN?"
When I first heard of the Bison's impending release, my first thoughts were: "Sacriledge! Heresy! Blasphemy!"

The RAYGUNS are not plastic toy guns for kids to run around with. Ptew! Ptew! "I got you!"

They are solid metal works of artistic beauty, forged inside the imagination of Dr. Grordbort [Greg Broadmore]. They are meant to be assembled from metal and leather and glass and STEAM PUNKY goodness. Not processed petroleum products used by Mattel to craft Barbie Dolls.

Lord above! My Unnatural Selector alone cost over $5,000.00. I've owned screen used movie props like the Morita rifle used by Johnny Rico to blast the acid spewing Tanker bug in STARSHIP TROOPERS. I own a $4,000 Pulse Rifle replica built by the prop privateer who cofounded a multi million dollar collectibles giant at the dawning of this decade. Weta's Ray Blunderbuss stands proundly next to them at nearly 30 lbs.

But... a plastic RAYGUN?!?

The more I thought about it...the more I thought about it some more. I kind of liked the RIGHTEOUS BISON'S shape. Its look. If only they made it out of iron and wood and glass and....

Hmm...

Hrrm.

If I looked at this the way a kid looks at his humble Mazda or Honda.... Yeah! But instead of adding turbo chargers and nitrous injection systems, I'd be swapping out plastic tubing for real hand bent copper. Instead of new fuel injectors and flashy spoilers, I'd be....

Yeah. YEAH! Maybe something could be done with this turd. Luckily, I know some talented people.