Tag Archives: Boardwalk Empire

Valentine’s Day Links

Happy Friday, everyone! For those of you in my part of the country, I hope you survived the winter storm(s) alright. Whether you are back to work or still stuck in your house, here are some prop-related articles for your reading pleasure:

The ever-inspiring prop maker Ross MacDonald has a post on some of the period paper props he has made for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire over the past four years. His props are always well-researched and produced on vintage machines as close to how they were originally produced.

Collector’s Weekly has a great piece on the fifty year history of Easy-Bake Ovens. If you have never checked out their blog, this is a great piece to start on. Their stories are always a cut above the rest, filled with tons of great photographs, and delving into the history of various objects in great detail.

If you are interested in making props while spending barely any money on materials, check out the Cardboard Armory. As the name suggests, this blog details various armor and weapon projects built with little more than cardboard, hot glue and the occasional piece of PVC pipe.

Though directed at woodworkers, Popular Woodworking’s “Top 6 Ways to Become a Better Woodworker” is just as relevant to the prop maker. Ok, it’s actually five ways, since one of the ways is to read Popular Woodworking (though if you build prop furniture from wood, it’s a good magazine to check out).

Alpha Officium makes historically-accurate coins out of real metal. His website has some common coins like Florins and Groats, and he can also do custom orders if you need something more specific.

New Links for Fall

Here are some of the hot new links for Fall:

  • Rebuilding the Boardwalk, pixel by pixel. A great article about recreating 1920’s Atlantic City for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. With all the challenges you can imagine for such a task, one of the most difficult, according to the article, was finding the right chairs.
  • The Gizmologist’s Lair. W. E. Johns has such a plethora of articles and links on his site, I’ve barely scratched the surface and already have discovered so many great things. He has projects, reference for all sorts of technical and technological bits and more.
  • A Big List of Sites that Teach You How to Do Stuff. Pretty self-explanatory. I haven’t checked out all the sites they list, but I do know eHow is a big waste of internets.
  • The History and Geography of Inventions. A quick reference for you to see when and where many things were invented.

Have a great weekend!