ANH Motorised stunt Saber experiments (& blades) Part 1

[thd9791]

redbutton has a DMB

Here are Busch, Canon and Nikon (the canon flashes are tightly machined and high quality compared to graflex, and I love graflex!

The canons are slightly smaller than a graflex body, so that endcap might very well be useful if they didn't scratch build the endcap (brass d ring)

Also those d rings are quick release screws for cameras I love them but the d rings are a little small to be of real use here

 

[Mouse Vader]

Heck of collection you've got ! I particularly like the Vader one.
Can you tell how deeply those endcaps go? They certainly look a lot like what I see in the training session screen grabs I did earlier.

I made up a penny washer/jack plug end cap this afternoon. Was quick & straight forward, & is robust. I bought the plastic caps recently with the intention of fitting a jack plug to see what it would look like but hadn't then figured how to have it metal ended.
Held the cap by the end rim in the lathe chuck & drilled a clearance hole for the jack plug. The Stainless penny washers I got are 6mm hole 40mm o/d. I drilled out the middle to 9mm clearance in the lathe. Took down the diam of the plastic cap end rim with the dremel & small sanding drum so it would go inside the main tube then just put the jackplug through both cap & washer, screwed the jack plug nut on. Needed a washer between the jack plug & the plastic to get the end flush with the nut. Also reduced the diam of the endcap 'fins' a little to get an easier fit so that I can get it out by just prying with my finger nails. The washer o/d at 40mm also gives something to get hold of. I ran some emery over the washer surface when it was in the lathe to give it a 'brushed' look. (Tube is the stainless replacement one for the MK1b).


The other washers I've ordered are zincplate m/steel & 1 1/2". I thought if I tap the hole to the same as the jackplug socket & pack another washer or two under the plastic I could screw the socket straight into the washer & get the end flush. It would then look almost identical to your flash gun end caps.
As it is the nut can be very hard to see at certain angles.

I've even found another still of the black nose endcap from the same film set (blurry what else). Anyone have a better res. version?

However it is clear that it shows light then dark then light in the very center. I need to do some 'comparison' photos (suitably blurry ones). I can't think the flat camera ones would do this but I can test this with the flush jackplug type I've yet to make.

I've now gone from just guessing to having two or three possible fits to test. Thanks again thd for your input.

 

[thd9791]

Absolutely. I love your hole plug idea. Honestly, the only realistic way that would be a tripod hole would be if they found a large flash, or cannabalized one just for the end - but considering how much machining the inside took, I have my doubts they didn't just machine an endcap too.


The end caps on these flashes don't go in very far, less than half an inch for sure. They are mostly glued shut on my sabers by accident. Nikon screws in, Busch screws in, Canon has set screws

And thank you! I don't make many custom sabers, the requirements are high for found parts that hook your interest (like a music producer IDing a hook song without much explanation) and I work with similar parts (that Litronux calculator display). Sym-Cha inspired me to run the Heiland reflector dish rods inside the flash unit like an exposed system.

Here are pictures of the ANH Vader stunt, bottom. If it helps you feel more confident about a custom machined bottom, I cant imagine this was a found item. Ignore the 2 little screw holes, Ep. 3 saber, and the affixed T track probably not in the same orientation it was during ANH

 

[Mouse Vader]

Honestly, the only realistic way that would be a tripod hole would be if they found a large flash, or cannabalized one just for the end - but considering how much machining the inside took, I have my doubts they didn't just machine an endcap too.

Having had time to mull this over I think you're right. Additionally I can't think why I'm trying to ignore Jon's sketch. He's an eye witness who has informed us of a jack plug socket in just this position. How much more evidence can we hope for?

I can think of two general ways for this endcap to be done. Something like I tried, either plastic or wood plug, penny washer / a slice of 1 1/2inch bar. Or a deeper slice of bar (possibly stepped) held in place by grub screws. I'm inclined to the latter as it would permit the jack socket to be removed but still have a usable endcap, though clearance for the threads on a 1/4 jack is about 9mm & I've done a minimum & maximum possible scale on the screen shot & am making it between 5 & 7mm which is putting 1/4 inch right in mid range at 6.35mm. I've bought a vintage socket (yet to arrive) that has a straight knurled ring retainer as opposed to the hex nut I currently have fitted. This maybe harder to see in blurry photo's. I'll do comparison shots. (edit: I forgot they could also have tapped the endcap itself give a flush fit - damn then you don't get that dark ring in my last posts pic. I'll just have to do the test photo's )

Working on another d/s setup for wooden blades so that would be similar to what I want to use on the Kenobi. Will post when finished.

 

[Mouse Vader]

Finally got round to seeing if I can straighten beech dowel. Short answer is yes! Yea !
Grabbed a dowel at random from box. One of the more bent ones.


By looking down it & sliding my hand down & pinching where I see the bend start & finish I can mark on the dowel in marker pen where the bend is. Did this on the outside of the bend.


Heating the dowel with my trusty black & decker hot air gun (setting 2 of 3). Doing this mainly on the inside of the bend as it's the side that has to stretch. You don't need to get it hot enough scorch the wood , just to the point it's unpleasantly too hot to touch.


Improvised bending tool - the middle of the kitchen radiator. Have the pen mark towards me & pulling toward me.


All nice & straight.


Simple eh? Not really that simple. You can over correct - not correct exactly on the outermost part of the bend inducing a smaller new bend on a different axis & so on - the dowel only stays hot enough for so long & you need to check how your doing often by looking down it , this limits working time. It took me about 15-20mins before I decided I could do no more.

The new d/s & blade:
D/s is a stud of 8mm rod with 4mm motor shaft socket & with a collar cut from the earlier Jon Bunker short d/s version which was an interference fit on the 8mm rod. The blade for this (above dowel) has a socket (drilled on the lathe with 7.9mm drill) & sporting a 19mm o/d sleeve I bored out on the lathe from solid bar (15.5mm i/d). Didn't want to buy some seamless tube in case it didn't work well & this is costing enough as it is. Drilled the socket in full length of the drill, about 3", as I didn't know how far in I'd need to take the stud to get a good friction fit. Made the stud long for the same reason.


Drilled through & tapped grub screw holes into the 8mm rod. Test fitting blade to stud showed I could only push it on just over 1 inch before it hard to pull off again. Final length d/s fitted to the Mk1b motor.

It's a designed I'd thought up about at the same time as doing the stuffer d/s but not followed through with as I felt the stuffer was a better option. I've done it now as it's very similar to the only set up I can think of for the Kenobi (V2) blade attachment.

Next post - how I got on with it.

 

[thd9791]

This seems like a silly question, but can you remind us how you drilled out the bottom of the dowel? I know it wasnt in a machine because that would be a long machine!

 

[thd9791]

Also, very cool to see you stretching wood, I thought you'd have to wet it

 

[Mouse Vader]

I guess you're not familiar with lathes, why would you be? It's known as 'hole through chuck' it extends right through the head stock. The lathe I have has a generous 1 1/2 inch bore. Very useful for working on the end of long things. I had to pack out the other end with rag to stop the dowel bouncing about.


Steaming wood is a common way to make wood pliable, even on large & thick planks (can take a long time in the steamer - even days for really thick stuff). You need a steaming 'box' & steam source, things I've never got round to making though a simple bit of plastic pipe (stopped up with rag) & wall paper steamer would have done for this (there's plenty of vid's on youtube). My understanding is that the wood also swells which I didn't want (& then has to dry out again) & as these dowels are relatively thin & bendy anyway I thought I'd try the dry method I'd heard about from walking stick (& arrow) makers. Worked very well & the first time I've really had to heat bend wood.

 

[thd9791]

learning new things every day! and here i was thinking lathes all were limited by the platform

 

[Mouse Vader]

Your welcome.

Catching up the new d/s.
I first tried it in the MK1b core using my second battery pack. It worked very well, seemed to be spinning a little fast but I couldn't stall the motor at all no matter how hard I swung it. So I then tried it in the MK2 completed hilt. Different story. Was spinning really slowly. Checked the battery pack & all O so had another go. Still didn't sound quite upto speed but was much improved. If you listen you can hear it at the start not sounding quite right but improves more as I swing it. If I'm really harsh it still stalls but otherwise is as good as any of the other d/s's. Sorry Vadermania but my superglue sticking skills aren't good or it's not a good method for stunt sabers as two T-tracks snapped off. These were the ones under most stress. As they're off I'll try some other 'period' glues as the residue on the tube doesn't look quite like what we see on genuine hilts esp. the Elstree one.

So decided to try the other battery pack (&switch) to see if that was the cause. Worked just like it did when I tried it in the MK1b.

Decided to check the voltages on both. the second battery pack was at 9.6V. I think this was from trying to get the 400rpm motor's to go to 600. I readjusted it to 6V. The Mk2's own battery pack was also out, This time 5.6V & not the 5.8 I'd set it at when doing the new battery pack. It also fluctuated quite noticeably which made me think I'd some bad contact on the spade connectors. Turned out the switch itself was dodgy (the other battery pack had it's own switch). Replaced it with a different one from a bunch of NOS ones I'd picked up a while ago. This got me to a fairly stable 5.75V. One set of spade connectors still made this vary slightly. I upped the buck to 6V. & tried again with just the core.

This is much better. I really have to try to get it to stall & you can just hear I'm at whooshing level swings at the end without stalling. This is a very good system. Nothing works loose as it did with the other Jon Bunker set up. I think this maybe because the d/s & blade sleeve together have less inertia than the other, heavier, metal driveshafts I've done.
The blade is the one I straightened & is the best wooden one so far & of course now looks just like that Alec G photo so I'm doing my best to undermine my own caution on that one ! Length is close to scaled originals at 36 inches inc collar (sleeve end). The collar/sleeve is (deliberately) a little long so I could adjust it later to right length (which I've done).


It also matches Jon's description (if not his sketch) that the blade passed into the hilt body. Given all this I think I'll be using it in preference to the stuffer for all the wooden blade work. I should also note it's not at all unlike the method Kurtyboy employed with his stunt, only he had the blade going directly onto the motor shaft.

Here's a pic of the superglue residue. It's much harder to see in the photo than to the eye.

Also decided to simplify the wiring. I originally did it like this as I wasn't sure what was going to work & was presuming the light switch would be a pain to keep removing. This isn't the case, it's very straight forward, bordering on easy so I'm hoping to improve reliability by getting rid of nearly all the spade connections. (removed items above the core.)


I'm keeping one, on the negative/ground wire so I can still remove the motor easily if I need to. I suspect the real one was just soldered directly to the motor terminal.


I've some 1 1/2inch ally bar on the way to see how a machined endcap works out. I need to order some uhu or bostik glue to see how that performs with T-track. Both brands were similar & well known in the UK in the 70's / 80's. Similar to E6000 as far as I can tell, certainly in appearance if not substance. If that's no good I'll have to re-profile the underside of the T-track to match the tube radius so as to increase the area of superglue contact.
I feel like I've definitely made some progress here.

 

[Mouse Vader]

Vintage Jack socket arrived today. Has a knurled lock ring as opposed to hex nut & is much more like what appears in the ref photo's I have.
Left side straight from camera, right side fuzzed up. I'll do some more atempting similar lighting later if I remember.

 

[Mouse Vader]

New wiring is much simpler to reassemble & so far no sign of niggly faults. No overcrowding in the pommel end section either.


Just run it now at 6V with the same beech blade on the new stud d/s & I've really got to try hard to get a stall. Weight of hilt is now 1 lb 4oz & 1 lb 11oz with the full length untapered beech blade. Remember that it previously weighed 1 lb 10oz with the golf club socketed d/s installed., so I'm certain removing all that inertia/weight from the d/s is what's given the boost to performance as previous tests with wooden blade was with the old battery/buck set up that was working Ok too.

 

[Mouse Vader]

Been trying to find shots that might show if there were grub screws holding the end cap on but no joy. Did notice that this shows the black nose vers. missing a T-track & in the same location as one of the ones that snapped off mine. 1 in 7 coincidence.

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

Epoxy, Mouse. I'm tellin' ya. They had it in the 70's, too. Really robust stuff. Cyanoacrylate is good stuff in a pinch, but anything with some work involved, epoxy can handle better.

 

[Mouse Vader]

Thanks PPP. I'm sure you're right & I remember araldite being the well known brand at the time, I was going on Vadermania's recommendation with the superglue. In the spirit of experimentation I'll see how the other stuff copes before I go the epoxy route. My expectation is that no glue will stand up long term, just some longer than others, given all the various methods we see with screws & the like in the later films .

 

[Mouse Vader]

I decided to make a (stainless steel) thin knurl red button for the (stainless steel) Mk1b. It's far from perfect but looks nice so I'll be using it. (not trashing that much time).

The 1mm pitch straight Knurling tool I bought to do this decided it didn't want to knurl 1mm pitch ! at least on stainless.


I couldn't get dark red / maroon opaque plastic rod so tried dark red clear. Turned out much nicer that I thought it would. (Superglued it in).


some more shots inc. comparison with the Romans repro red button that is on the Mk2. I might try & put a bit more angle on the top chamfer but every time I check against a picture of a real one it looks very close.


Here it is on the MK2. I deliberately made the button taller in the straight smooth part to compensate for seating the button deeper into the hilt than on the original. I will be copying this aspect of the MK2 on the Mk1b.

 

[Dann]

Nice job on the button!

Knurling can be tricky and finicky, and the fact that you're having to do Stainless CAN'T be helping matters.

Did you only attempt the knurl the one time? I'd keep trying, but I know what a pain stainless can be. I'm sure you already know all this, but sometimes the diameter of the work can play a BIG part in how the knurl comes out. Sometimes removing just a few thousandths can change results dramatically.

Anyway, pretty cool to see someone replicate THAT particular red button, good job!

 

[Treadwell]

The red button was clear? That's new to me.

 

[Mouse Vader]

Thanks Dann. That knurl is the end result of three or four goes & it was stating to trend towards a mess so I quit while it still looked nice (if not accurate). Overall it turned out better than I thought it might.

The red button was clear? That's new to me.

I couldn't get dark red / maroon opaque plastic rod so tried dark red clear.

Wasn't stainless steel either. I did get some 3mm thick opaque maroon sheet which I was going to fop off with but decided to see what the clear looked like on it's own. I liked it much more than I thought I would so used it. It's nowhere near as obvious in the flesh & as it's for the Mk1b which is off spec anyway I decided to save the time. I will be taking the MK1b more off spec too as the MK2 has that end covered.

 

[Mouse Vader]

I decided to do a s/s glass eye too. Partially because so I could do it with a larger 17 x 1.5mm thread which should help me 'overwrite' the squiffy threaded hole from the first attempt to do the Mk1b. I also got the knurl to do it's stuff - which meant it didn't match the red button so I tried another got with that. To get the knurl to work properly I had to go really slow, just 5 - 10 rpm, rotating the lathe chuck by hand increasing the pressure every 4 or 5 rotations. Took a while & a lot of pressure. Also put another deg. of taper on the top chamfer & a little more thread on the bottom. Better pleased with these.

The right one looks wider but this because I was very close with my camera & is a distortion. Who says the camera never lies ?!