The Great Fredini Dreams of a 3D Sideshow in Coney Island

Demetrius Freeman/The New York Times Fred Kahl, known to some as the Great Fredini, is making replicas of sideshow performers with a 3D printer, hoping to recreate in miniature a Coney Island of the early 1900s.

During his years as a member of the Coney Island Circus Sideshow, Fred Kahl, 48, performed as a magician, a sword-swallower, a stuntman who could hammer nails into his skull and light lightbulbs with his bare hands, and an impresario who helped found the Burlesque at the Beach. That was when he acquired another name: the Great Fredini.

On a recent afternoon, Mr. Kahl took the train from Midtown Manhattan, where he works days as an interactive designer, to an unused fortune teller’s cubbyhole on Surf Avenue, near the Coney Island boardwalk. Above the door is a sign proclaiming his latest venture: Scan-A-Rama, a 3D scanning-and-printing studio where he produces miniature plastic replicas of visitors with a Microsoft Kinect sensor-turned-scanner and a 3D printer about the size of a microwave.

“This stuff is like magic,” he said. “It’s one of the principles of magic â€" transmutation.” He continued, “Coney Island’s always been the place where cutting edge technology and entertainment intersect: the rides, the light bulb.”

Mr. Kahl’s dream is to re-create Luna Park, one of Coney Island’s first amusement parks, as it stood in 1914 at the height of its glory, with its ersatz pagodas, Hindu temples, Japanese gardens and Venetian canal. (The current version of Luna Park was opened in 2010; a housing project sits on the original site.) His model will go to the Coney Island Museum.

“I used to think, when I retire, I’ll make it out of matchsticks or something,” he said. Then he discovered 3D printers, which recently became available commercially. He built printers from kits before acquiring a used printer, and spent six months staying up late, tweaking his scanning process. Now he hopes to raise enough money, through Kickstarter, to buy more printers for the project, which is part of the Coney Island artist incubator program.

The model will be populated by dozens of printed figurines, portraits of Coney Island’s present-day characters in off-white plastic. He already had dozens, piled in cardboard boxes: a sword-swallower, clutching her sword; a teenager, the outline of a cell phone just visible in her back pocket; two sea nymphs from this year’s Mermaid Parade. Several were friends from the sideshow: the ventriloquist with his dummy; the hangman; the man with shrunken flipper-like arms with his wife, a burlesque showgirl, both naked.

This particular afternoon, Mr. Kahl was worrying about a hammer. Specifically, it was the hammer used by Ray Valenz, the sideshow’s current Human Blockhead, to drive nails into his skull. It was too delicate to print. “I’ll definitely come back through on Saturday with a bigger hammer,” Mr. Valenz said. “Or, I got some machetes.” Mr. Kahl thought the machetes would be too thin; they settled on some flaming torches.

Some relatives stopped by, and he posed three children on the lazy Susan-like wooden platform, which is made out of wood, a bike tire, part of a car tire and a rotisserie motor plundered from a grill. “It’s very rubber bands and glue, literally,” he said.

Because 3D printers work by producing infinitesimal layers of hot plastic, there are certain constraints on poses. Limbs or objects that jut out into space, unsupported, confuse the modeling program. Chins, especially bearded ones, can be tricky to print because they jut into
space unsupported; it is best to pose looking up, bringing the chin in line with the rest of the body.”

“We try to get everybody looking up optimistically into the future,” said Mr. Kahl, tilting the children’s chins upward. They stayed still as they rotated beneath the Kinect’s gaze, their eyes wide, looking as though they had been frozen in the act of spotting an alien spaceship.

Within seconds, they appeared on a screen. “Oh my God, you guys look scary,” interjected Peter Lanfranca, 33, peering into the studio. He contemplated being scanned. “You want to get rid of this?” Mr. Lanfranca asked, patting his belly, then flexing.

Since 3D printing became more widely available, discussions of its impact have mostly focused on useful objects that consumers could print at home, obviating the need to go to Home Depot to buy, say, a shower head (estimated print time, in one study: two hours, 16 minutes), or a pierogi mold (39 minutes). There was also a minor flap this summer when firearm enthusiasts designed and printed the first 3D guns.

For Mr. Kahl, however, a 3D printer is an artistic tool. “The question I’ve been thinking about is, is it photography?” he said. Behind him, the printer was busily forming a pair of legs. “I think it could be argued it is photography.” As in photography, after all, his portraits are made by aiming rays at his subject. But because it shows mass and posture, he argued, “It captures who we are in a way that photography doesn’t.”

Mr. Kahl’s first wife was the fire-eater in the sideshow; his second runs a gift shop in Coney Island. His daughter is helping him with the Scan-A-Rama, and some of his test models were produced by the two of them scanning each other. But the only model of himself in the cardboard box that day was by someone else.

“It’s a bad scan of me,” he said, inspecting it. His smaller self wore a suit, and looked down. (This was before he discovered it was best to look up.) Its nose and cheek were somewhat eroded.

“If I was a millionaire, I’d have my shop in Times Square, next to Madame Tussaud’s,” he said, smiling slightly. “I’ve got kids in college, though.” Behind him, the printer, having produced a four inch-high woman, emitted a small, triumphant tinkle.