11's Shark-Bitten Screwdriver | Build History

An in-depth look at our build history on 11's shark-bitten screwdriver replica. 

Hey everyone! It's Vito and the CBB team, and we're excited to bring to you our first build history page. We thought this would be appropriate and a good way to be transparent on what we do and how we do it! This particular project was an interesting one because it's considered our debut product. 

What's funny is that this all really started with me wanting to buy a shark-bitten screwdriver replica from somewhere, I'm a sucker for weathered/battle-damaged replicas. While in conversation with Cat Stevens, he simply asked me "Why don't we make our own?", which then got me thinking about it for the next few days. A little back and forth, and a little shimmy shimmy yay shimmy yay shimmy yay, and we we were off!

Rubbertoe Replicas had already done a replica for the shark-bitten screwdriver, and it was quite a beautiful piece! Unfortunately, it's been a few years since they've been in stock and they're quite limited! Danger Industry had also made a few variants and made a really beautiful piece! For ours, we knew what we wanted to get done.

The References:

We didn't have much to go off because the prop was only used during that singular episode A Christmas Carol. Per Nicholas Robatto, this was an entirely new build without the complicated bits. 

We knew what details we wanted to highlight in our replica, some necessary changes that even Nick hadn't done on his run of these. An example being the rivet holes. They were not present on the actual prop used during filming, something that is overlooked in most of the replicas we've seen out there. These rivet holes are present on the completed Smith props as they keep the copper cage in place. For the shark-bitten prop, the collar used on it did not have any rivet holes. An important thing to note, as we believe Nick assembled the shark-bitten replicas on his end from leftover pieces from his V1/V2 run which already had rivet holes in place because of it.

In our initial prototyping of this replica, we've adjusted both the collar and the pommel geometry to more accurately match the on-screen design. We wanted to get this as close as possible since it's relatively a simple build, I mean, how hard can half a screwdriver be? 

Interestingly, the damage on the shark-bitten was much less severe than people usually depict. We observed the scenes frame by frame to make sure we were jotting down the damage we saw accurately. As well as images of the prop outside of filming. What I will tell you, is that a lot of fun was done weathering these bad boys. 

The Work:

Off we started, with our team developing ideas left and right, lots of useless Discord chatter, and a few days, weeks, months (whose keeping track) later, we came to some great stuff. We went through a ton of changes, I'll be attaching some photos not shared before but still pretty cool because it's apart of our history lol. From how big the packaging will be, the stand it will have, and any other bits and bobs.

Packaging was fun, as we knew we wanted a wooden presentation box. There is something special with wooden presentation boxes that will forever hold a special place in my heart. I'm glad we stuck with them as the end result was very satisfactory. We bulk ordered unpainted boxes, we knew we wanted to stain them. We went through a few different color options before we landed on the one we liked. I reached out to my friend Brandon who has a ton of beautiful shiny toys in his house, and we asked to borrow his laser. Fantastic chap, I also linked his YouTube channel on his name so feel free to visit. We had a visit, discussed what we wanted to get done and how it would look on the boxes. Our artist who had created our logos, Lydia Lopez, had left us with a few different options to choose from depending on what our product packaging would be. We tried a few variations of those logos on the boxes, center alignment, top left alignment, etc. See what looked good. 

It was a bit of trial and error, but we had fun poking around. Once we had it set onto the laser, we went and made some food because it was going to be a while until it got completed lol. I'll see if I can add a short video of the process. 

They came out great! Once we got the positioning figured out, we let them just cook and I could already smell the work ahead with the staining we had to do. A process I had never done before but it was fun to dabble in! Enjoy the face of exhaustion at like 12AM once those boxes finished lasering. 

We chose an oil based wood stain, and the initial color we got out of them was, what I thought, pretty! Someone on the team said they needed to be darker, WHICH they did, per our initial idea, but there was something about the clean light color I enjoyed... perhaps for a future project. Our initial staining came out like the photos below. 

They looked crisp, but like mentioned before they needed to be darker. Also, it's hard to note but these boxes were bought unfinished and unpainted. There were a lot of rough edges pretty much everywhere on the box and some were just unpleasant to touch. It was our first project, and definitely my first time doing all this, so it was a trial and error sort of thing. I took all the boxes, and proceeded to sand them down and get them all nice and smooth feeling, we eventually had to re-stain them after a few tips and tricks we looked around for. 

Alas, after the etching, the sanding, and staining, a little bit of that, a little bit of this and we were done. Our final product boxes for the shark-bitten replicas were complete. 

Cool.

Back to the screwdriver, like mentioned before, changes were made to the measurements of the replica since we wanted it to be a as close as possible to what was on-screen and not just an imitation. We used as many reference photos as we could, and made out as much of the detail as we could. 

Once we got the details dialed in, then came prototyping, we 3D printed a lot of our pieces as it was much more affordable for testing and what not. A lot of test prints were made, and back and forth discussion "Does this look right?" and "You sure??" lol. 

It may seem minor, but we were HUGE on getting the size of the collar right, it was one of my biggest gripes. It's usually the first thing I notice when looking at Smith related sonic replicas. We knew the collar was shorter than something on like the RT V1 or 2, closer to what the Celestial Toystore had done for the collar on his replica. We had already proceeded to get the metal work done for an initial metal prototype to gather proper interest for this small run. While we got those made, we were still changing measurements here and there as we saw fit, sometimes we needed some time away from the models, and we'd pick at it again in chat a few days after. 

If you're on the fence about getting into 3D printing by the way, you absolutely should! Super fun hobby. In the picture above you'll see some more prototyping work, some of the resin prints fresh off the printing bed, alongside a glimpse of our upcoming "big" project which may or may not be related to...spoilers.

Once the metal pieces arrived, we formed a metal prototype, showcased it to those in the community, and continued work on improving the model before the final pieces were sent to get fabricated. 

 

This page is a work in progress. 

Written and documented by Vitorino Jurado