It is always Christmas morning when Martin McClean sends a new package to House Read. This time Martin has truly outdone himself by creating, from the ground-up, a Stargate Atlantis Puddle Jumper!

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read:
Hello and welcome back to Dial the Gate: the Stargate Oral History Project. My name is David Read. I appreciate you joining me for another unboxing. This particular episode is dedicated to a Stargate fan who has submitted content to the show before, Martin McClean. He’s created a few different pieces for us so far: a touchstone, a Naquadah generator, a Palm Pilot from Stargate Atlantis. Today I have something brand new to show you that I haven’t even seen yet, hence the unboxing. It’s a puddle jumper. OK. You read the title card; you know what it is. Let’s open it up and see what we’ve got inside. I came prepared this time. All right. He sent this to me weeks ago and he’s been like, “When are you gonna open it up?” I’m like, “When I’m good and ready, when I’m ready to do this.” He’s been concerned that something’s broken on the inside. But why would it be broken? You pack like you’re going to Mars. Let’s see if he owned the last mile, as he calls it. Ooh, I like these. Can sit on ’em in the car. All right. Oh, it’s smaller than I expected. I expected much, much bigger. Let’s take a look. Stargate puddle jumper. Cut here, horizontal. Cut where? It was here? Uh-oh. Cut here, horizontal. Maybe that’s what he meant. Let’s find out. Ow. That’s my cut for the day. Wow, look at this. Operating the jumper. Powering the puddle jumper. All right, we’re gonna go through this in a minute. Let’s have a look. Important: Remove this insert by lifting upwards. Carefully lift the puddle jumper up by grabbing it around the middle of the ship and lifting slowly upwards. All right. Remove this insert by lifting upwards. Oh, I should’ve done that first. Ah, I love it already. He’s concerned that the batteries aren’t going to have lasted. We’ll see. I bet the lithium-ion still has a charge. It’s like a little loaf of bread. When I first saw the puddle jumper, it was at a preview episode the week before the pilot had aired, and I saw this thing fly through. I’m like, that was the first thing that went through my head, a green loaf of bread flew through the space gate. Wow. He packed it very well. Ah, look. The paint job is insane. Look at that. Wow. Lookie there. Wow. What a job. Dude, you are so good at this. But it is dead, so I am about to charge it and we’re gonna go have a look at it. Turn it on. Instructions, thorough of course. “Power up the puddle jumper. Locate the power switch in the rear of the puddle jumper and switch it to on. Turning on the power will activate the front cabin lighting, sound effects and the main flight console lighting.” Down? Down. Geez, look at that. That’s so cool. Wow. Man, oh man. OK. “Operating the sound effects. The puddle jumper supports two sound effects, a cloaking effect and an in-flight sound effect. To engage the cloak, press the button on the rear door of the jumper. You will hear the cloaking sound. When the ship is cloaked, the cockpit console lighting will also change from blue to orange. If you press the sound effects button on the rear door again, the de-cloaking effect will engage and the cockpit console lighting will change from orange to blue.” It sounds awfully Star Treky to me. It’s pretty legit though. Wow, OK. “Deploying the drive pods. The puddle jumper has a synchronized set of drive pods that will automatically broadcast deployment sound effects. To deploy the puddle jumper drive pods, locate the drive pod slider on the rear of the jumper. Push the drive pod slider to the right, synchronously deploying. To complete drive pod deployment, push the engines into flight position with your finger. Repeat on both drive pods.” OK. Wow. Ah! It’s in flight. How cool is this? You know who would be really impressed would be Bridget McGuire. I’m gonna have to send this to her because she came up with this ship. What a beauty. What a marvel of design, Martin. “Closing drive pods. Before you close them, make sure you move the engines back to the closed position. Push down with your finger. Do not try to close them with the engines deployed, you could break them. To retract the drive pods, make sure the engines are pushed down and locate the drive pod slider and push it to the left, synchronously retracting both drive pods.” Wow. The sound on that is really loud. Very, very nice. Martin did all the art, so very good, man. Very, very good. It’s just a beautiful piece. I love the lighting effect where it came on in stages. Man. It’s just legit work, buddy. You’ve done a stand-up job. Other than that, that doesn’t want to stand up, but you know what? I love this. You can see the teeth, how he did it on each side here. Interesting. I wonder if that’s his design choice because otherwise I’ve never seen that before. I thought they were both at the same length, but that may be how he decided to rig it. Really cool. Now in the box he had a couple of other things. Let’s have a look. Dial Home Device. I wasn’t expecting this. Let’s have a look. This is for the Stargate stands, the ones that Master Replicas put out. Let’s have a look at this now and we’ll put this with it when we do the unboxing for that next week, or in my case, 10 minutes. Aw. Wow. Even foliage. That’s where we can put the Asgard cloaking device for the Tiernods. Wow. Lookie there. The Jaffa lines. Really, really beautiful piece, man. Yep. Love the detail. The stuff that these 3D printers can do now is extraordinary. You can hardly tell the printing lines; you just can’t find it. We’re gonna put this with the Master Replicas piece for the Milky Way Stargate stand that he’s got. We’re gonna check that out. But let’s have a look at those. Off-world Stargate platform Milky Way. Okie dokie. He made a tan one, a sand-colored version. He made a couple of different off-world pedestals. I’d really like to have the stone one to match the original that was created for Chulak, and generally seen most frequently after. Wow. Impressive. The stone detailing, the little plants. He’s just so damned good. The Milky Way gate is thinner than I expected. What a beautiful piece. Dude, you’ve really outdone yourself. You’re gonna be seeing these again next week when we unbox the Master Replicas SG-1 and Atlantis gates. Martin McClean, SGA gate builder. How are you, sir?

Martin McClean:
I’m doing well, David. How are you? Lovely to see you.

David Read:
I am well. I apologize for taking so much time to unpack these toys that you mailed weeks ago. I’m sure you’ve been like, “I hope it’s not broken. I hope it’s not broken.” This guy and I have had these conversations for over a month and I’m sure he’s thinking to himself, he’s like Patrick Renner in The Sandlot. He’s like, “You’re killing me, Smalls. Just open the damn thing. What are you waiting for?” It arrived and I’m really sorry to say, man, that it is in one piece.

Martin McClean:
Wonderful. USPS have not let us down.

David Read:
Nope, they did not.

Martin McClean:
Wonderful.

David Read:
She’s a beauty, for sure.

Martin McClean:
Awesome. Great.

David Read:
Very, very nice. I’ve done the whole unboxing from everyone else’s point of view, so they’re all brought up to speed on this thing. Have you always wanted to do this?

Martin McClean:
Yes. A couple of years ago, I think it was James Robbins who put out a model of it, a 3D-printed version that you could download and print out. The problem with it was that it was never optimized for 3D printers.

David Read:
James Robbins, the production designer?

Martin McClean:
I’m pretty sure it’s the same person that did it.

David Read:
It would be, probably.

Martin McClean:
A great model, but it was never optimized for 3D printing. Also, you can’t really modify the files that much, A, due to the fact that they belong to someone else, and also because it’s difficult to edit those types of files. What I decided to do was build my own because I wanted to put electronics in there. I wanted to put physical movement in there and try and incorporate the movement of the pod doors, out and in, et cetera. I wanted to make sure all of that was working. I had previously looked at the other files and thought I could backward engineer them and that I could print them out and maybe drill holes in them and things like that. It just didn’t work. I decided, “Nope, it’s time for me to make one.” So here we are, holding the result.

David Read:
Wow, and what a result it is. I’m curious, if James Robbins put out a file and it wasn’t meant to be 3D printed, what was it made for? Do you have an inkling?

Martin McClean:
I think it was meant to be printed, but I don’t think, when the CAD work was designed, someone was thinking about how it’s optimized for a 3D printer.

David Read:
So, he dropped an older file?

Martin McClean:
Definitely. There were doors and there were a hull and bits that were connected together. If you tried to print those out, there’s massive amounts of complexity in getting nice, great, smooth and clean prints out of that. It wasn’t really very optimized for speed or time. Although, that puddle jumper did take a long time to print, because…

David Read:
The one right here?

Martin McClean:
It’s 3D. Yeah, it’s pretty big.

David Read:
For sure. I think so, too. I was expecting it to be larger and I think that this size is perfect because it kind of fits in an IKEA shelf.

Martin McClean:
Yes.

David Read:
So, how did you land on this particular size?

Martin McClean:
IKEA, mostly.

David Read:
Ha! Great minds.

Martin McClean:
“Somebody’s gotta put this on a shelf and it can’t be that big. I’ll modify it so that it fits perfectly on an IKEA shelf.” So, that’s what I did. I think it will fit in their display cabinets and things like that. If people are gonna make one themselves or something like that, it will definitely fit in there.

David Read:
Is this your CAD file from the ground up?

Martin McClean:
Yes. Everything is from the ground up. There is nothing used from anywhere else. Everything; all the electronic design, the coding, the complete computer-aided design, everything. Even the sound effects are my creation.

David Read:
I detect some bird of prey stuff happening there, man. That’s all I’m saying.

Martin McClean:
A modification. Designed them as best I could; based it on what I thought it should sound like, other than, obviously, you have to respect the intellectual copyright.

David Read:
Of course. I can use it to de-cloak the Dial the Gate logo at the beginning, but other than that, no one else can. From the moment that you started developing the CAD file to the final paint job on your first version, how much time are we talking about here?

Martin McClean:
Five and a half months on this one. Normally, it wouldn’t take me that long. The original design for the jumper came out pretty quick. I probably finished that in a couple of weeks. Then I decided there’s actually a history here, there’s a chronology of it, because there’s two different versions. There is a version that has manual bay doors that open and close and that was the original one. Then I said to myself, “You know what? I think this could be better.” Because you’re having to manually pull out one pod and then the other one and it was more complicated from a sound effects point of view and stuff like that. I decided that I would make it a little easier by designing a synchronized pod drive system, but that made it much more difficult than I thought.

David Read:
You love a challenge.

Martin McClean:
I love a challenge, but this one almost pulled me out of my tree. The problem was the doors would shut, but one door wouldn’t be quite closed. Long story short, there’s a delay in all of these cogs that are inside it.

David Read:
It’s down to the mechanics of it?

Martin McClean:
It’s the mechanics. One door would slightly close faster than the other and then eventually you’d get this bit where this one would slightly be out.

David Read:
Interesting.

Martin McClean:
It wasn’t too big a problem. 37 designs later, it was fixed.

David Read:
37?

Martin McClean:
Yes.

David Read:
You’re kidding? You’re not kidding.

Martin McClean:
I’m not kidding, but I’m ashamed to admit the easiest design worked best.

David Read:
Occam’s razor.

Martin McClean:
Yep, it was so over-engineered. I thought, “Oh, this is so me, typical engineer.” I’d just over-engineered it.

David Read:
One of the first things I noticed when the drive pods were opened, I looked down from above, one arm was up here and one arm was down here.

Martin McClean:
Yes.

David Read:
The entire time, I’m like, “Is that how it was in the show, or did he sacrifice that for the design?”

Martin McClean:
I sacrificed it for the design.

David Read:
It’s still cool.

Martin McClean:
It works really well, but in the show, they have the luxury of being able to render something as a computer graphic when they feel like it or change something around. We don’t have that luxury; it’s gotta work in a practical world for us, too.

David Read:
They do sleight of hand, especially with the drive pods’ innards. There wouldn’t be room for that and have the cockpit, or the back of the thing, as wide as the chamber is.

Martin McClean:
I worked out that if I was to put the interior into the Puddle Jumper, it would probably make it three times as big, which seemed prohibitive for anyone trying to put it on a shelf, or for even myself trying to find room for it and things like that. The Puddle Jumper is an interesting model from a Stargate perspective because there’s about five different iterations of the cockpit and masses amounts of color changes. I don’t think it shows up on camera here, but the one you’ve got and even the one I’ve got back here, is much darker when you see it in reality than it is on the computer screen. If I hold mine up, it looks a lot brighter than it actually is when you get it. A lot of people said to me, “Well, it’s too bright,” but it’s not when you get it.

David Read:
So, it’s a green print?

Martin McClean:
No, it’s not a green print. There are nine different layers of paint on that particular model.

David Read:
What is it that you’re seeing on screen then that would be different after you painted it? I guess I don’t understand.

Martin McClean:
It’s a studio lighting issue, depending on whether you see one of the principal actors standing next to it on set, it’s studio lit. It has a certain amount of green tinge, et cetera. Then when they CGI this thing, they’re not sort of thinking the same way.

David Read:
I understand now. We’re coming down again on the conversation of the Puddle Jumper’s paint in lighting. All kinds of different lighting situations; you have to land on one and call it quits. They get to change it with every different lighting configuration there is, at will.

Martin McClean:
And they do. Some of the Puddle Jumpers started off olive green and then in the end, the color that’s on mine is a custom one to try and match the later series, which had a much darker green than the earlier series, which was more olive in the first season. Even if you look at “Moebius” from SG-1, there are some nice shots in there of the Puddle Jumper. I call it the SG-1 version because it seems to be more beige in there and stuff like that. Then when we got to Atlantis, it was slightly greener.

David Read:
I’ll bet that’s on purpose. I bet the thought process behind it was that Janus was like, “Well, if I’m gonna build another one of these things in the Milky Way, I might as well change some of it up a little bit.” I’m sure that’s what it was.

Martin McClean:
I think so. The one thing you get from designing this, though, is a real sense of appreciation of what a great job they did when they designed this. Not only the idea that it’s round, and it has to be of course, because it goes through the Stargate, but it’s just the whole way they’ve cut out the shape and things like that. They made my life a misery for a little while. Other than that, I’m sure they didn’t set out to go, “we’ll make Martin’s life a misery by making this difficult to design.” It looks round, it’s not exactly round at all. It’s slightly off round. I’ve seen some people do a great job also creating their own Puddle Jumpers. I haven’t seen any like mine that has all of the different interior and the lights and the consoles and what have you like now. A lot of people have different fronts to the model and some of it looked like early production, which is not what we saw when the television show went to air. It was somewhat different. It was a very interesting challenge to do. I think it was worth going back and synchronizing the drive pods. I think in the end, this ability to just slide it from the back and it sort of opens up is a really nice feature.

David Read:
Now, it’s really smooth.

Martin McClean:
It took a while to get that right. There is not a lot of room in there, that’s the only problem.

David Read:
I saw you sacrifice some of the front cabin room.

Martin McClean:
Yes.

David Read:
You made it shorter.

Martin McClean:
Yeah, I did.

David Read:
I think there’s only one set of chairs?

Martin McClean:
There’s only one set of chairs. This is interesting too because in some of the show, there’s only two chairs and then in other shots there’s four chairs.

David Read:
I never noticed that.

Martin McClean:
In some shots, I think behind Rod McKay in one of the shots in Atlantis, there is a console that’s sitting behind a chair, which conveniently appeared and then disappeared the following week.

David Read:
Just like the palm pilots in the wall; they think it and it appears. I’m sure there’s a few things like that. The Delta Flyer in Voyager had mission modules. They literally swap the back of the ship out. Whereas in this thing, they probably had all kinds of consoles that they could call upon if they needed to for different missions.

Martin McClean:
I love the Delta Flyer, though. That was a beautiful design. I don’t know who did that.

David Read:
Very different.

Martin McClean:
I’m a great fan of Voyager as a television show.

David Read:
It had some cool designs.

Martin McClean:
Cool designs, great cast, Kate Mulgrew and others. A really champagne casting. It was a great show.

David Read:
Am I seeing nine levels of paint diffused with each other like skin? Am I seeing the top three and it’s like, “No, David, I tried nine different layers until I got to this configuration?”

Martin McClean:
No. No. No, you’re seeing probably the top three or maybe four coming through. There are base coats and then there’s the base green coat and then there’s a sort of a stippled brown and then a gold and copper in there. Then there’s more green and then there’s a sort of lacquer and stuff like that.

David Read:
Did you use sponges? What’d you use?

Martin McClean:
No, I used different stippling brushes.

David Read:
There’s a stippling brush, specifically?

Martin McClean:
Stippling brush. It’s not all stipple though from brush, some of it is also from a stippling sponge as well.

David Read:
Wow.

Martin McClean:
It’s interesting that when you go back and you look at all of the Atlantis sets, you notice that everywhere after you start to see it on the Jumper. I think it really makes it much more interesting to the eye and gives it much more depth. On the surface of it, it looks like it’s easier to do, but it isn’t. You can be very ham-fisted with that if you’re not careful; one color overwrites the other and then before you know it, it looks really weird.

David Read:
It’s like the ’80s with synthesizers. I get it. It also gives it a look of age, like really old. I don’t know if that’s just me associating it with Atlantis and the timeframe that we have an idea Atlantis is within. It gives it this time-worn, vulnerability is not the word that I want, but it’s the one I’m going with. This lighting is atrocious for it, but there is a quality to it that’s almost like fingerprints. I’m assuming each jumper is unique from that perspective because you’ve hand-applied these things.

Martin McClean:
There’s only four in existence.

David Read:
There’s two more? OK.

Martin McClean:
Yeah. Darren has one, you have one, I have one and then there’s one other, so there’s only four. There may be five, but there probably won’t be more than five. They take a long time to build because, as you quite rightly point out, every one’s a little bit unique. They’re identical if you look at them. If I get mine here, bring it, show it to you, it’s very similar to yours. It looks very similar. It looks the same in the back and it’s got all the lighting effects and I don’t know whether they’ll come through on this for you.

David Read:
Yeah, somewhat. Is that the original?

Martin McClean:
This is the original. The absolute original, of course, was that one that just had drive pods that went out manually. That one, I don’t know, suffered some damage when I was modifying it and making the prototype for the V2.

David Read:
Uh-oh. You had one that was twice this size for the action figure scale?

Martin McClean:
Yes, I did. I had a huge one for the cockpit that was enormous and I worked out that it was, I think, three or four feet long.

David Read:
Wow.

Martin McClean:
It’s quite big. People at IKEA are going, “We just can’t do this. Just can’t do this.”

David Read:
No. No. This is a centerpiece. It’s more than a centerpiece. It’s half the Thanksgiving table.

Martin McClean:
Half the IKEA shelving people walked away and went, “Nope, we’re not doing it.”

David Read:
Wow.

Martin McClean:
“You’ve gotta buy a table.”

David Read:
How long does it take to create one of these, now that you have your system in place? How many hours do you think you put into it to create each one? Printing and everything.

Martin McClean:
Probably about 200 plus hours.

David Read:
God, man. This is so much work.

Martin McClean:
It’s a lot better now because I finished all the coding and I have a method now to do it. Then I wrote a 35-page instruction manual on how to build it.

David Read:
It’s thundering outside, sorry. That’s a completely separate problem. Man.

Martin McClean:
I realize I didn’t have to do that, but I thought at one point, if it ends up online for folks, then I want them to have this nice color step-by-step manual that they can walk through. Literally, if they follow the dots, they’re gonna get that at the other end. The electronics is kind of up to people. All the wiring holes and everything is in there, so you can put your own in. I created three different doors for the back so that if you don’t want any electronics, you don’t have to have it, you can just put a basic door on the back. Or if you want one with the slider and not all the speakers and all that sort of stuff, you can do that too. It’s pretty modular. That took a little while as well.

David Read:
Wow. Tell me about the electronics. What size of milliamp battery is in this thing?

Martin McClean:
It’s not very big. It’s only about one and a half inches square, but not thick. It’s really quite thin. It should power the electronics for quite some time. The circuit’s quite clever ’cause you can plug it in and use it on power and it will simultaneously recharge the battery at the same time for you. It’s not like you have to go one without the other; if it’s run out of battery, you can’t use it, that’s not the way it works. It’ll automatically charge the battery up for you. It obviously takes about an hour or so ’cause it’s slow trickle charge, but then it should last for a long time.

David Read:
How long did it take to work out the electronics?

Martin McClean:
It helps being an electronic engineer, I’m gonna be honest.

David Read:
So you’re not starting from square one?

Martin McClean:
That’s the thing. I’m not getting the box out, going, “Does different color current flow in different colored wire?” I’m not exactly doing that. It took quite a while. It’s nice to have it now because now I can transplant sound and lights and effects into any model. Your puddle jumper comes with accelerometers built in, which means that I can give it a software upgrade and when you take the jumper and you move it in different directions and things, it will start to do different sound effects. I’m gonna send you the software update when that’s ready.

David Read:
This doesn’t have that yet?

Martin McClean:
It doesn’t have that yet, but you have the sensors already on board. It’ll take you 30 seconds to drag it across on your USB cable and then you’re done.

David Read:
USB-C has access to the folders?

Martin McClean:
Yes.

David Read:
Man, you really thought ahead.

Martin McClean:
I had to because I knew one day you would call me and go, “Do you know what’d be really good? If it could do this…” I thought, “Well, I better have it so that I can upgrade it on the fly.”

David Read:
Can it dim the LEDs?

Martin McClean:
Yes.

David Read:
We’re probably gonna have to do that ’cause, with William’s here, he had to test it for iteration after iteration, with cameras in mind, so that it wouldn’t look blown out, so that all the detail would be there. With Jaron’s SGU gate, it’s pretty perfect. There’s a USB slot that’s accessible on his, it’s got a cap on it. He’s given me instructions to update the code. Speaking of Jaren, people have been asking… Isn’t his gate cool?

Martin McClean:
I love it. I absolutely love that gate.

David Read:
People have been asking him in the comments feed under the unboxing, the working Stargates, “Can we please have the instructions?” Creating something is one thing; putting it together yourself, iteration after iteration after iteration, getting it dialed in. Telling someone how to do that through images and instructions is a completely different skill set. You have them both in equal measure here, relatively.

Martin McClean:
I have the advantage that I’ve published books before.

David Read:
You’re a designer.

Martin McClean:
I am. That allows me to at least get inside the mind of the maker and go, “Assume they don’t know much about it,” and then lead them along. That’s why it’s so heavily pictorial, which is why the manual’s so long; I wanted people to see all the different blocks and the colors and slot it all together like a bit of a Lego kit. It really wasn’t difficult. They should be able to print the pieces out fairly easily and it’s designed so that if they don’t have a big printer, it’s not too bad, and they can look around it. The electronics did take a while, but it’s extraordinarily flexible. It has accelerometers built in, it has all sorts of sensors that we’ll use moving forward. The cockpit lighting’s interesting. The LED lighting, all of it can be adjusted in color and in brightness. I don’t think the little lights in the back can do that as easily. There’s lots of functionality there that we can change. I originally wanted to put several extra software features in there, but I just haven’t got around to it yet. I’m trying to finish the next project. This felt like designing two Puddle Jumpers. I got the first one to completion, I wrote the full manual for that, and then I thought, “No, it needs to have the synchronizing drive pods. I need it to have better chairs inside and stuff.” It was like doing it twice, which is why it took me much longer than I think it normally would. In the 3D printing world, your enemy is tolerances, making sure that everything fits together right. You can’t see it, but inside the electronics there’s a special motherboard in there that the electronics are designed to sit into, and stuff like that, so that it just makes it easier to put together.

David Read:
You have to land on what it is that you want. You can’t go all Howard Hughes.

Martin McClean:
No.

David Read:
Iteration after iteration, you have to arrive at a stopping point. It’s not finished; it’s abandoned. Fine.

Martin McClean:
Perfection is the enemy of completion. That’s advice I should listen to sometimes…and don’t. Adam Savage will tell you this. There’s a point in every project where you just hit a wall, and you think, “I’m just done with this.” You have two choices; you can either go forward or you can go back. In the case of the drive pods, when they were creating so much trouble, I thought, “Maybe this is time to stop.” Then I think, “No, I don’t really want to. I don’t want this to…” Then it becomes a challenge.

David Read:
So, you moved forward and continued to work it?

Martin McClean:
Yeah.

David Read:
I’m curious, as a designer from a creative perspective, I often find, as is the case with many people, that when I stop thinking about it, when I go and completely change my circumstances, even for days, often things will occur to me that I hadn’t considered before, because it was sitting too close to me all the time, just staring me in the face, the problem. Maybe even proverbially. Maybe in my mind, it’s staring me in the face. Did you find that to be the case for any part of this project?

Martin McClean:
Yeah, the drive system did that to me. In the end, like I said, the solution was so simple; I had done a much more complicated system than I needed. The solution came… I woke up one night and thought, “Ah, that’s how you do it.” I thought, “That’s not good. You should be sleeping. You should not be waking up thinking about this.” I should have written it down. I didn’t and the next morning I’d forgotten it again.

David Read:
So, you had to come up with it again?

Martin McClean:
Yeah. I thought, “OK, write it down next time.” I think you learn lots and lots of things and that’s why I always say to people, “Ultimately, the outcome for me is if this inspires somebody else to go and make an even better one, then I will be very happy about that.” I’m not proprietorial about design here. I’m trying to take something that James and all the great folks on the design team did and make it more accessible to people who wanna celebrate their design.

David Read:
You’re doing what I do; you’re creating something out of whole cloth and you’re turning it over for free.

Martin McClean:
You’re right.

David Read:
It’s also really handy because it’s also owned by Jeff Bezos.

Martin McClean:
Exactly. This is a passion project. I’m preaching to the converted, because you’re not making money out of this, David.

David Read:
No.

Martin McClean:
Any more than I am out of mine. That’s not the aim. The aim is to come up with these things and put designs out there that people can use. Sometimes people ask me, “Can you make me one?” If I have time, I’ll do that, but it’s not like there’s 25 available or something.

David Read:
You’re challenging yourself. You’re making something beautiful. You’re pushing the outer boundaries of your expertise in the arenas that you’re in. I would consider that not at all to be time wasted. That’s what we do with Dial the Gate and the end result is something that people can enjoy.

Martin McClean:
If you look at how Dial the Gate is today, compared to maybe when you did your first episode and the evolution that you’ve gone through.

David Read:
Night and day.

Martin McClean:
It’s night and day. You learn lots of things. The Puddle Jumper was a combination of things I learned from the Naquadah Generator and et cetera, et cetera. Lots of things like that. I am gonna upgrade the Naquadah Generator though so that it has sound and a couple of other features in there. Somebody once said to me, “Wouldn’t it be good if it had a speaker in it, like Bluetooth?” I thought, “That is a good idea.”

David Read:
As long as it doesn’t shake it to pieces over the course of 10 years.

Martin McClean:
No. That’s my problem.

David Read:
You have to have that consideration.

Martin McClean:
It’s the subwoofer that’s the problem.

David Read:
I will tell you, Martin, if I can return this one to you to get some modifications done and back for $100 or less, for a whole cycle. The most time that I spend on this set is changing the batteries in that thing.

Martin McClean:
That’s why the Life-Size scanner and the Puddle Jumper and the door control – all rechargeable. I looked at that and thought, “If David’s spending what I’m spending on batteries, he’s gonna come over to my house.”

David Read:
These are rechargeable. Not at all. The nice thing that I love about this one is that after a time, I wish that we could make the marching ants slower because some people have complained about the flicker. I’ve put a piece of tape on the back so it doesn’t reflect on the wall, the other side, so that’s really cut it down. Most of the show is like this normally and it’s out of the way for people. A beautiful side effect of the batteries running low is that it gets this self-destruct kind of hue to it, which I don’t think you intended. It’s created this really pretty effect over the course of a lot of shows, which I’m sure you’ve seen because you’re a good, loyal fan.

Martin McClean:
I have seen it. It goes quite red and it’s because once the battery drops below a certain voltage, the motherboard light is illuminating the arms.

David Read:
I thought it was due to time dilation.

Martin McClean:
I’m afraid it wasn’t anywhere near as clever as that.

David Read:
The Naquadah Generator’s getting close to a black hole.

Martin McClean:
The new idea would be to have one just like your Puddle Jumper where you just plug in the USB. If you need a customization like the lights are going too fast or whatever, then we just send it through and it changes it. That’s the best way to do it. I’m working on the Life signs scanner…

David Read:
I see you’ve made the same modification.

Martin McClean:
I did it, but now this is the latest version.

David Read:
It’s beautiful. I love the hexagons.

Martin McClean:
There’s hexagons there, but it’s also a kind of a clear plastic now.

David Read:
Like the original. You’re leaning into it.

Martin McClean:
If I can put that a bit closer you can see, all the bits are actually fused into the plastic. They’re not sort of add-ons and stuff like that.

David Read:
It’s really beautiful, dude. And you were able to 3D print that?

Martin McClean:
Yeah.

David Read:
Wow.

Martin McClean:
It’s USB-C too, which is nice. That you can do that. That just made it one iteration closer to the screen-used one and tried to keep it still with a bit of functionality in there. I did that with it. It’s endless really. You just think, there’s only so many you can do. There’s so many I haven’t even started yet.

David Read:
Years of stuff.

Martin McClean:
There are years of stuff. There’s a sort of temptation to always go back and improve on something that you had before. You’ll make a comment to me and I’ll think, “Oh, I never thought of that.”

David Read:
I need to keep my frigging mouth shut.

Martin McClean:
No, it’s fine. I appreciate the feedback actually. It’s good ’cause it makes you think, “Oh, I could have maybe done that differently and changed it around.” That’s how we ended up with the “David Read mode” that’s in the scanner; that’s in the door control.

David Read:
It talks to me when I switch over to it. I think it’s pretty dead right now. Let me see here. It’s dead. This one dies on me fairly fast. It’s good for about two and a half shows.

Martin McClean:
I think it probably needs a bigger battery in there. It was funny because the postage service don’t like big batteries, so everything has to go ground, I suppose.

David Read:
These things can explode under the right conditions.

Martin McClean:
Exactly. Although they’re not really big and they’re brand new, so they’re relatively safe. But still, we have to follow that guidance and we should and we do. There’s a whole bunch of things that always pop up you don’t expect. The Master Replicas gates came along, so I needed to do the stands for those.

David Read:
There we go. There’s rain pounding on my windows so if you hear that, I do apologize. But I can’t interfere with God’s tea time out there.

Martin McClean:
I can’t hear it.

David Read:
I love this. I love the ferns. They’re so cute.

Martin McClean:
It’s a little grass.

David Read:
Absolutely. You have taken the design from the show and McClean’d it. You’ve said, “OK, this is what they had, but let’s lean in this direction.” I’m curious to know, is it a desire to tweak or is it just because it’s going to be this thing rather than a set piece, I wanna try it this way?

Martin McClean:
Sometimes it’s necessity because you only have a certain amount of space to put things in. The gate only is a certain size and it’s a certain width and so there’s some sort of necessities come into it. In this case, this is the only time in all the models I’ve ever made I had a picture from production about the exact layout of the stone platform. I’m pretty sure that that comes from Season One.

David Read:
I suspect that’s true.

Martin McClean:
I’m pretty sure it’s Season One. In fact, I did one for Darren, but his is in sandstone and I think it was you that asked me for the grays?

David Read:
Yes, I did.

Martin McClean:
I’m not gonna choose between my children, but I think this gray stone looks pretty good with the gate.

David Read:
I’m glad that he’s got the Abydos one and I’ve got the Chulak one. That’s great.

Martin McClean:
That’s why.

David Read:
That’s really great.

Martin McClean:
That’s exactly why. He may come back and say, “I want the Abydos one.”

David Read:
“You know what? You can go make it.”

Martin McClean:
It was good though. It’s pretty much a clone of what theirs was. It’s got some slightly different brickwork.

David Read:
You do have the brick on either end, which I love, that actually supported it in place. I don’t know if it was cosmetic or if it was actually functional, but if you look in the episode really closely, these little stone pedestals were on the pedestals.

Martin McClean:
It was kinda crazy because it had to have this sort of feel that felt like stone. It had to have a texture and a granularity to it in its post-production, in the painting work. It had to have something that made it look like stone; it had to have an aged look about it so that it fitted with the gate. When Master Replicas did the Atlantis gate, they made it quite different. It’s a lot thicker.

David Read:
It’s as it should be.

Martin McClean:
I have to agree it that.

David Read:
It has that middle section that has the different shape to it. Everyone was saying, “The Atlantis gate is thicker. The Atlantis gate is thicker.” I’m remembering, thinking back on the show, “no, it wasn’t.” What they were referring to was the Master Replicas pieces.

Martin McClean:
The original one’s quite thin, isn’t it? For the Milky Way.

David Read:
It’s very thin. It’s like they’ve cut it into thirds, cut out the center, and then stuck the front and back together. If you see there, if you can bring it closer to the camera.

Martin McClean:
If I bring the other one up there…

David Read:
Exactly. With the Atlantis one, the SGC Stargate had a pattern to it. It’s almost like a tire tread, like an Ancient tire tread feel to it. You could just see these things rolling down the hill in the factory. The Atlantis gate is much, much truer to what the actual Stargate on the set was.

Martin McClean:
That’s why I put it into this stand.

David Read:
Oh my gosh. Look at that, Martin. I want one.

Martin McClean:
I will send one.

David Read:
Thank you, Martin. It’s gorgeous. Look at that thing.

Martin McClean:
I should move that around a little bit so you can see that. Where’s that? There we go. Sorry. The design’s trying to emulate the gate room. It took the staircase that goes up to Weir’s office and it took the floor molding and what have you from the floor, so around the actual gate, and it took some of the cosmetic details that you see there.

David Read:
I can see some of the ancient patterns. Did you pick a set of ancient text and copy and paste again and again?

Martin McClean:
Yeah, I just did that. For somebody who’s really, really keen, they’ll decode what it means.

David Read:
Oh, no. It says something? OK.

Martin McClean:
It says something but we won’t worry about that. It did make a difference in the end, I think. Master Replicas, I thought, did a really great job on this. I just didn’t love the stand as much, with due respect. Some people may love it. I didn’t.

David Read:
It needed the Pegasus logo.

Martin McClean:
I also wanted it to be Ikea-able in some way, so that it goes on the shelf. There’s a theme running here.

David Read:
They’re as heavy as bricks. You can use them for door stoppers, those bases. They’re 70% of the weight of the package. They’re very nice, but if you don’t like that look, you can go online and print yours.

Martin McClean:
Absolutely.

David Read:
There’s links for all this in the description below, yes?

Martin McClean:
Yes. Some of it is still being posted. That’ll be over the next week or two that’ll get done. When I did the Milky Way platform, I think I sent you one as well.

David Read:
I was getting around to it. We can hide the Asgard cloak right underneath the bush here.

Martin McClean:
You picked it up. Good.

David Read:
So the rogue NID can get it? I’m assuming that’s what that’s there for.

Martin McClean:
That’s exactly what it’s there for and you are the only person who has said that to me.

David Read:
Colonel Makepeace is gonna use it.

Martin McClean:
I thought it was a clever moment and I thought, “I’m gonna put the equivalent of a little Easter egg in here and put that at the base of it.”

David Read:
Right about where it was. The position of it was the giveaway ’cause in the show it’s more stones, but when you put it in that exact spot, I was like, “I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where his brain went. He may not be conscious of it.”

Martin McClean:
No, I did do it consciously.

David Read:
Hearing this, that you’re referencing “Shades of Gray,” that’s perfect.

Martin McClean:
I did do it consciously and I thought “no one is gonna spot this,” but I was wrong. I’m pleased someone did pick it up. Well done, David. Well done.

David Read:
Well done, Martin.

Martin McClean:
Your encyclopedic knowledge of this shines through. It was nice to do that. I know that the other gate needs a DHD as well.

David Read:
It is the Atlantis room, so I suppose you could design one of the grand pianos, they called them.

Martin McClean:
I thought about that.

David Read:
That would be a lot of work and it would have lights and everything.

Martin McClean:
Originally, what I wanted to do with this was get the gate, and I have started it, and there’s an insert that goes in the back which has an animated puddle. We’ve been working on that for a little while. I did a 3D puddle and that was OK. It glowed in the dark and stuff like that, which was good. Then I tried a photographic one and that looked better, but I think I would rather have something that was electronic in the back so that it created some sort of whoosh pattern and stuff like that.

David Read:
I’ve gotta share a Stargate Worlds story about the puddle. I didn’t have access to the puddle assets when I was working at Stargate Worlds. The animators, there were four of them, I hung out with the animators the most in terms of the designers. They wrote me downstairs in the marketing team, ’cause I was constantly doing favors for the production floor. They were like, “We really need the puddle.” I’m like, “How badly do you need it? The asset?” They’re like, “We need something pretty darn close.” I’m like, “OK, I will get this to you.” This is like 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning. Four o’clock comes along, I’ve got the asset. I send it to them, something similar that a fan designed that you cannot tell the difference. It’s darker blue on the outside and as it moves closer in it gets brighter, as if there’s some light source behind. We all know what it looks like. The next day, I go up there to the animators and I’m like, “How’s it going?” They’re like, “What are you talking about?” I said, “The puddle. The puddle you guys had me working on all day yesterday to get this asset to you. You wanted it as close as you could, right?” They’re like, “Yeah. Oh, it’s great.” They hold up the toy Stargate and they printed it out and put it in the center. “Yeah, it’s great for our collection. We love it.”

Martin McClean:
You thought they wanted it for the game.

David Read:
“You guys are such assholes. I thought you meant it for the game. You added it to your toy collection! You have 200 toys on these desks.” They’re like, “We just wanted a puddle, man. Lay off.” “Dudes, I spent how many hours working on this for you?” After that, I learned to ask the production team, “OK, you need this?” “Yeah.” “What’s it for?”

Martin McClean:
“What’s it for? Is it for the toy or is it for the game?” About five, six years ago, I did a puddle animation and it was really difficult to do. It looked great in the end, but simulating water and droplets and randomization of droplets in water, especially when the water has that sort of viscosity, that it’s almost syrupy.

David Read:
It’s very viscous. It’s not because it’s not water. The water is the starting point for the design.
Brice Ors with Stargate Network, when he made his first-person walkthrough, I don’t know if you saw that episode. I’ll also put a link in the description below, folks.

Martin McClean:
Yeah, please.

David Read:
They cracked it. They got it. They created a loop. You look at it and if it does loop from the end to the beginning, I can’t tell where it is. It renders in real time. If they had this thing in 2005 when they were running the show, the amount of money that they could’ve saved on a lot of that stuff! It is a perfect render of the puddle. In our walkthrough, if you go and check out the video, we specifically spend time on appreciating the fact that they went through iteration after iteration to get it. These French, they can design, man. At least these guys can. They went through so many iterations to get it exactly right and they nailed it.

Martin McClean:
The passion that some people put into this is extraordinary. Sometimes it never really gets the adulation from studios that it deserves. The studio created something so great with an amazing cast, design and crew that people are willing to spend their free time and to emulate that and to pay homage to that, it’s wonderful.

David Read:
The people who made it are appreciative of it. The production company, Kawoosh! and Stargate Productions, they all are blown away by a lot of this stuff. James Robbins, for crying out loud, is handing some of these assets over years later, or some version of them, for that reason. Corporate is another story. They’re much more about IP.

Martin McClean:
Definitely, having worked in corporate forever, especially from the technology side, I know how these things work. We’re very lucky with Stargate because the cast and crew, actors, et cetera, it’s a very generous community. Access is generous. You and I have been to conventions together. Some of the people, especially when you meet the cast and crew, are so generous with their time.

David Read:
They don’t push you away. In the case of RDA, he stays hours later to make sure that everyone has a shot. He doesn’t have to do that.

Martin McClean:
There’s this wonderful thing where it’s not only that they’re accessible, which in itself is extremely generous, but it’s also that when you’re talking to people, cast and crew, it feels like you’ve known them for 10 years and you really only just met them, which I think is this amazing charisma and charm that everyone on that production had. It was champagne casting, from crew and cast, it really was, and I think it really shines through. For me, that’s why it’s so cool.

David Read:
It’s consistent with every person that I bring on here, even the guest stars, because they all put their feet in the wet cement of the show and left a piece of their soul behind in it. When we start talking about it, we’re immediately on the same page in terms of how we feel about the art and how we appreciate the art, both cast and crew and audience. I talked with Lane Gates last week. Lane was in his episode and then he became a Stargate fan. He watched the show through to the end. Jeff Gulka is the same. He’s gone back and fallen in love with the series. He took a picture of himself when Carson did Carson’s thing in Sunday and sent it to me and Nicole, just tears running down his face. It was some really, very bad words that he gave to us and how much he hated us at that moment for getting him into this thing. The people who created it continually fall in love with it again and again and rediscover it, is really cool. The fact that it stands up after 20 friggin’ years!

Martin McClean:
It’s astounding and it’s because it’s got great characters, it’s got great stories and it has something that you don’t get anymore, which is that Brad Wright and crew took the time to write characters that had depth, that had narrative, that had direction and had growth.

David Read:
Were relatable.

Martin McClean:
All relatable. They always infused it with humor which gave it this lovely balance. It wasn’t too heavy and the whole family could sort of sit down and enjoy it.

David Read:
But it wasn’t too light either. It wasn’t campy.

Martin McClean:
No, it wasn’t campy.

David Read:
I suppose some could call it campy, but I wouldn’t.

Martin McClean:
Maybe Wormhole X-Treme, which I adore.

David Read:
It’s more like Doctor Who. The older Doctor Who.

Martin McClean:
I think Remington said this to me when we were all together not that long ago. He said to me, “We’re very lucky to have the 370 odd plus episodes, because it’s lightning in a bottle. You won’t get it again.” I don’t think you would if you think about how production works. Netflix and others, you get 10 episodes. I saw a Star Trek post today, there’s gonna be 10 episodes this season. I thought, “We used to get 22.”

David Read:
You should get 26.

Martin McClean:
26.

David Read:
For TNG. Not all of them were that good. The nice thing about fewer episodes is that you get all the triple-A stories that they had in their minds for the last 365-some-odd days rather than “Well, we gotta fill a slot here too.”

Martin McClean:
That’s very true.

David Read:
I go back and forth.

Martin McClean:
I think the thing is, Stargate tells this 300-plus or 370-plus episode story across a couple of series. There’s this involvement that the audience can get, and even if they ran Stargate successfully for five years now, we’d have 50 episodes. 50 instead of, of course, 370. You don’t quite get the same level, I think, of depth. That doesn’t mean to say it won’t be great, I’m sure that it will be and I hope that it will be.

David Read:
They were producing 40 hours of television per year for three years. I wouldn’t wanna do that. No way. That’s insane.

Martin McClean:
You would be absolutely burned out.

David Read:
I’d be physically destroyed.

Martin McClean:
Those sorts of hours, you’re not there from nine to five. Those sorts of hours are huge. I think people don’t realize that when they look at it. But now, I think cast and crew can look back on this incredible body of work. Not everyone will love every episode, but almost without exception, I loved just about every one of them. I have my favorites, just like everybody, I love Moebius and I have some real favorites in there. I think it’s a fantastic piece of work and it’s fun to design props and models and things around it. It would be lovely if someone came along and did it for us, but that’s not always the case. We’ll just keep on designing our own.

David Read:
The flip side of that is that if they started really, really punching out the Stargate merchandise, I have a feeling that legal would come after everyone who was doing something on the side. Maybe it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie and make a curiosity for yourself here and there to give to a couple of friends and to make sure that we take photos of them on all different sides to share them with everyone online, to appreciate the artistry that you’ve created.

Martin McClean:
That’s right. It’s all about passing the appreciation on and trying to keep that sort of genre alive, really. I think it would be a real sin if people didn’t keep catching up with this show. For people who’ve never seen it before, it translates very well into today’s world.

David Read:
Better in some episodes, which is a little spooky.

Martin McClean:
I’ve watched a couple of episodes recently and thought, “Oh my God, this is like today.” Some of the writing from people like Joe Mallozzi and others, it’s so tight and so well done that it really holds up. They should be super proud of that and I hope they are. Those guys are legends. It really is superb. I think ultimately, for me, it’s what can we do to have fun in the franchise and it connects you with other fans, which is always a lot of fun. Whenever we sort of tweak some new model or something, you always get lots of really interesting comments.

David Read:
Interesting is sometimes the word.

Martin McClean:
You’ll always get somebody who will point out that the blueprint didn’t have the right Naquadah generator and the right pier and stuff. You always get that. I always celebrate that a little bit, because wow, people paid enough attention to point that out to me. I’m always very appreciative actually. It’s the opposite of what people might expect.

David Read:
What are you revealing? What are you working on next? Are you willing to say? I know what it is. I think it’s awfully darned ambitious. What are you doing next?

Martin McClean:
I am making the Stargate Atlantis gate big. A big version of this, an electronic version of this.

David Read:
The full ring or most of it?

Martin McClean:
The full ring.

David Read:
The real one wasn’t even full, OK.

Martin McClean:
The full ring. It’ll probably be between two and three feet wide, so it’s quite big. You’re gonna need a bigger wall. I told you to get another house.

David Read:
Where are you gonna put it? How would you ship that to me?

Martin McClean:
I’m gonna design a big box. It’s gonna come in a crate.

David Read:
Jesus. Where would it go? Where would I put it in here?

Martin McClean:
That’s a good question. That, I’m not sure.

David Read:
I don’t know where I could put it. I could do a whole episode on it for sure, but I think it might have to be in my living room.

Martin McClean:
Or maybe the dining room.

David Read:
The dining room too. That’s an awful lot of work, Martin. What is the impetus for that thing next? Are you going to try and challenge yourself electronically? Do you wanna use new materials? That gate was a rubber gate, largely, on the outside.

Martin McClean:
When I came to visit you and we had a look at the SGU gate, I thought it was so darn impressive. I thought, “I need to make a gate of my own.” I had done all these models, the puddle jumpers and all of those sort of things and I’d never done a gate. Some people out there have done fantastic versions of it.

David Read:
Chevrons and maybe one or two glyphs on either side. Getting the color diffusion right through the chevrons, getting it exactly right to the naked eye is one thing, and then on film is something else. Some of them are just gorgeous.

Martin McClean:
Some folks in France, of course, have done some amazing stuff there.

David Read:
Those Frenchies again.

Martin McClean:
Yes, they’re very dedicated and I adore that. I’m doing that. It’s in the CAD design phase, I’ve got about half of it done, it’s looking pretty good, then I’ll design the other half. If you take the gate, there’s a front, there’s the back and then there’s the middle. There’s, in a sense, two and a half to three gates inside one gate. If you think about it in that respect. I’m gonna do that, and then it needs a DHD. I have wanted to do a DHD for a long, long time.

David Read:
One of these?

Martin McClean:
Yes. I want to do one of those. I’m probably gonna start off with the Milky Way DHD and then I’m gonna move to the Atlantis one.

David Read:
What are you thinking, one-quarter scale?

Martin McClean:
It’ll be in scale with the three-foot gate.

David Read:
A three-foot gate, that’s gotta be quarter scale or one-third scale.

Martin McClean:
I worked it out based on how much room I had to hang it on the wall.

David Read:
The Stargate is 22 feet across.

Martin McClean:
Yes. This one’s not 22 feet. You’ll be so relieved to know this.

David Read:
I wouldn’t put it past you.

Martin McClean:
You get it down to a garage door. This one will not be that big. I’m looking forward to doing that. I say that now, ’cause I’m only halfway through the design, but by the end, I’ll be going, “This is driving me nuts.” The electronics and stuff I’ve got sorted out already; I’ve already worked out the code and stuff like that. It’s not finished, but I’ve worked out how it works and what have you. The only problem, the real problem for it is, does it mount on the wall or do we build a platform for it? If we made one of the platforms that we’ve just done for Master Replicas gate, oh my God, that’s gonna be big now. Then at that point, all of these lights will have to light up. It’s quite big.

David Read:
You want my advice? I’d love to mount it on a wall. Do a space gate with the three pods.

Martin McClean:
The three pods. That’s a good idea.

David Read:
They light themselves. I always wondered what was in those darn pods, probably a giant solar collector. I would do it that way because then you could have the excuse of putting it on the wall. Are you gonna do a puddle for the middle of it?

Martin McClean:
I don’t know. I’m not sure. I might, but if I do that, it might be photographic.

David Read:
Baby steps, Martin. Baby steps.

Martin McClean:
Baby steps. Were you the one who said to me, “Is it gonna have an iris?” Remember, the other gate?

David Read:
I’ve seen physical gates that are about yay big where someone has created an iris that disappears. I don’t know how they’re doing it, but they actually willed it into reality. It’s really amazing.

Martin McClean:
I know how they create it. It’s thick, though. It’s like the camera lens sort of aperture to open and close it. It’s like fan blades. It’s quite complicated.

David Read:
It works.

Martin McClean:
It works, you can do it, but it really would somehow put a lot of thickness in the gate.

David Read:
There’s always that last time. With Jaron’s gate, I don’t make it spin very often. He made it so that I can just toggle it on and off and that’s fine.

Martin McClean:
What I’m gonna do is, I think it’s currently 660 centimeters wide, but it can scale to any size. So, if we wanna make it bigger, we can do that. That’s the beautiful thing about this. These models can scale up. Scaling down is not always easy. Scaling up is super easy.

David Read:
More detail is revealed the larger you go.

Martin McClean:
That’s actually the reason that I’m doing this gate. A lot of people have done amazing jobs at it, but unless the gate’s a certain size, you don’t get to appreciate all the detail. That’s what I’m going after; I want people to see the detail that went into this amazing design and bring it to life. I thought if I made it smaller, if I made it, say, AKA, the master replica’s gate size or even just twice as big, you wouldn’t really see the detail the same way. Size makes a difference in this. That’s the plan at the moment. The other plan is to modify this. A little M.A.L.P. from a couple of years ago. That’s getting a makeover, big time. That’s getting lights and sound and moving dish and it’ll be remote control as well. You’ll be able to drive it around. That one’s going big, that one’s getting a big makeover. I was trying to work out the other night how to put a small camera into the front so that it could beam it back. I don’t know, that might be a bit ambitious.

David Read:
Nanny cam. What is this? What is this? Is this a nanny cam? No, no, not at all. It’s a M.A.L.P.

Martin McClean:
No, of course not. I should digress for a moment. I did think I was gonna make one and send it to you, which was about a foot and a half to two feet in size. I thought “that would be perfect for the living room of David’s house.” I thought, “That’s big. Can you imagine that?” I don’t know what scale that is at that point, but it’s pretty big. Remote control, that size.

David Read:
I sold the original one. It was fun to drive. We would get on the back of it and ride it like a horse. Not on top of it, but on the back of it there was a ledge that you could stand on and move it.

Martin McClean:
It’s that ledge down there at the back.

David Read:
That’s the one. Yes, that’s it. We could stand on that and move it around. It was actually much more stable when one of us stood on it when we drove it. There were two batteries on it and you just plugged in one when you were done with it and switched them out. Martin, we could go on for hours. I really appreciate your work as a designer, as an engineer, as a human being. You have created some really amazing, terrific stuff and I can’t wait to see what you come up with next for all of us to enjoy. It means a lot always to have you.

Martin McClean:
David, it’s always a pleasure. Thank you so much for the opportunity to sit and chat to not only my good friend, but also a fellow fan. It’s always a pleasure. Anything you need, you know where I am.

David Read:
I’m gonna need a new house. We’ll see. All right.

Martin McClean:
I told you you’re gonna need a house.

David Read:
Gosh. I thought you were kidding.

Martin McClean:
I told you. Remington agreed, it’s time to get a bigger place.