Dewy and Anakin Starkiller's Accurate Obi-Wan Kenobi Episode 1 Lightsaber Design

[Excelsior]

I also have a theory. The dimple we can see within the purple hemi? Is it a flat spot like on some of the rivets in my previous post, or could it possibly be an ID mark? (Excuse my MS paint mockup)

View attachment 1578999

Wow what a great find! It absolutely looks like there is that same mark on the original. Now I'm just wondering how the size of it matches up with the ones you found. Can you do a mockup with one of those inside a barb to compare with the original?

 

[Dewy]

Wow what a great find! It absolutely looks like there is that same mark on the original. Now I'm just wondering how the size of it matches up with the ones you found. Can you do a mockup with one of those inside a barb to compare with the original?

Not sure if you meant physical mockup, or digital, but here's what I did:

This is one of the correctly sized round head dimpled rivets in my accurate brass knob model (not a model of the barb).

 

[thd9791]

oh weird.... so the dent is off-center. I see why it might be an ID stamp. I can't say for sure anymore lol

Very happy this is out and about now. I wonder if we can find a violet paint and just hit some nails for cheap builds. Masking fluid for machinists?

 

[Dewy]

oh weird.... so the dent is off-center. I see why it might be an ID stamp. I can't say for sure anymore lol

Very happy this is out and about now. I wonder if we can find a violet paint and just hit some nails for cheap builds. Masking fluid for machinists?

These rivets are exceptionally cheap. I paid as much in shipping as I did for the hardware. I have not been able to obtain one with the S on the head yet. The specification these are manufactured to allow for the marking to be on the head or the stem at the manufacturer’s discretion. It seems like most choose stem:

 

[Excelsior]

Not sure if you meant physical mockup, or digital, but here's what I did:

View attachment 1579091

This is one of the correctly sized round head dimpled rivets in my accurate brass knob model (not a model of the barb).

Looks great. I meant a physical mockup, but that works too.

What I'm wondering about now is the size of the S stamp compared to the overall size of the rivet head. In the one picture you found, the S letter looks too small compared to the diameter of the rivet head, but the style/font of the letter appears to be a match. If you could find one with the S scaled up to size, that would be it.

Things are coming along!

 

[Saberz]

Hey guys,

You might know that I am working on my own version of this saber, so I will try my best not to derail or hijack. But I think it's VERY cool that you found the Parker plug. You might have seen my earlier joint (with @thd9791) find of the Maul silver knob and Qui-Gon button bezel (also aircraft components), and I had hoped to find the brass knob but no luck. You seem to have found it. I just came in to point out one thing. The taller version with the flat top (and no center bore) was ALSO USED in on at least one Obi-Wan TPM saber variant, further pointing to this being the correct part. When I first saw the prop with that flat version it really threw me for a loop, but I couldn't share the info publicly because the prop is was on didn't belong to me. But, since the owner is now putting that hilt up for auction, I can share that info! It's a VERY cool hilt, with metal details - original LED bezels, metal blanking cap (!!!), metal emitter end (!!!), and metal gold knob.

See this auction on Heritage, set to go live for bidding in early July. It has the taller no-hole gold knob. I have handled this hilt in person, it's also very interesting in that it doesn't have the shroud grooves that frame the LED bezels. But certain geometric features confirm that it was molded from the hero, so that tells us that those grooves were added at some later point. The pommel also lacks the recessed area between cubes, but perhaps those were filled in with clay prior to the mold being made? Anyway, this is a very interesting example of the prop, and these images might be very helpful for your replica. I'll be announcing mine soon once the first prototypes are made, but we are in slightly different playing fields here. Mine will be hollow and capable of taking electronics, but externally accurate with all the asymmetries and imperfections. Looks like this project is for a static hilt, right? In any event I think there is plenty of room for all of us. And again I didn't want to hijack your thread, just wanted to help with that gold knob info.

Cheers!

 

[Anakin Starkiller]

My vote is for the "S"

But certain geometric features confirm that it was molded from the hero, so that tells us that those grooves were added at some later point.

My guess would go the opposite way, I think that the resin casting was cleaned up to such a degree that the grooves in the shroud were filled in by primer or sanded off to create uniformity. You can see that they weren't interested in fidelity to the hero prop, just a finished-looking piece.

 

[Saberz]

My vote is for the "S"


My guess would go the opposite way, I think that the resin casting was cleaned up to such a degree that the grooves in the shroud were filled in by primer or sanded off to create uniformity. You can see that they weren't interested in fidelity to the hero prop, just a finished-looking piece.

Maybe ... but we already know that this was a very early hilt (direct quote from Nick Gillard himself), and the rest of the details on the hilt are absolutely pristine, very sharp and clear. Nothing else appears "smoothed over" compared to other original hilts I've seen, all of which DO have the grooves as well. It would be weird for them to be absent from this example unless that detail wasn't present on the mold in the first place.

 

[Excelsior]

And the plot continues to thicken...

So the propmakers were indeed using these kinds of barbs that Dewy found. If the Heritage saber is an early version, that could explain the solid barb. They hadn't settled on the other one yet, and maybe decided the purple rivet added a nice embellishment later on. Same with the shroud grooves. As Saberz said, it is clear that that saber was molded from the hero--you can see it with the asymmetries in the shroud window contours. The knurling matches the current solid barbs like the one thd9791 posted. But the knurling on the hole version is like the one on the hero prop, so I assume they used that version and just tapped it out, exactly as Dewy theorized. This makes a lot of details fall into place, like the sanded face to clean up the burr from tapping.

It's possible that the emitter shroud grooves were filled in, but I see two challenges to that theory. A) this was an early version, and all subsequent versions have the grooves, so it would make more sense that the grooves were added after this hilt was cast, and B) there is absolutely no trace of the grooves here; with the areas around the pommel cubes, you can easily tell those were filled in with clay or something. They would have to have filled the grooves and then sanded them perfectly flat. It seems more likely that they simply weren't there yet.

What I find confusing is how the solid barb was attached. Was it drilled and tapped from the bottom, and installed with a set screw, or was the hilt drilled out to accommodate the large diameter of the barb stem, and it was simply glued in place? Since there is an O-ring beneath it, it seems more likely that it was screwed on somehow. If it's the case that the barb was simply push-fit into a large bore, then the whole emitter shroud would have to have been remade afterwards and drilled for the smaller set screw, but that's unlikely because the asymmetrical contours match the hero perfectly. Or maybe they just turned down the barb stem, threaded it, and went with that.

 

[Anakin Starkiller]

Maybe ... but we already know that this was a very early hilt (direct quote from Nick Gillard himself), and the rest of the details on the hilt are absolutely pristine, very sharp and clear. Nothing else appears "smoothed over" compared to other original hilts I've seen, all of which DO have the grooves as well. It would be weird for them to be absent from this example unless that detail wasn't present on the mold in the first place.

Where are you seeing this? As I understand from the descriptions, this saber was made for the Annie Liebowitz shoots, so that they'd have an OWK saber that didn't look a mess. That would have been pretty far along.

The only thing that I can see that would mean early is Nick saying "In those days..." But that's a recent quote, so I took it to mean back in 1999.
The intro paragraph makes reference to the Vanity Fair article from 1999. That would have been after principal photography wrapped.

It is odd that this one doesn't have the lines in the emitter, but guessing that it was smoothed over, makes more sense to me than that they made the saber without the lines, made a mold from it, made one pull from the mold, then added the groove lines, then remolded the saber for all the other stunt sabers.

What makes more sense, to me at least is, they got to the end of the production--scheduled the Annie Liebowitz shoots, then realized they
didn't have a nice bladed stunt on hand, so they cleaned up one of the stunts. In that clean-up process, they ground off the red buttons, led bezels, and gold knob--as they did with the other OWK bladed stunt sabers--then they smoothed the whole area out, which destroyed the groove line, and then added the metal greeblies.

That's how I read the sequence of events.

 

[Dewy]

So this auction is how I ended up finding the Parker Barb Plug. I looked for this solid one, and found that it comes in two versions. One like this and one like on the hero.

This hilt was a regular resin bladed stunt hilt that was modified for a promo shoot. It clearly got special attention with all the customizations and added real parts. To my eyes the silver paint on this one looks much nicer than on the regular resin stunts. My guess is they took the time to fill, sand and smooth the silver areas before painting and likely filled the grooves. They are very shallow after all.

 

[Anakin Starkiller]

Maybe this should be a different thread... I'd rather this discussion not eclipse the work Drew is doing.

 

[Dewy]

Maybe this should be a different thread... I'd rather this discussion not eclipse the work Drew is doing.

It’s okay, it’s all relevant to the saber.

 

[Dewy]

Random thought, but the fact that this unique hilt is just popping up after all this time, just reminds me that the hero hilt must still be out there somewhere.

Also I am supremely jealous of all the access you have to the various props Saberz.

 

[janglesworthy]

Didn't Ewan admit to taking one of the Hero props home after filming?

 

[E Williams]

Since the emitter section is a separate piece on the resin sabers, could the line-less shroud on the Heritage saber be a separately created part, rather than an ancestor or descendent of the shroud with grooves? Earlier posts mentioned that the grooved shroud has some unique asymmetries -- are the three V shaped reveal cuts asymmetrical in the same way to indicate a common origin between the parts?

 

[Dewy]

Since the emitter section is a separate piece on the resin sabers, could the line-less shroud on the Heritage saber be a separately created part, rather than an ancestor or descendent of the shroud with grooves? Earlier posts mentioned that the grooved shroud has some unique asymmetries -- are the three V shaped reveal cuts asymmetrical in the same way to indicate a common origin between the parts?

All of the known resin sabers are one solid piece.

 

[thd9791]

Here's something to munch on. The solid capped barbs are solid inside as well. There is a bored part on the end of the stem, going about halfway down, but where this one is chopped off, it would be solid. Coincidentally, the aircraft lamps are near impossible to remove from the glass, and are too shallow to insert a grub screw, so this is how I did mine.

It would not surprise me if this resin hilt was bored for the whole barb and an o-ring cushioned it like the aircraft lamps

Also, this is a great shot of the LED bezels. The ones I have are almost an exact match, except for the rim.... it's .5mm and the rim on the prop ones look to be .3 or .2 mm

 

[Excelsior]

Where are you seeing this? As I understand from the descriptions, this saber was made for the Annie Liebowitz shoots, so that they'd have an OWK saber that didn't look a mess. That would have been pretty far along.

The only thing that I can see that would mean early is Nick saying "In those days..." But that's a recent quote, so I took it to mean back in 1999.
The intro paragraph makes reference to the Vanity Fair article from 1999. That would have been after principal photography wrapped.

It is odd that this one doesn't have the lines in the emitter, but guessing that it was smoothed over, makes more sense to me than that they made the saber without the lines, made a mold from it, made one pull from the mold, then added the groove lines, then remolded the saber for all the other stunt sabers.

What makes more sense, to me at least is, they got to the end of the production--scheduled the Annie Liebowitz shoots, then realized they
didn't have a nice bladed stunt on hand, so they cleaned up one of the stunts. In that clean-up process, they ground off the red buttons, led bezels, and gold knob--as they did with the other OWK bladed stunt sabers--then they smoothed the whole area out, which destroyed the groove line, and then added the metal greeblies.

That's how I read the sequence of events.

Actually Starkiller is probably right... if you look very closely in the area I have circled, you can see a faint line that could be a remnant of the groove...

 

[janglesworthy]

if you look at the recent propstore pics oneside of the emitter has faded scribe lines while all the others are fine.