Raygun Reverie

Photography by Paul Loughridge; photograph far right by Cindy Loughridge

“You know, guys never really grow up,” says Paul Loughridge. His hand-built, retro raygun models have the authentic menace of Star Wars and the wacky form factor of Men in Black. But their mid-century, all-metal look is straight out of his childhood favorites: Flash Gordon, Amazing Stories, Lost in Space.

Collectors think he’s on to something. His work has a satisfying heft from a time before plastics and semiconductors ruled the Earth, when science fiction was built to last with rivets and bolts, copper flanges and chrome fins. Who wouldn’t love to fry a Martian with the Aluminizer, the Shrink Ray, or the Double Barreled Intergalactic Self-Defense Mechanism?

Loughridge, 51, is a Silicon Valley graphic designer, trade-show director, and compulsive collector whose itch for vintage toys took him down the DIY path. Maybe it was his wife banishing his collection (“ rayguns, rocketships, and robots ... all pre-Star Wars”) to a storage unit. Maybe it was the raygun that got away.

“I’d just got back from a toy show,” he recalls, “and must have seen some bitchin’ raygun I couldn’t >> Rayguns: lockwasherdesign.com/index_ 4.htm afford. I decided to make my own out of metal. Used claytonbailey.com/galleryrayguns.htm

an old drill handle that had belonged to my dad.” He Googled “raygun,” and master maker Clayton Bailey became his inspiration. Dozens of rayguns followed.

In a garage outfitted with a drill press and grinder, Loughridge bolts together flea-market junk. Pistol grips come from old air tools and hacksaws. Barrels and muzzles might be a mean-looking orange juicer, BMX foot peg, or — just once — a perfectly good flower vase. (“Sorry, honey!”) Finishing touches include cocktail shakers, brake hoses, and copper toilet floats.

“Rayguns are definitely a guy thing ... it’s a Tim Allen grunt kinda thing. Boys want to touch them.” But he’s broadening his audience. “I made a couple robot dogs and female robots, and women are buying them.”

Now when he’s not tending his bonsai tree collection (he’s got 70 in the backyard), you might find Loughridge in the garage, creating toy robots, rocketships, and rayguns. “I just love old retro stuff. It all has to do with being a kid.” —Keith Hammond

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