Is Darth Vader's saber blade painted (ANH) & blade flexing.

[Halliwax]

You know this just really sucks... wish there was more consistent Info or documentation

There’s just so many stories, I think for you guys looking for 100% accurate, go with what you believe is right

I wonder how hard it would be to print a tapered 4 sided blade..

 

[Halliwax]

This has been a blast debating though!! Really enjoying the time with you guys!

 

[Mouse Vader]

Yeh - We're not going to get absolute certainty unless someone comes up with an actual blade with impeccable provenance. I think we can get a reasonable answer if we keep our heads & do the experiments. I was hoping it would have been done when I joined so I could freeload, no such luck.

 

[Mouse Vader]

Anyone got a better resolution of this pic?

Zoomed in, the the top side of the blade looks like scotchlite the underside looks way too dark to be shadow.

 

[vadermania]

Anyone got a better resolution of this pic?

View attachment 992222

Zoomed in, the the top side of the blade looks like scotchlite the underside looks way too dark to be shadow.

Looking at this blade, it seems as if it is bending slightly because of it's own weight. Maybe this is just a result of lens distorsion. And sorry, I don't have that pic in a higher resolution.

 

[Mara Jade's Father]

I am going to say a lot of stuff and most of it is me just thinking out loud and not fact.

First, I remember hearing back around 2000 that the blade was 4 sided. Two sides covered with reflective material and one of those sides had the material longer than the other (I know someone else already stated this earlier in the thread). This was mostly hearsay the same way everyone thought the Obi A New Hope hilt utilized a motorcycle grip and sink drain back then.

But as i think about this, I would think that such a design would cause more of a flashing effect than what you see in the raw A New Hope footage. I could see maybe one side not covered to the 3 sided blade doing that. The other thing I have to wonder about if a blade were 3 or 4 sided is how would they act when hitting one another. I could see it for just waving around in Ben's hut or the Falcon but it seems like two objects with flat sides would affect each other when hitting.

The one image of Luke with the blade in Ben's hut really makes me think. If I wanted a blade to look like it had a slight flicker of surge traveling up the blade, I would do it on a rotating round blade with a thin black line that had a slight wrap around effect. If it was a straight line, the hole blade would flicker at one, but a slight wrap would give the illusion of movement along the blade.

I also have my doubts about balsa. Maybe I just thinking about the craft store balsa but it doesn't seem like it be something that would hold up well to striking, even if they had a lot of replacements on hand. If I read the thread correctly, the same source that said it was balsa could not remember the shape of the coverage of the reflective material. Am I correct? If so, then can you trust his memory on wood used?

Regarding the reflective material, I heard it described as the material used fo movie screens. I always figured that took strips of material and glued them to the blades. I never assumed it was a paint or a tape.

To the original question about the smoke and the bend. I would like to see either the actual footage of that scene or a screen shot of the 1977 release because I suspect it could be post production special effects added during an updated release. I also think the bend is just the editing, I wouldn't assume it's because the blade was bending. I think you get a better idea for a shot of the 1977 release for that as well.

I once heard that during filming of that scene, they came in one day and could not find the sticks. So they just faked it.

 

[Mouse Vader]

Bearing in mind you are only thinking out loud - this is just the sort 'I think that' debating that goes on for ever with no hope of resolution. The only option we have available to further these debates is make 'em & see what happens. I, for one, will do this. It may take me a while & cost me some money but I will. I know there are others on this thread/forum who will do what they can too. I have my doubts about the strength of balsa as well, the only way to find out - make one. Plain & simple.

All your musings are broadly in line with mine, experience tells me reality, at best, has a twist you don't think of. Theory proceeds verification.

As to smoke & bend. Have you viewed the ytube vid I screen grabbed from? The title is top right corner the mins & seconds bottom right hand corner. To go frame by frame , pause it & use < & > keys for rewind / advance one frame. Watch it full speed. The 'smoke' isn't added (& to what end if it was?). The bend is properly in context with a strike. Kurtyboy has already shown me he can duplicate this bend with a golf shaft against a ski pole, I don't know if he was planning to post it here.

finally ' I once heard ', heard from whom & what are their credentials to be believed. Faked it post production?

Vadermania, I too noticed the droop under it's own weight, all long thin things do this to a greater or lesser extent, even if you can't see it with the naked eye, the bendier it is the more it dose it. I don't think this is lens barrelling as it only looks lightly a cropped shot compared with this full frame one.The blade is mid frame too & barreling occurs towards the edges. These two pic's look to be form the same source.

 

[vader45]

When I did my research on the original Darth Vader helmets, I‘ve been visiting the LFL archives, Elstree studios, spoke to Prowse and other people who were involved in the creation of the original costumes, and finally had the chance to see the screen used ANH Vader faceplate in the Grunberg collection in France.

 

[kurtyboy]

Even Obi-Wan has a bendy rod most apparent when seen from the front.

 

[vader45]

Let's look at the facts and go from there.

The photographic evidence that is clear is:
The blades taper towards the tip
And they are flexible as seen in the still frames.

I don't see carbon fiber, steel or aluminum bend like that. And since wood is a common factor in all stories we can add that to the list of facts.

3 facts about the blades:
Made of wood
Flexible
Taper to the top

About the shape. All I see is round in the photos and the dark side is the missing screen not applied there to create flickering. The black strip also seems consistent in all stories.

So at this point we are stuck on the shape of the blades.

Squared, triangled and round will look the same in low poor quality images so we will never know for sure.

 

[Halliwax]

From my experience..

Carbon fiber and graphite bend... and bend pretty damn easy

All professional cyclist not only use carbon fiber for the serious weight advantage.. but for the comfort benefit from it too

Riding on a carbon frame is far smoother then aluminum frames.. much softer

Take it from my experience, I’ll ride carbon over aluminum all day long.. my race bikes saddle is even carbon.. the whole damn bike is lol

My golf clubs bend SUPER easy

I also work with wood for a living... I see no problem with a dowel ESPECIALLY one that has been made into a taper bending like that..

The thinner you make it the easier she is to bend

And the more she bends, the easier to break

If I was the prop department and wanted the sticks to break easily to protect the actors, I would have used 2 piece pole sticks, and instead of screwing the 2 pieces together used a 1/4 pine dowel to attach them both

But that’s just me thinking lol

I love this thread guys

 

[Halliwax]

Poooooooffffffff

 

[vadermania]

Just thinking out loud...Luke never dueled with his stunt lightsaber in ANH. Perhaps this explains the difference in the look and fabrication of the blade on "his" saber" compared to the Obi and Darth one for the duel. Which makes me think...my gut feeling is that the Luke ANH stunt hilt and the Vader saber with the black tip from the Obi/Vader duel (not the Barbican) are two different sabers. When Hamill rehearses his Duel with Prowse for ESB he is using Obi style (V2 and V3) stunt sabers as well as Graflex style stunt sabers. On that one b/w pic where he is posing with Prowse, you can clearly see an ANH Graflex stunt without the black tip.

According to Jon, multiple stunt sabers of each type were constructed for ANH, spinning and static ones. After production wrapped, most of the stuff they (Special Effects) built landed in trash bins. Crew members picked souvenirs from trash, so did Jon.

 

[kurtyboy]

Different blades yes, but the hilts themselves are too similar.

 

[Mouse Vader]

Vadermania, re. your friend John saying blades weren't tapered - has he seen or can you get to him the pic from H's post #34 pg1. Maybe that would jog some more memories loose - or create some false ones...

Vader45, both Halliwax (& Kurtyboy to me & me on another thread) have shown that graphite/cabonF golf shafts will bend the 'needed' amount.

My 36" golfy is almost a perfect match dimensionaly for the tapered Luke graflex, so I'm finding it hard to rule these out, but I agree wood is cropping up way too much from differing sources & sounds more 'breakable than even graphite shafts - so I've (reluctantly) shuffled it to the top of the list of probabilities as a material .

& yes we'll never know for 100% sure using just the anecdotes, photo's & footage we have but - as I keep banging on about - recreating the photo's & footage as best we can with differing blade types & materials should move us up the probability scale, doing tests for ease of manufacture, striking sounds & breakablity will also shed more light of that I'm absolutely convinced, to point of parting with money ( & I'm really tight fisted).

 

[Halliwax]

Vadermania, re. your friend John saying blades weren't tapered - has he seen or can you get to him the pic from H's post #34 pg1. Maybe that would jog some more memories loose - or create some false ones...

Vader45, both Halliwax (& Kurtyboy to me & me on another thread) have shown that graphite/cabonF golf shafts will bend the 'needed' amount.

My 36" golfy is almost a perfect match dimensionaly for the tapered Luke graflex, so I'm finding it hard to rule these out, but I agree wood is cropping up way too much from differing sources & sounds more 'breakable than even graphite shafts - so I've (reluctantly) shuffled it to the top of the list of probabilities as a material .

& yes we'll never know for 100% sure using just the anecdotes, photo's & footage we have but - as I keep banging on about - recreating the photo's & footage as best we can with differing blade types & materials should move us up the probability scale, doing tests for ease of manufacture, striking sounds & breakablity will also shed more light of that I'm absolutely convinced, to point of parting with money ( & I'm really tight fisted).

Did you see my sound test video? This is more for ESB/RoTJ blades

But guys were saying that they thought the poles were aluminum/copper because they sound metallic when Luke is hacking Vader and the blade falls out

Carbon fiber/graphite sound exactly like metal when dropped, but sound like wood when striking each other

SOOOOOOO many references on film say the ANH blades were wood, I have no doubt they are wood

I find it hard to believe they would take the time to fabricate these blades.. but then again they took the time to fabricate the sabers

Luke’s stunt in the hut is the only blade I possibly see square.. and look at how crappy that blade is made..

I’m willing to bet these broke so often they said “screw it, go paint some pole sticks!! Hurry! We need this shot today!”

 

[Mouse Vader]

Can't find your vid, could I have a link?

You're not breaking the sabers though. Given we have ref's for large (& unspecified) numbers of blade breakages they must have been reasonably quickly to fabricate... or stock golf club sticks ()

More seriously, not tapering would sure speed up making them so there is logic in a mix of tapered (what they wanted & did to start with) & oh crap we need these now it's $XXXK a day if we film or not, just fix up a pole.

My gut feeling (oh here we go ) is they did the hut, falcon & tavern scenes noticeably before the duel & only when rehearsing for this got underway did the problems really start &/or get worse.

 

[Halliwax]

Lol sorry my bad! I forgot to link it!!

 

[Halliwax]

Can't find your vid, could I have a link?

You're not breaking the sabers though. Given we have ref's for large (& unspecified) numbers of blade breakages they must have been reasonably quickly to fabricate... or stock golf club sticks ()

More seriously, not tapering would sure speed up making them so there is logic in a mix of tapered (what they wanted & did to start with) & oh crap we need these now it's $XXXK a day if we film or not, just fix up a pole.

My gut feeling (oh here we go ) is they did the hut, falcon & tavern scenes noticeably before the duel & only when rehearsing for this got underway did the problems really start &/or get worse.

You are on to something.. I think the hut, cantina and falcon scene was film first.. if you look at Obiwan blade in the cantina it looks much longer then it does on the Death Star

Grabbed this from kurtboy

 

[kurtyboy]

I've got my square tapered blade working pretty well now at good low-ish RPMs so if anyone wants me to test configurations of Scotchlite coated vs. uncoated sides, black lines, etc. please let me know.

I tried two adjacent black sides and the other two coated and the effect wasn't great. I still get the best effect with three coated and one black.