Luke ESB Lightsaber – Can you build a 2004 MR Force FX Hilt into a quality display piece?

[Neon Nautilus]

Thanks for checking out my thread, this first post is a bit of an intro to the project...

Luke’s ESB lightsaber has always been my favourite incarnation of this most civilized of weapons. It features in so many iconic Star Wars moments; the scene in the Wampa’s cave as Luke uses the force to pull the weapon towards him; his failure in the cave on Dagobah; the epic first duel with Darth Vader; its fall into oblivion still clutched in Luke’s severed hand. For me this object evokes all those memorable movie moments.

I’ve owned a replica for many years in the form of the 2004 Master Replicas Force FX saber. It has a lot of simplified/inaccurate details, but overall, it’s a great piece. It’s a lot of fun to play with too, which unfortunately led to my son getting hold of it and damaging the blade. The end cap broke off, inner diffusion sleeve cracked and the foam diffusion material slid out. It proved impossible to push it back in around the LED strip so it’s just been sitting in the corner looking sorry for itself for several years.

This one isn't mine, I found it online and used for ref.

Don't let the kids play with your shiny stuff!


For a while now I’ve been thinking about removing the blade completely and making a more accurate static display piece. A recent commission to repair an RPF member’s MR saber display stand got me thinking about it again, and with thoughts of those high-end MR replicas in mind I got all fired up to finally tackle the build!

I took pictures of most of the build process and will be sharing them in the following posts. It would be great to hear your feedback and I'm really happy to answer any questions you may have.

 

[Neon Nautilus]

I wasn't intending to document this build. As a result I don't have any 'before' pics of my saber hilt prior to starting work. I did reach out to the guys over at saberproject.de though who very kindly agreed that I could use their images in this thread. Cheers Tim! I’ll use these throughout the build log to show what it looked like before any work.

I’ll start off with a couple of shots of an the untouched example of the saber for reference. Again, this is not my saber, these images are used with permission of saberproject.de.

After looking at reference images of the original prop, as well as real and replica Graflex flash handles, I made a list of the improvements that I wanted to tackle in the project.

• The grip end cap had a grill pattern cut into it to allow for the sound fx. Ideally, I wanted it solid to match the prop.
• The black plastic grips were quite flat in profile and the coating on them had deteriorated over time so these would need to be replaced.
• The clamp around the middle was simplified and very plasticky in appearance. I also wanted to make a functioning clamp rather than it rely on glue and screws to hold together.
• The connector card in the clamp is quite good but the foil looked a little too bright and was all one colour.
• The two red buttons looked plasticky. Also, the colour of the red part seemed too brown and the profile too shallow.
• The bunny ears were too shiny in comparison to the rest of the piece. Also, they are one solid piece rather than the 3 parts of the real thing.
• The brass connector pins on either side were missing a flat brass tab under the top pin. This is visible on the real prop and Graflex flash handle.
• The area where the blade had been was now just a gaping hole so I would need to create some kind of emitter.

First step was to dismantle the piece. My apologies there are no images of this process. It seemed like this replica is definitely not designed to be taken apart. It was necessary to drill out rivets on the grips. Unfortunately, in my haste, I damaged the red button assemblies by prising them off. I didn't realise there was a screw under the button until too late. Once all of the external greeblies were removed though, the internals and blade slid out without too much trouble and I was ready to start work.

 

[Neon Nautilus]

The first thing I tackled was the end cap. On the FX saber this screws into the base via a riveted in collar. There are openings for the speaker and a bracket that the belt loop attaches to.

Here is the original endcap installed in the saber.

(image courtesy of saberproject.de)


Below is my end cap with the belt loop removed by drilling out the rivet.

I started by cutting the raised block from the centre off with a hacksaw. The dull metal ring at the back is the collar that the end cap screws into. This collar was riveted into the body of the saber by the 6 grip rivets.

The piece was then sanded smooth using an upturned belt sander clamped into my workbench.

My plan was to cover this up with a thin sheet of metal. I found the perfect thing in my junk stash, an old computer DVD drive with a lovely stainless-steel cover. I marked the size and rough cut out a piece with my rotary tool. This was then epoxied onto the end cap, filed and sanded so that it sat flush with the edges.

To finish the visible face of the cap I used 00 wire wool in a rotary motion to give it a brushed look.

Here it is installed in the base of the saber body.

 

[Halliwax]

That end cap is wicked impressive, some serious sanding

 

[Neon Nautilus]

The next step was to sort out the Kobold clip belt loop. Below is a screenshot from ESB during the Wampa cave scene.

The original piece in the Force FX saber has a block and locating pins on the underside that needed to go. I started by removing these with a grinder, rotary tool and hand files.

Next I planned to correct the profile from this:

To this:

The DVD drive cover I'd used earlier would come into play again here. It had a lip along one edge that was the perfect size to form the ‘feet’ of the clip. I’d just need to cut a couple of lengths and epoxy them to the piece.

Before I could do that though I’d need to make the base of the Kobold clip level as it wasn't totally flat.

It all went a bit wrong here though! As I was sanding the underside, the belt bit in and yanked the piece from my hand, wedging it between the belt and the chassis of the sander. By the time I turned off the motor the piece had a significant grind out of one side.

There was little I could do now to fix the piece. I considered making a part from scratch before reaching for the internet. I soon found the WannaWanga replica kobold clip and loop on The Saber Armoury store here in the UK. I’d hoped to keep costs as low as poss on this project, but when I weighed up the relatively low cost compared to the time to make a new piece I soon clicked ‘buy’.


Here it is.

It's a really nice piece… well almost. I took issue with what I assume are machining lines. You can just about make them out in the pic running parallel to the long edge. I promise they’re more obvious IRL. I really wanted it to be smooth as it just looked a bit off to my eye.

Using sandpaper and grinding bits on my rotary tool I started blending in the metal to remove the lines. The silver colour of the clip is a coating with a base metal of brass so I’d need to repaint. Once I was happy with the finish from sanding, I attached the belt loop and hammered it into the Kobold clip to give the indents you can see on the real prop.

Before painting I wanted to get the clip drilled ready for rivets. The end cap of the FX Saber, which the Kobold clip is riveted to, screws onto the saber body. So I'd need to be careful to attach it in the right orientation. Otherwise it could potentially face the wrong way once screwed down.

I screwed the end cap into its collar, then attached the collar to the saber body with a nut and bolt. I then marked a horizontal line parallel to where the Graflex clamp goes and perpendicular to the bunny ears.

Looking at the image above of the prop saber buried in the snow, it looks like the clip is positioned off centre to allow for the belt loop so I replicated this here. Using the line I'd made as a guide, I positioned the clip and centre punched the positions for the rivets.

I then drilled the rivet holes through the clip and cap starting with a 2mm, then 4mm drill bit.

Next I base coated the clip in a black metal etch primer, polished that up a bit and hit it with Alclad Polished Aluminium. This was then coated with Alclad’s Klear Kote Light Sheen.

Here it is after painting, I was now much happier with the look of the piece compared to the stock clip with the machining lines.

Finally I attached the finished kobold clip using two 4x12mm domed stainless steel pop rivets.

I'd not used pop rivets before so this was a great 'new tool opportunity'. I bought these beautiful old Tucker TT 55 A riveting pliers. The graphic designer in me absolutely loves the simple 2 spot colour print on the packaging and instruction leaflet. The illustrations and simple typesetting is lovely.

 

[Neon Nautilus]

So next up is the Graflex clamp, the piece that holds the top and bottom tube halves together on a real Graflex. The FX Saber has the collar reproduced in metal but the clamp bars and lever are molded plastic with a chromed finish. The details are simplified, so it has a very toy like feel. Here’s a shot of how it looks before.

Image courtesy of saberproject.de

I started by removing the metal collar part and sanding its edges smooth. All of the metal parts on the FX sabre have jagged, rough cut edges. Just this makes a huge difference to the overall fidelity of the piece; makes it look more crafted than mass produced.

I’d noted that there is a strip of ½” adhesive silver mylar around the prop which is missing entirely on the FX saber. I managed to find some on eBay, it’s stated use was for film editing which seemed like something the prop department would have access to. Only problem was the price, about £50 shipped from the US and I couldn’t find any UK suppliers. I wasn’t prepared to spend that much so as an alternative I used aluminium tape. This worked great, it’s just easily marked but I can live with that.

I tried applying the tape by eye a few times but it was always slightly off. So, I measured the width of the clamp, subtracted the tape width then split the difference. I then marked this in from one edge and laid some masking tape down as a guide for where the edge of the alu tape should be.

Here I've applied the masking tape guide and am marking and trimming the ½” strip on the carrier paper side of the alu tape.

Lining the alu tape strip up to the guide and wrapping around the clamp.

Here is the end result after burnishing the tape down with a piece of rag.

Next up I looked at the edge connector card. The FX piece is pretty good, it has a nice gloss gold foil stamped onto a convincing bit of PCB material. I wanted to make some changes though so it looked more like the real thing. The first of which was to apply some solder to the thinner parts of the strips.

This came out great, just needed a little gentle sanding and filing to clean up the solder.

I also felt like there wasn’t much contrast between the solder and gold foil parts. The foil is a very light gold, not very yellow. I tried applying some thinned clear orange paint over it but it didn’t look great. I settled on spraying with Alclad Gold so needed to mask the gaps between the contacts. This took a while but the end result was exactly what I was after.

I measured the gaps on the card, cut strips the same width from masking tape, then applied between the gaps.

The piece was then sprayed giving the following result.

 

[Halliwax]

Keep up the great work

 

[Neon Nautilus]

Keep up the great work

Thanks for your comments Halliwax, much appreciated!

 

[Neon Nautilus]

Now onto the clamp mechanism. My plan was to replicate these pieces as closely as possible to an original Graflex including the functionality of the cam clamp that holds everything together.

Here’s a couple of before shots of the original FX saber parts.

On the FX saber the clamp is made up of 3 pieces. A square bar either side of the collar and a thinner bar sandwiched in between them. As far as I could see the centre bar is not actually a feature on the real Graflex or the props used in the film. There is just a hollow gap. However, for my recreation it felt right that it was there to fill the gap in the clamp. It feels odd to me that there would be a gap underneath the activation strip of a 'real' lightsaber.

I started by making this centre bar. The original piece measured 4 x 8 x 57mm so I searched on eBay for a piece of stock aluminium bar. The nearest I could find available was 5/16” square rod which works out around 7.94mm square… close enough. I marked this up with masking tape and set about cutting it.

Now I don’t have the most ideal of tools to take a 7.94mm width down to 4mm easily. So instead, I cut the majority of it away with a hacksaw.

Then ran it on the belt sander down to the finished width. Many dips of the part in cold water were needed to stop me burning my fingers!
I refined the shape and finish using an upturned sanding block clamped in my bench and a lot of polishing with wire wool.

This resulted in the following finished part, seen here compared to the original plastic piece.

I know, not very exciting but I was really pleased with the finish and how precise I'd managed to get it with really basic tools.

 

[Neon Nautilus]

I feel like I should explain a bit about what I'm trying to make here as it could be a little vague seeing all these individual pieces.

The diagram above shows the 4 parts I'm trying to make. There are:

1. Left square clamp bar with a threaded hole in the centre.
2. Middle thinner bar with a hole through the middle (this is what I made in the previous post. It's not a proper part of a real Graflex clamp but was in the FX saber and I like the look).
3. Right square clamp bar with a hole through the centre.
4. Threaded rod and cam lever.

A real Graflex clamp tightens the collar around the upper and lower tubes of the flash using the cam lever to apply pressure on the clamp. Much like a quick release on a bike wheel or seat clamp. The threaded bar is screwed in, and the lever is folded over. This draws the two square bars together tightening the collar around the body of the saber as in the diagram below.

So the next parts I'm making are the left and right square bars. I looked at pictures of some real and replica Graflex flashes and these parts seem to be made from thin sheet metal bent into box shapes. To get the same look I headed back to eBay and found some 1/4” aluminium tube.
I marked about 10mm in from one end on three sides. Then cut the marked areas away with a rotary tool grinding disk leaving the fourth side as a 10mm tab.

This was then folded over and cut flush.

I then measured the length I needed the bar to be, 57mm, plus an extra 10mm for the opposite end tab. Again I marked and cut away three sides leaving a tab. I didn’t fold it over just yet though as I needed to add a solid core to allow me to drill and tap a hole through the centre. I cut some 5mm square mild steel bar to fill the alu tube and epoxied it inside. The tab was then folded and cut flush before sanding and polishing the piece with wire wool until it had a nice finish. (I don't have many pics of this part but you'll see the finished piece in later steps).

I repeated this process again so I had a pair (plus several failed attempts) of matching bars. I then drilled a 3mm hole in one and a 2mm hole in the other which was tapped for an M2.5 thread.

 

[Halliwax]

Wicked impressive

 

[Cbstudios]

This is such a fascinating build to watch. One of these was my first graflex "replica" and its such a blast to watch someone making it a much more accurate piece! I can't wait to see the following updates

 

[DN12742]

Amazing work!

What attention to detail!!!

 

[Neon Nautilus]

Wicked impressive

This is such a fascinating build to watch. One of these was my first graflex "replica" and its such a blast to watch someone making it a much more accurate piece! I can't wait to see the following updates

Amazing work!

What attention to detail!!!

Thanks so much for your comments guys, it's very much appreciated. It came out great in the end so really looking forward to sharing more with you over the next few days!

 

[DN12742]

When I see posts where there's work like this, and I know a little bit about the subject, or for example I made similar props for myself, and I thought it was cool, and I was proud that I made it, then I feel like this:

BUT! I learn from all of you, this kind of pedantry. You are all cool!

P.S. Please forgive me for the off-topic, but I am simply shocked every time I come across such material, I call such people superhumans.

 

[Neon Nautilus]

Next was the cam lever. First job here was to create a template for the shape. I used a picture of a replica Graflex from the Graflex shop. I scaled the image until the clamp bar under the lever matched the height of the clamp bar I had made, so around 8mm. Next, I measured the various lengths widths and angles of the image and drew the following 1:1 sketch.

I then took a piece of 5/16” (8mm ish) alu square bar and wrapped it in masking tape. The drawing I made was cut out, laid onto the taped bar and the outline of the shape transferred onto either side.

Next step was to dig the part out of this small chunk of aluminium. This was done with the angle grinder, rotary tool, belt sander and hand files to get the basic shape. Below is a selection of images showing a few of the steps along the way.

Once I had the shape pretty much there, I drilled the holes for the pivot pin. The position of the hole is important to allow the lever to act as a cam.

There was still some refinement to the shape to be made. The top needed rounding and overall finish refining with some steel wool. I don't have any in progress shots of that but will share the finished result in an upcoming post.

 

[Neon Nautilus]

When I see posts where there's work like this, and I know a little bit about the subject, or for example I made similar props for myself, and I thought it was cool, and I was proud that I made it, then I feel like this:

BUT! I learn from all of you, this kind of pedantry. You are all cool!

P.S. Please forgive me for the off-topic, but I am simply shocked every time I come across such material, I call such people superhumans.

I totally relate to that feeling, pretty sure we've all been there at some point. I strongly believe though that every effort put into making anything is well worthwhile!
Thanks for your kind words also mate, feels great to have someone say that and I hope what I share inspires.

 

[Halliwax]

 

[Neon Nautilus]

Now the lever was finished, I needed to construct the threaded rod that joins the two halves of the clamp. My first idea was to solder two pieces of 3mm dia brass rod together in a ‘T’ configuration. The top of the ‘T’ would have the lever’s pivot pin passing through it, the ‘leg’ of the ‘T’ would be threaded to hold a cut off piece of M2.5 bolt thread. Much like this:

It came out great. Next, I made a small rectangle from the DVD drive casing I'd used a couple of times before. A 3mm hole was drilled through the material to fit over the brass rod. The rectangle was then marked around the hole onto masking tape and the shape cut out (much easier to get the hole dead centre that way). I then rounded the edges and refined the piece with a rotary tool and hand file. This part gives the cam lever something to push against when clamping, spreading the force.

To finish off I cut down the brass rod to a suitable length and tapped it for an M2.5 thread. Then cut the threaded portion off an M2.5 cap head and screwed it in place. Ready for a test!

You may have noticed the foreshadowing earlier when I said this was my first idea. Unfortunately, this didn’t work out so well. Some of you may have seen this coming, that solder joint was nowhere near strong enough to take the force of the clamping action. It broke as soon as I tensioned the lever.

Okay, time to think this through again...

 

[Neon Nautilus]

For the second attempt I eliminated the join altogether and made the part from a single piece of mild steel.

This took a lot of failed attempts to get right though. I was trying to drill 2 holes, dead centre, by eye, on two axis into a tiny 3mm square mild steel bar using only my Proxxon rotary tool ‘drill stand’. It’s not really intended for metal work and flexes if you’re drilling anything too hard.

I drilled the pivot pin hole first (seen in the previous pic). Then made a 3 piece plywood jig on the laser cutter to hold the piece vertically and level whilst drilling the end hole for the threaded rod.

I racked up a lot of failed attempts, but my persistence paid off and eventually I managed to get a piece with both holes pretty much in the right spot.

Next I held the piece in a vice and used the rotary tool with a grinding disk to round off the square edges. My aim was to turn the 3mm square rod (now tube) into a 3mm round tube without thinning the walls too much. I did this by clamping the rotary tool in place and carefully offering up the piece to it.

Then I rounded off the other end using hand files. I did go a little too thin in one spot but overall it's sound and the mishap won't be visible.

Now that was finished, I screwed the M2.5 threaded rod into the part and pinned it to the lever using 2mm aluminium florists wire hammered down either side. With all the parts together and the lever shape further refined, I’ve gotta say, I’m really pleased with the result.

All parts of the clamp were now completed so I added the cam lever to the two bars. Feeling pretty excited at this point!

Then tried out the clamp, central bar and edge connector card all installed into the collar around the body of the saber.
Pretty much grinning my face right off at this point and giggling to myself with excitement! So pleased with how it came out!

To finish up this post, here is a comparison between the original plastic lever part and my replacement.