Just finished a small batch of these hilts. I've gotten a LOT of requests for these, but the labor involved is pretty extensive so I resisted taking the plunge until now. It's taken about 10 weeks to make just about 10 of each one. I actually made enough components to built more than 20 of each hilt, but there is a lot of waste in the process ... parts that don't come out well enough, break somewhere in the process, etc, so it gets whittled down to a much smaller number of finished hilts. I designed these based on in-person measurement and physical inspection of multiple original filming props. There's quite a lot of small detail in these hilts that often gets missed - things like the asymmetry of the Anakin grips, the breakdown of the parts, the internal construction, etc. These replicas are so close in fact, that you could swap each and every component of them with an original prop, and everything would play nicely together.
A new discovery I made during the creation of this batch was that I believe the Obi-Wan stunt hilts feature some DELRIN components. Specifically, the booster and grenade sections are Delrin. It first came to my attention because while these props are mostly covered in scratches and scuffs, those black sections remain pristine and black, indicating both a harder material than the other resin parts, as well as it being intrinsically colored rather than painted. There are other plastics it could potentially be, but Delrin is a perfect match for the look, feel, and durability that I've observed. So I concluded they're Delrin, and had those parts machined faithfully from Delrin for these replicas. The other body parts are made from resin, which was hand-sanded for half an eternity before going to painting and finishing. The chrome parts were sent to a specialty vendor to be vacuum-metallized just like the original props - it's a multi-step process and very cool.
After metallization, each part gets bonded to an internal alloy core. The emitter-side cores are hollow and unthreaded to allow a thru-bolt to pass. Then the pommel-side cores feature M10 x 1.5 threading just like the original props. The Anakin grips get individually hand-masked and painted. Finally, each hilt is assembled onto either a thru bolt, or a blade with threaded pushrod (like our Nova Carbon blades which are replicas of the original ROTS blades). The original props were either left assembled with blades, or with a large M10 socket head thru-bolt. I built some custom low-head thru bolts which do the same function but don't distract from the look of the hilt. You can see more photos and watch the intro video in the Saberz store. I do have a thread about these in the Project Runs forum, but I know folks sometimes miss threads there, so if you've been waiting on these to be available, now is the time. There are something like 4-5 of each hilt still available, but they will probably go fast.
A new discovery I made during the creation of this batch was that I believe the Obi-Wan stunt hilts feature some DELRIN components. Specifically, the booster and grenade sections are Delrin. It first came to my attention because while these props are mostly covered in scratches and scuffs, those black sections remain pristine and black, indicating both a harder material than the other resin parts, as well as it being intrinsically colored rather than painted. There are other plastics it could potentially be, but Delrin is a perfect match for the look, feel, and durability that I've observed. So I concluded they're Delrin, and had those parts machined faithfully from Delrin for these replicas. The other body parts are made from resin, which was hand-sanded for half an eternity before going to painting and finishing. The chrome parts were sent to a specialty vendor to be vacuum-metallized just like the original props - it's a multi-step process and very cool.
After metallization, each part gets bonded to an internal alloy core. The emitter-side cores are hollow and unthreaded to allow a thru-bolt to pass. Then the pommel-side cores feature M10 x 1.5 threading just like the original props. The Anakin grips get individually hand-masked and painted. Finally, each hilt is assembled onto either a thru bolt, or a blade with threaded pushrod (like our Nova Carbon blades which are replicas of the original ROTS blades). The original props were either left assembled with blades, or with a large M10 socket head thru-bolt. I built some custom low-head thru bolts which do the same function but don't distract from the look of the hilt. You can see more photos and watch the intro video in the Saberz store. I do have a thread about these in the Project Runs forum, but I know folks sometimes miss threads there, so if you've been waiting on these to be available, now is the time. There are something like 4-5 of each hilt still available, but they will probably go fast.
