This project has made leaps and bounds towards the finish line in the interim since the last post. It took a lot less time and effort to get it done than I had anticipated, but I have made the final pieces (barring the trigger), added the screw holes to fully mount and assemble the pieces together, and have mounted and assembled the pommel and knuckle joint. I even went ahead and polished the pommel block and pommel.
With the exception of the rubber parts, the knuckle and pommel section is completed; I will not be touching these things further. I'm going for the AotC hero look rather than RotS, even though there are more and better pictures of the RotS hero.
The pommel/knuckle section comprise of six parts in total, held together by 8 grub screws (two screws per hole). I originally planned on using a nail as a pin to secure the block to the knuckle but nails aren't perfectly straight and the variance caused a gap I didn't like to form, so I replaced the pin with two (four) m3 grub screws. An m4 locks the block, and some epoxy inside the knuckle makes sure everything is snug. An M5 (two) grub screw locks the counterweight pommel to the block and the brass pin covers the hole. The two brass pins in the knuckle are just decorative and are held in place with CA glue. The groove detail on the pommel, that extends from the pin recess, was completely carved and filed by hand.
As you can see in some of the photos, this piece is extremely wonky and bears some less-than-stellar machining. Anything that wasn't going to be seen or scrutinized up close was reason enough for me to not put in the extra effort. The sculpt for the knuckle was already uneven, made worse by sand casting, and then further exacerbated by revisions on the mill to have it seat as flush and even as possible to the main grip section. I suppose it could be remedied to hide better but I just didn't bother. It's not really "Star Wars" if there isn't a bit of wonkiness, I feel. There's also the detail of the "square corners for rounded edges" discrepancy that the pommel and pommel block has. I originally planned on rounding the block's edges when the pommel was mostly finished and fitted together beforehand, but while sanding (and especially during polishing), it became really tiresome trying to get into the hard angles of the piece, so I just decided to take it apart and do the finishing work on them separately and join them together later. It's not a very clean finish but, whatever---This wasn't ever going to be 100% accurate anyway. It certainly made sanding and polishing the thing a lot faster and easier. I left minor imperfections, such as some scratches and scuff marks, on the the polished pieces. Again, it's not really "Star Wars" if it's pristine.
You'll also take note of the two emitter "humps" I made: one in bronze, the other in brass. I had initially thought about using the bronze for some color variation to the hilt but the color turned out to be too warm for my liking, so I went back to the brass, which had a much sharper contrast and was something I should've just stuck to doing in the first place.
I'm currently working on sanding and polishing the prong, but this is where the hilt stands, for the most part, at the moment. The last things that need doing are cleaning and polishing the rest of the hilt and prong, making the trigger, and cutting the grips. Then, this thing is done. I suppose the next few posts will be just that.
I'm already planning on making a stand not just for this, but for the collection of the PT baddie hilts I seem to have completed. After this, I'll be revising my Palpy Hero hilt now that there are better references for it.
