Star Wars - ANH Rebel Trooper Blaster "DH-17"

Here is my Try to build a more or less "screen accurate" Rebel Blaster.
Fact is that they used casted Blaster-bodys with org. Single Point Scopes and some other parts.

Years ago i bought a casting of the main body they used for the Blasters in Star Wars ANH.
This is the casting :

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Sadly i can't find a photo from a screenused /complete Blaster as it used in ANH , and that is the big problem, all we have are screenshots, photos of the castings and the mold (as far as i know the org. mold is in the collection of Gus Lopez)

When we talk about the ANH screenshots don't forget that some of the imperial troopers on the death star also have those DH-17 Blasters !
That leads me to a screenshot where i can see the details at the right side of the blaster.

This is the cleaned, sanded, repaired blaster in primer with the added parts :

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Nice work man, but what is the backstory behind those right side details? I´ve never seen these before...

Markus

Markus,
i've seen is that there IS anything on the right side, i've always wondered what those parts could be.

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Then i've found this screenshot of the Imperial trooper with the blaster in his holster :

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I guess this parts are made from a simple tube, cut in a 45 angle and cut off one end :cool


BTW, in that shots you can clearly see the red markings of the Single Point Scope, that shows that the scopes are NOT painted.

never seen this!

but you should check out the greedo blaster thread....the parts you're looking for are vintage tonearmhead connectors. Toolguy offers 3D prints via shapeways

Markus

Weird. That part has been discovered on 3 props in the last year.

So the added piece running length-wise under the scope area is some sort of conduit and not T-track?

No, i'm sure it's a tube/conduit.

Mara Jade's Father said:

Weird. That part has been discovered on 3 props in the last year.

So the added piece running length-wise under the scope area is some sort of conduit and not T-track?

Click to expand...

thank you Markus,
AMAZING
yeah, that could be the part !

OdiWan72 said:

never seen this!

but you should check out the greedo blaster thread....the parts you're looking for are vintage tonearmhead connectors. Toolguy offers 3D prints via shapeways

Markus

Click to expand...

Okay,
just finished the Blaster

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Could the conduit be the tone arm?

Wow that looks great! One of the best ANH DH-17's I've seen.

WONDERFUL!!! Now I feel inspired to redo my own

Markus

That is one awesome blaster. Nice job!

thanks guys

Wow that's spectacular...

Over the years, I have become a big fan of this version. Love that trigger guard. Best I have ever seen.

Dann said:

Could the conduit be the tone arm?

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I keep wondering about that.
OdiWan72. Is there any resemblance of the conduit to that of a Michell arm?

there have been a couple of different people coming out with DH-17 blasters but no one seems to really be paying attention to details. They tend to utilize detail from Sterlings and the MR and in doing so, lack the detailing of this prop.

Mara Jade's Father said:

I keep wondering about that.
@OdiWan72. Is there any resemblance of the conduit to that of a Michell arm?

there have been a couple of different people coming out with DH-17 blasters but no one seems to really be paying attention to details. They tend to utilize detail from Sterlings and the MR and in doing so, lack the detailing of this prop.

Click to expand...

It surely could be -part of- a transcriptor fluid tonearm, check this:




Reg. accurate detailing of the ANH DH17.
Just as you do, I like to keep my props a combination of what they actually looked like on screen and what I suppose them to look like.
I used a MR DH17 and detailed it inspired by El locos build. I should have added the crappy scope-mounts but decided to keep the dovetail-mounts...for now
Bought some accurate DIP14 pin sockets and chips to accurize mine even further.

Curious to see what you come up with, I am sure it´ll come out great

Markus

That arm looks promising. Do you think it could be the same one on each side.

OdiWan72 said:

...Curious to see what you come up with, I am sure it´ll come out great

Markus

Click to expand...

Thanks for the vote of confidence but I am stuck before I can even start. I need a to be confident about the body/base.

As you know from our previous discussion, I have doubts about using a body based on the 1:1 scale of a Sterling SMG. In the film, this weapon looks smaller than a prop sized off a Sterling. When we compare a cast from the original molds (such as the one used in this build thread) to that of a sterling, it is also smaller.

Now it can be argued that a mold that was made 40 years ago might deal with shrinkage issues. But my current belief is that a undersizing is mostly due to the original prop is a result of a cast of cast. Here is what I think. I think a Sterling was cast, then that cast was modified to build a DH-17 master and then that master was cast to get the mold we know. So the shrinkage could mainly be due to casting of a cast.

I have also been puzzled to the level of modification. We know the barrel was changed and the scope mount added. It also appears that a section of the body was cut out and the point in which the swivel of the stock removed. They also appear to have removed any hint of the cocking slot (heh... cocking slot) and the bolt as seen thought the ejection port lacks the detail of the Sterling, it is smooth. The ejection port is very strange. The deflection shield has been removed and the port itself has been altered as it is not longer rounded toward the barrel and is now straight.

I also have to wonder about the grip and trigger guard area. I think the sterling grip was disassembled prior to its first casting and parts removed (for reasons I do not know). That is why the new trigger guard was added (not sure if it done during the first cast or on the master. The reason I think the parts were removed is that there is no selector switch on the casts from the mold. I also doubt the selector switch was simply sanded off. Because why do that and not touch the selector text.

Mara Jade's Father said:

That arm looks promising. Do you think it could be the same one on each side.

Thanks for the vote of confidence but I am stuck before I can even start. I need a to be confident about the body/base.

As you know from our previous discussion, I have doubts about using a body based on the 1:1 scale of a Sterling SMG. In the film, this weapon looks smaller than a prop sized off a Sterling. When we compare a cast from the original molds (such as the one used in this build thread) to that of a sterling, it is also smaller.

Now it can be argued that a mold that was made 40 years ago might deal with shrinkage issues. But my current belief is that a undersizing is mostly due to the original prop is a result of a cast of cast. Here is what I think. I think a Sterling was cast, then that cast was modified to build a DH-17 master and then that master was cast to get the mold we know. So the shrinkage could mainly be due to casting of a cast.

I have also been puzzled to the level of modification. We know the barrel was changed and the scope mount added. It also appears that a section of the body was cut out and the point in which the swivel of the stock removed. They also appear to have removed any hint of the cocking slot (heh... cocking slot) and the bolt as seen thought the ejection port lacks the detail of the Sterling, it is smooth. The ejection port is very strange. The deflection shield has been removed and the port itself has been altered as it is not longer rounded toward the barrel and is now straight.

I also have to wonder about the grip and trigger guard area. I think the sterling grip was disassembled prior to its first casting and parts removed (for reasons I do not know). That is why the new trigger guard was added (not sure if it done during the first cast or on the master. The reason I think the parts were removed is that there is no selector switch on the casts from the mold. I also doubt the selector switch was simply sanded off. Because why do that and not touch the selector text.

Click to expand...

I don´t see any evidence for use of the tonearm on the blasters left side.

Yep...totally understand your POV.
Like discussed before, I also believe it to be a cast of a modified L2A3 cast...NONE of the other resin props used by the prop dept. shows this level of shrinkage, so it must have been a result of manipulating the mold master.

I had one of those casts for the longest but sold it. It just looked way undersized and of course warped. The tone arm thing is awesome.