Plastic vs rubber ESB lightsaber grips

M

Mofritz6

Jr Member
I have heard from a LOT of people that the original ESB lightsaber had plastic T-tracks. But then, while looking at one of slothfurnace's posts where he showed his lightsaber, I saw this:

"Yes.. he specifically said the first one had metal t tracks that cut his hands... and they changed them to rubber for the second movie. My wife and I both thought that was interesting."

This specifically interested me, hearing that the Mark Hamill himself said that the second movie(ESB) had RUBBER grips. I just wanted to re-open this idea, as I am still completely conflicted as to which option to choose.

Thanks!
 
The theory that the grips were either plastic or metal came from a story about a fan who supposedly spoke with the prop maker's in the UK who made the sabers in the first place. This was a long time ago and he was told that they were t-track for sliding cupboard doors. What gave credence to this story is that vintage examples of such material have been found. None seem to be 100% close, usually wrong color or some other detail doesnt match exactly. Damn close, though. To this day I am not aware of anyone finding an example of vintage grip material in rubber. Maybe they were custom made, who knows. As far as I'm concerned, until I see substantial proof otherwise, I'm sticking with plastic grips. Memories from over 30 years ago aren't trust worthy enough for me. Even if it is Mark Hamill or Roger Christian.
 
I personally like rubber grips over anything else. Makes more sens as well. I used Blastech grips on all my sabers including my new Romans replica. Love the feel of them.
 
Well yeah, if you plan on dueling, rubber is better. But a static display saber? Rubber grips will warp eventually.
 
I disagree... well it depends on the brand and on how you display it. I have sabers that are 15 years or older with Blastech grips on them and the rubber didn't become gooey and they haven't warped at all.
 
Yeah in some stills from Empire you can see that the small bit of grip from Luke's saber (below the screw or rivet holding it on) is broken off almost as if they tightened it too much and the pressure broke off the end of the grip. If that was rubber it would have just warped out of shape rather than broke off completely.

My thinking is that the grips were actually hard plastic, though for the stunt sabers they may have had rubber ones made to make them more comfortable to hold. But the hero sabers or the ones that were just hilts with no blades were likely hard plastic.
 
oh that's interesting that the stunt and hero would have been different. That makes sense though, because Mark would have mostly handled the stunt instead of the belt hanger. That means that he must have remembered that the stunt ones were rubber, and assumed that the belt hanger was too.

but I still don't understand why if that is true, they wouldn't just use rubber on both versions, because they would have had the materials.

Any thoughts?
 
I dont know Mark Hammil (wish I did), but most actors honestly wouldn't notice or care about the difference. Black with rubbery texture = rubber, regardless of whether its actually plastic or not.
 
I don't think any of us can say what they are "supposed" to be. As far as I know there is no evidence for rubber. What about the grips on the surviving sabers? Aren't they plastic?
 
matty matt said:
I don't think any of us can say what they are "supposed" to be. As far as I know there is no evidence for rubber. What about the grips on the surviving sabers? Aren't they plastic?
Click to expand...

I mean what they are intended to give the illusion of....they are grips, grips are rubber. I dont think they were rubber, but the are a prop so they dont really have to be.
 
Ignoring what anyone WANTS it to be........

The only really "found" t-track material is plastic, no rubber found than fanmade (and it feels definately better on toysabers).

Knowing that .... place your bet.
 
Well I think we in the states assumed they were some magical European wipe blades! ( I think I once heard they were off a British military vehicle.)
 
I still think that they are not supposed to resemble grips but cooling flanges. They were used also on barrels of several types of blasters (E-11, EE-3, DLT-19, ...) where they are obviously cooling flanges, so it makes sense that they would be that also on lightsabers.

Only one specific profile of the T-track has ever been seen on the movie-props, which makes it probable that there was only one type of "found" track that was used.
A few lucky people here have been able to inspect the real thing themselves and have said that it was definitely plastic except for a couple of props for ROTJ (or maybe later) that were cast in resin.

Several types of plastic T-tracks in/for furniture have been found by Laszlo, me and several others. So far, the exact type has not been found but there have been tracks with about the same sizes, shapes, profiles or groove on the underside differing from the target in only a couple details.
 
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