OK, I've had some time to mark up some images for this.
I had to spend the weekend recovering from a hard drive failure - big mess. Thankfully that's just about over.
Picture 1 -
I know Gabe thinks this was retouched, but I do not. It just doesn't gel with what I know of retouching during the 70's. I worked with some retouchers and this just seems beyond the capabilities of that time (the guys I know retouched cars- obviously Detroit's biggest thing). Logically, it doesn't make sense either because to straighten the muzzle you would just cut the whole thing out and rotate it. To fix the scope or barrel would just take a little paint. I've also seen some of the original retouched pics by Ralph McQuarrie on display at Magic of Myth they weren't very big. He hand painted on prints around 11x14 or smaller IIRC. The area we're discussing in this pic would be way too tiny to work on at that size in a cut and paste manner.
The supposed cut line on this photo is also not straight.
Regardless I'm really not interested in discussing that issue unless stronger evidence is produced.
Here's what I see in the first pic:
What I originally thought was the head of the "antenna" is actually the broken ridge of the T-track. I owe that realization to Gabe after he painstakingly brought out other pics from the same photo shoot and proved the left side antenna was missing.
This broken T-track ridge also explains the side view in Chronicles and why MR idealized this piece into a gun sight like part.
Picture 2 -
Thanks to Gabe we see that the left side antenna is missing.
Rotation of the CAD model is slightly off. Note how Gabe matched the positioning of the cap screw even though the CAD muzzle is centered. Cap screw is actually to the right of center so if you correct that the scope hides the T-track completely.
Note in this CAD the T-track ridge is whole so even without rotating the CAD model only a bit of the front of the grip ridge would be visible.
Picture 3 -
This is the one where Gabe's idealized CAD is deceiving.
Again note he matched the set screw orientation. The set screw should be rotated more to the right so the entire model would have to rotate to the left to correctly match the view in the photo.
Gabe also pointed out that the muzzle is centered on his model and should be lowered. That is why when you rotate the model into the correct position the antenna tip will still stick up as much as it does in the photo.
I have also outlined the parts in the photo. Antenna in GREEN, T-track in RED.
Note the antenna stem does not disappear as Gabe thought it did. It still extends past the T-track it's just partly obscured by the T-track's edge.
And at last...
Picture 4 -
This is how I see the dark Chronicles top view.
You can see a hightlight from the stem and the edge of the T-track ridge is highlighted. It's not very crooked as Gabe proposed. Certainly this pic is open to interpretation beciase it's so dark, but that's how I see it.
Personally, If I were building this blaster I would include both antenna pieces just because it would look lopsided and bad with just one. The T-track ridge might still look cool being broken though. Everyone has their own preferences when building their props and I just offer the above reference to illustrate how the original prop was.
The ANH Prop builders only used a handful of add on bits for the blasters and they repeated them often. You can see many of the same parts used on the Han Hero, Merr Sonns, Greedo blaster and Leia blaster. In researching this stuff sometimes you have to look at the big picture to figure out the details.
