Lightsaber Screws

so this thread lit a serious fire under my seat, ive always wondered like everyone else how many and in which scenes what hilts with what fasteners were used.

My findings:
I hypothesize that there were two main hilts for luke, what is referred to as lukes hero saber, and what is known as the skywalker ranch saber

the hero: i believe, as others have stated before, that it is the same hilt no matter what scene in esb where a saber is seen hanging on lukes belt, as well as the promo pics in us magazine. this saber is visible on the us magazine cover, when luke falls of his taun taun, snowspeeder escape, dagobah, and bespin. the biggest commonality between these sabers that i noticed was that the d-ring is rotated on the bottom face of the graflex tube just a little further clockwise than the nearest grip. the differences being that between falling of the taun taun and getting in the snowspeeder the fasteners in the bottom of the grips are black, next on dagobah the top red button goes missing, then its back again on bespin. another small similarity between the us mag pics and lukes bespin saber is that there is a blemish or could be a screw in the slot in the graflex clamp, these are found stock on a graflex 3 cell flash.

the skywalker ranch saber: i believe that the skywalker ranch saber is the wampa cave saber, and that if it is not also the saber that was thrown across the carbon freeze floor then the wampa cave is the only time this saber is seen on screen. i have still not seen definitive pictures showing two red buttons on the saber stuck in the snow. reasoning for this being the srs is that although the d-rings are not flipped the same way they are the only two that have the d-ring mounted where it is rotated a little less clockwise than the nearest grip. also in the wampa cave there are visible dents in the kobold piece where the d-ring contacted it , these dents are visible on the srs even though the d-ring is flipped. furthermore as opposed to the fasteners always appearing very flat against the grip surface, in the cave the fasteners have distinguished thick heads. it is also possible that in the wampa cave the saber already has the top grip screws, i can kind of make something out at the top of the grips although this is probably just wishful thinking.

conclusions:
we know for a fact that the srs has phillips head screws, so i believe that when we see the saber stuck in the snow it has the screws, and then sometime after filming the repairs were done and the textured tape added.

on the hero it is still undetermined what exactly the silver fasteners in the bottom of the grips, silver screws, rivets, who knows. i'm putting my money on rivets. from the snowspeeder on im betting its black rivets, or they painted the silver rivets black, most clearly visible to me on bespin when luke gets shot at by boba fett and waves R2 back with his hand, also the cutaway of lukes saber in the visual dictionary has black rivets not screws

so after this novel of a post tell me what you all think
 
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Hello l33tLX and welcome aboard,

Do you have any pictures available of Luke's cut away in the visual dictionay?

-Chaim
 
Thanks Mara Jade's Father,

The lightsaber in question :

Lightsaber-cutaway.jpg

(Courtesy The Star Wars Visual Dictionary)

-Chaim
 
not trying to say that the cutaway was in anyway a screen used saber, just interesting to me that the artist decided to use black rivets
 
I agree that in cases (I can't speak for all cases either way) like snowspeeder escape that the fasteners look like they are painted black. But one thing to consider is that the cutaway is an image that predates the discovery/opinion of screws used instead of rivets. So most likely the cutaway uses rivets because it was the most commonly excepted belief at the time.
 
After all this time, even since we've had the bluray DVD's available this has still not been resolved to my knowledge ... so I'd like to gather up new momentum for each and any previous participant of this tread and welcoming new members to come up with the final results in this particular case :

Rivets vs. Screws

This is what I could find last night and is the best close-up from ESB of Luke's lightsaber grips :

swempire_4816_zps9855b163.jpg


After lightening it up :

swempire_4816A_zps3664546f.jpg


For me it's still inconclusive as to weather rivets were used or screws on set ... however I tend towards rivets, since they look so much more civilized as opposed to ordinary screws. If anyone can come up with better screen caps and or more clear shots of the parts being used to secure the T-tracks on Luke's ESB lightsaber please feel free to enlighten us.

-Chaim
 
Well since bumping this from page 3 without any further replies I guess everyone's mind is made up about screws vs. rivets I suppose ... accept for mine :cry


-Chaim
 
This is my last attempt of getting to the bottom of this ... perhaps this picture will get your attention?

TrioESB_zps7eaad61b.jpg


:lol

-Chaim
 
oooh! Great picture! Still not sure what to make of this...
 

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Interesting discussion :thumbsup

Speaking of lightsaber screws...does anybody have access to the correct screws, as seen on the "real" MPP-based ROTJ Vader saber?

It´s the Planet Hollywood saber with exactra bubbles incl. circuit board and the heavily beat up shroud.

I can´t find any suitable screws here in germany, all -modern ones- seem to have a slightly different O.D. or dome-profile :cry

Gino:
Did you ever built this saber for your fabulous display???

Markus
 
Do you mean these screws?

MPP12.jpg


They were added a long time after production/filming ... a long time :lol

-Chaim
 
YEP, these are the ones I´m talking about :)

Are you sure they werent present during filming?
I already beat the hell out of my shroud to make it look like the saber in its current state :lol
Surely it would make it easier to attach the grips w/o screws...

Markus
 
Now that you mention it I'm about 99% certain perhaps someone else can confirm this? And don't call me Shirly :lol

-Chaim
 
Now that you mention it I'm about 99% certain perhaps someone else can confirm this? And don't call me Shirly :lol

-Chaim

Just don´t want to mess up the set of grips I already made and drill my MPP unneccessarily ;)

Thanks...Shirly :lol

Markus
 
Thanks!
I just reread it and still couldn't find any definite answer if the the screws are "accurate", meaning present during production (at least on on all stunt sabers, like James Kenobi suggested)?!

So the decision is between...
ESB hero saber with minor weathering and no screws in grips OR
ESB/ROTJ stunt saber with heavy weathering and screws ( which still leaves me with the problem where to find these!?)

correct?

Markus
 
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