I'm pretty much starting a personal quest to do a replica of the Mind Sword. I'd love to have any info on it, but as you've stated, the info out there is almost nil. I thought about trying to get in contact with Bernard Hearn who was the Prop Master on the movie, but honestly after 30 years I'm not sure even he could be of much help.
However, after re-watching the movie, I
think I can gather enough info from the film to get pretty close. I have found that some of the stuff I thought you couldn't make out (lik the texture of the grip) are actually visible in some of the scenes. So, when I can get the time I'm going to start building the sword as a 3d model to get the dimensions right and then start looking at how to reproduce it.
I'm pretty sure that the blade used was a flat piece of aluminum stock that had been shaped up a bit. Best I can tell it had three grooves routered in it to simulate a fuller. One groove runs almost the entire length of the blade and two go from the hilt to about half way up.
The hilt looks like it could be easily machined from aluminum, or sculpted in some other medium and cast. Obviously the pommel will be the hardest part. I would love to know if they used a found piece (like say a mannequin hand) or a cast thereof to make it, or if it was a custom sculpt. The thought occurred to me that perhaps I could cast one of my children's hands in some sort of medium and then use that. Still working on that idea.
Oh, and while I agree that the loss of these props is somewhat of a travesty, it is certainly not unusual. Most of the props that are used for low-budget (an many high-budget) movies tend to either get tossed, since no one really wants to pay to store them, or reworked and used in other productions.
Anyway, if you turn up any useful information, please share.
