A familiar face

Like many of us, my first figure was a Mike Brose/Fred Project dummy. Actually, now that I think about it, he was my second figure. My first was a very simple Danny O'Day upgrade from Clinton Detweiller. While I was excited to get him, I realized very quickly that a full-size figure would be better for me. When I discovered the availability of the Fred Project head and parts, I decided to build one myself even though I was not a skilled craftworker back then.

The mistake I made (among several actually) was I chose to set up the controls like a Jerry Mahoney doll with moving eyes. I'd had one when I was a kid. The controls were two plastic rings on strings. One string opened the mouth and the other moved the eyes. The eyes were defaulted looking right via a rubber band. When I pulled the string, the eyes moved to the center or to the far left. I set up my Fred the same way. Not good.

Nevertheless, the Fred Project pulled me into building figures. But my Fred sat on the shelf all these years because my set up really didn't work that well. So today I'm changing the mechanics to a more conventional style. He'll have a lever on the headstick for the mouth. The eyes will move side-to-side, non-self-centering with rocker on the headstick.

 I'm going to replace the Brose body with a hollow wood Braylu body. I'm more used to them. I'll have a molded Brose body to sell soon.