Customer Focus: BenofkentProps

We spoke to Ben Smith, Owner of BenofkentProps, about his brilliant business, and which of our products he uses to get his fantastic results.

Tell us briefly about what the company does?

BenofkentProps builds from scratch and recreates props from TV and films, as well as doing custom props for music mideos and independent films.

How did you find yourself making these products?

I had a keen interest in building since I was a child, watching my father build. I then attended a theatre college at sixteen and learned to prop build.

How long has your company been in business?

I've been producing many props since 2003 to sell as part of my business, but I have over twenty years experience in prop building. 

Which of our products do you use? And why do you use these specifically?

The products that we use from CFS are the Polyurethane FastCast and different standard resins.

We use polyurethane because after doing months of research, we found it is a good quality material to work with and gives back some amazing results. It goes off well, becomes very fast and is very strong and it doesn't smell.

Did you have a problem that was solved by our product?

We were using other resins that were over heating, breaking and warping, so we changed to polyurethane and have never looked back. 

So what's the basic process you go through when making your product?

When making the Ghostbuster Packs for example, we built the original shell out of wood, and then made a silicon mould of the shell or "Buck" as we call it. Then we pour the polyurethane into the silicon mould, brushing it in and layering it with fibreglass strips. Once it's dried we pull the shell to create the start of a Ghostbuster Pack. 

Have you ever had something go wrong?

We had an incident when a pack was about to go out fully finished, and it accidentally got knocked over face down - the customer was literally getting the pack the next day! We ran over to check it and it had no defects, we were amazed at how strong the polyurethane actually is, and customers have told us the same when they've been knocked at events wearing their packs. The polyurethane really is very tough and we stand by your product. 

Thanks so much to Ben for this great interview and for the fab photos! If you'd like more information about these fantastic props, you can contact him here.