Prop-maker at Shepperton Studios fears for future after post by US president throws sector into uncertainty

It is a sunny May afternoon in leafy Surrey, and Richard St Clair is carefully preparing a bomb. It is not real, but it will look like it is when shown on a Netflix TV show. Across the workshop a colleague is cheerfully sandpapering a pile of hip bones for the 28 Years Later zombie trilogy – trailers suggest a lot of skeletons will be involved.

They are working at db Props, a small company based at Shepperton Studios whose handiwork – made of expanding foam, wood, or assorted odds and sods – in films and shows has ranged from weapons in Ant Man to Thor’s hammer to Alan Turing’s computer in The Imitation Game.