Futurama Planet Express Ship Keys

These models are my interpretation of the keys to the Planet Express ship from Futurama. The keys change from scene to scene, but I believe these are highly accurate representations. If you're curious about the process of adapting them from the show, read more at the bottom.

Making Your Keys

Read through everything below to figure out how you want to proceed and your order of operations.

Printing / Machining

The files should work for FDM and SLA printing and CNC machining. I tested everything with FDM during design, SLA to finalize details, and machined the keys in the photos out of aluminum for my final copies.

For FDM, I recommend starting with a 0.4mm nozzle and 0.2mm layer height. SLA will work best for the key grips, if that's an option for you.

Print one copy of everything for your keys.

Assembly

Like many real keys you probably have for things like a car, the key grips snap over the keyblades. In my testing, glue didn't feel necessary for my final copies, but that was resin mating with precisely machined aluminum. I still secured everything with a thin layer of epoxy, which I recommend doing.

For FDM prints, you may need to sand the edges of the keyblades and inside of the grips to get a good fit. There should be no gaps between the grip halves.

If you have a slight gap, don't worry. Let the glue cure and then you can apply some gap filler.

Painting and Finishing Options

The keyblades are straightforward. They should be painted a metallic silver or aluminum. Some Alclad II Polished Aluminum lacquer should work nicely.

You have options for the grips. They're a simple black, but you might want to add texture. You could coat them in a textured spray paint, truck bed liner (as seen in the photos), or a rubber coating like Plasti Dip.

Determine your order of operations before painting anything. If you want to make sure you don't get any glue squeeze out on your paint (keyblade or grips) and you don't have any seams, you may want to paint after you assemble everything. This way you can apply gap filler and do some final sanding and general clean-up before painting.

This is arguably more work because you'll need to carefully mask everything and paint in stages, but you final keys will be cleaner. The choice is yours!

From Screen to the Real World

It's always a fun challenge to try to bring something from an animated show or movie into the real world. Colors and shapes tend to change from scene to scene and episode to episode. For this project, season 1's episode 2 provides plenty of opportunities to examine the keys as they play a big role in the episode's story.

You can get some clear shots of the keys when Amy loses them and later tries to fish them out of the claw machine.

For sizing, I looked-up schematics for the claws rated as appropriate for stuffed animal prizes, like the one in the episode. I sized my screenshots to match the schematics and made adjustments based on my own measurements of various real keys and the standardized thicknesses of keyblades.

The grips are simple shapes but are also inconsistent. The biggest example of this is the cut-out in the round key grip. You might wonder why it's there when close-up shots don't always show it. If you watch the episode closely, you'll see the background is visible through that section of the key more often than not. Which is “correct”? Maybe Matt Groening knows. I went with this version because I thought it looked much more interesting.