Luke's "Jedi Equipment Box" + Interior and a year of found parts / builds.

[mikesprops]

Hey RPF,

This year I decided to have a go at building the sort of stuff I've always wanted to own and I thought I'd share it with you guys to see what you thought. Firstly here's a family photo of everything I've found / built this year. Loads of vintage parts (i've been very lucky to find some great bargains), a big ole box that I designed / painted and a couple of bits for your viewing pleasure, not everything is finished and this is my first go at doing any of this so I apologise if it's not up to the RPF's usual high standards.

Here's my box. The idea behind it is my answer to the question "Where does Luke keep his stuff when he's in his X-Wing?" It's based on a British military case from the 80's which I thought looked the part. It's got a "storage maintenance port" on the left side and a couple of stickers I drew and a blaster hole on the right hand side. This was my first go at weathering anything so there's definitely things I would improve if I were doing it again, but all in all the outside looks pretty good in my opinion.

A closer shot of the maintenance port (below)

The outer facia is remove-able to show these internal maintenance port parts (a magnet has come off that I need to reattach and haven't gotten round to on the bottom left).

The interior of the box isn't quite finished yet and I need to touch up a couple of bits on the outside, so I'm saving the finished product for a reveal in the near future.

I'll show some more detailed photos of the other bits I've been working on this year later if anyone's interested. Thanks for looking!

Edit: I've uploaded photos of the interior on page two for anyone who's interested. Check them out here

 

[Sym-Cha]

That's an impressive collection for only a year's worth of collecting ... and that box is Luke's ... no doubt about it ... even that missing magnet is exactly what the original propmakers would do ... please tell us more of all the other pieces you've collected sofar

Chaïm

 

[mikesprops]

That's an impressive collection for only a year's worth of collecting ... and that box is Luke's ... no doubt about it ... even that missing magnet is exactly what the original propmakers would do ... please tell us more of all the other pieces you've collected sofar

Chaïm

Thanks mate, It's starting to feel like it belongs to Luke, love that you think so and to be honest one of the reasons I haven't replaced the magnet is that I thought the same thing. I'll happily show you more.

Here's my Macrobinoculars which I'm pretty happy with, they were made on a budget so they don't have Kalimar Six Sixty lenses', instead I used some Kowa 50mm lenses, painted in colours that I'm calling "Kalimari colours" rather than the traditional grey. I wanted it to look like it's made of all original parts.

The side knob is from a Seagul 4A, it's just the standard black knob but i've given it a bit of silver paint that I've weathered, not strictly accurate but it gave the black knob the look I was wanting. The Bell & Howell knob on the inside of the Seagul knob should be grey, but for some reason I really liked the red one I found so I kept it red. I may change my mind later though.

I snapped up a bargain Kalimar Reflex for the viewfinder and side knobs, did a bit too much weathering on the mystery wedge so I'll probably repaint that at some point.

The other side has an EIAJ plug but I've forgotten to take a photo of it so I'll have to update that a bit later.

 

[mikesprops]

My first scratch built prop. It's a full steel thermal detonator (except for the 3D printed button, which I will replace at some point), I just built this to see if I could and It came out better than expected, just need to figure out electronics for it next.

 

[mikesprops]

Here's my first go at weathering a lightsaber. I've added a vintage Armitage Shanks Handwheel as I managed to find a bidet with three of them on earlier in the year, as well as vintage transistors and washers. Here's what it looked like when I got it:

and... Here's the beginning of a very expensive project. Just got the grenade today!

 

[mikesprops]

Found a cheap damaged Kango 637 motor casing on eBay so I thought I'd have a go at building a more weathered than usual bunker bomb, I didn't buy the cone and instead used a piece of scrap plastic I had laying around. Didn't turn out too bad, may have to redo the sticker as I went a bit overboard with the weathering, and I cracked open an Emi Photomultiplier for the Dynodes on the side. They aren't the correct orientation but I'm building on a budget.

For the bits on the top I already had a load of boot studs from a pair of Keenfisher Waders I bought earlier in the year and a Visible V8 kit for the cog. The rest of it is scrap I had laying around. Not 100% accurate and I'm missing the Mulbrod cable clip until I find a suitable replacement. But all in all I'm quite happy with it.

 

[mikesprops]

Here's the side of my macrobinoculars with the EIAJ plug. It's not exactly right (it's actually an empty EIAJ plug case with a female green port inside) but it'll do for me for now.

 

[Anakin Starkiller]

Love the collection and love the case. I've been wanting to put together something like that, but can never seem to find something that matches the SW feel. The case you built nails it!!

 

[mikesprops]

Love the collection and love the case. I've been wanting to put together something like that, but can never seem to find something that matches the SW feel. The case you built nails it!!

Thanks man, I felt the same way. I really wanted something that felt X-Wing/ millennium falcon esque and couldn't find much so I thought I'd build it myself. I'm really happy with how it's come out.

To give the box a bit of back story (as I think the back story is probably the key to a good design) Luke originally finds it aboard the millennium falcon where it was a box that once contained a "Power coupling adapter" (Should have used converter, I was kicking myself when I realised). He then takes it, it is repainted and modified by the alliance and then taken aboard his X-Wing to store his equipment, where it slots in just below his cockpit with the red side being exposed to space and the maintenance port used to dock into the ship.

I made a plaque on the top that describes it as the box for a power coupling adapter made by the Corellian engineering corporation, which made the falcon. I'll post a closeup in a bit.

 

[mikesprops]

Here's the plaque on the top for anyone interested

 

[breen2057]

This is very cool, but the high light for me is the case. I love a cool box/case and yours is excellent.

 

[mikesprops]

This is very cool, but the high light for me is the case. I love a cool box/case and yours is excellent.

Thanks Mate. I'm pretty happy with it, hopefully you'll enjoy the inside too when it's done.

 

[eethan]

you did a great job this year, lots of cool stuff!
your macros look amazing Mike! I'm so glad to see my triangle and knurled knobs on that budget build with custom lenses! that works really well, thank you for sharing, I'll save that right into my client photo folder, I love to see how my parts are used and this is a great example thank you!

 

[mikesprops]

you did a great job this year, lots of cool stuff!
your macros look amazing Mike! I'm so glad to see my triangle and knurled knobs on that budget build with custom lenses! that works really well, thank you for sharing, I'll save that right into my client photo folder, I love to see how my parts are used and this is a great example thank you!

Thanks eethan! I really appreciate it. Don't thank me though. I should be thanking you for your fantastic work. If I had known it was something you'd be interested in I would have sent photos. Those knurled knobs particularly really are perfect, so thank you again.

 

[Sym-Cha]

You did a great job weathering that Parks Obi-Wan, at least I guess it's a Parks . . . and gathering real vintage parts too ... amazing . . . start saving your precious gold-pressed latinum if you want a real female Balance Pipe. I love those macro's too, totally believable even if you used other yet similar parts in true prop-maker's spirit I might add. So what's the story behind Luke's ESB and Vader's Heiland based lightsaber?

Chaïm

 

[mikesprops]

You did a great job weathering that Parks Obi-Wan, at least I guess it's a Parks . . . and gathering real vintage parts too ... amazing . . . start saving your precious gold-pressed latinum if you want a real female Balance Pipe. I love those macro's too, totally believable even if you used other yet similar parts in true prop-maker's spirit I might add. So what's the story behind Luke's ESB and Vader's Heiland based lightsaber?

Chaïm

Thanks man! I'm not sure who made the Obi Wan saber in all honesty, I just bought it as is on eBay. glad you like the weathering. It was my first go at weathering and Obi Wan was always my favourite saber so I did my best with that one.

I've already started selling off family members false teeth while they sleep in order to start saving up for a balance pipe at this rate I should have enough in 25 years. Unless I can find some particularly valuable molars some where.

Awesome. I'm glad you like the macros as they are, I think, my favourite thing I've built. I managed to build them really cheaply and they came out looking pretty good in my opinion. Some of this stuff I built purely to see if I could do it and I intend to sell it but the macros are mine. Other than a good lightsaber they are my favourite SW prop.

Luke's ESB and the Vader Highland based saber are two that I built using vintage parts. Luke's ESB is a vintage graflex (Just the standard Graflex Inc. With Patent number) with metal grips that I cut out attached using 3M double sided tape so that I don't damage the graflex and the PCB card in the clamp is an (Incorrect) Otis Elevator card from 1975 that I thought looked pretty good.

The Vader highland saber is my first go at building one with electronics inside it. I've just used a very basic baselit RGB set up inside, I've also weathered the replica shroud to match the rust spots on the original ANH prop and I used the bubble strip from a Texas Instruments calculator (It has 9 bubbles no the correct Exactra 7) . I'll include photos of them in more detail when I get a chance.

 

[mikesprops]

You did a great job weathering that Parks Obi-Wan, at least I guess it's a Parks . . . and gathering real vintage parts too ... amazing . . . start saving your precious gold-pressed latinum if you want a real female Balance Pipe. I love those macro's too, totally believable even if you used other yet similar parts in true prop-maker's spirit I might add. So what's the story behind Luke's ESB and Vader's Heiland based lightsaber?

Chaïm

Here's my go at building with a Vintage Graflex. It's not really an ESB saber, it's closer to TFA but I didn't build it to be specific to any particular film, I just preferred these grips, I prefer rivets to screws and the glass eye to the red button.

For the clamp card I chose a 1975 Otis Elevator PCB that had what I think is an attractive design. It's not accurate in any way shape or form but I liked it.

For the grips I went with aluminium ones so that I could weather them a bit, not really accurate to anything but it felt right to me, and I love a chance to weather anything.

For my Heiland Vader Saber I built a glowing stand out of some random parts I found.

Quite pleased with how the electronics panned out as I was able to keep the original "blade plug" from the Heiland and just make it glow, I've got no interest in actually attaching a blade to it, it's just meant to be a prop replica. I also need to add some screws to the grips, but I'll get to that at some point.

 

[TuckerMan]

This is just about the coolest thing I've seen on this site. And I realize that's saying a lot

I've been trying to create a storage/display solution for my hilt and don't really know where to start. I picked up a wood box at the local craft store but haven't figured out what I want to do with it.

Your concept is super intriguing because it really feels like it fits in the universe. So was this just a random box you found on eBay? How'd you come across this box to start with? Any pics before you got started weathering it?

 

[mikesprops]

This is just about the coolest thing I've seen on this site. And I realize that's saying a lot

I've been trying to create a storage/display solution for my hilt and don't really know where to start. I picked up a wood box at the local craft store but haven't figured out what I want to do with it.

Your concept is super intriguing because it really feels like it fits in the universe. So was this just a random box you found on eBay? How'd you come across this box to start with? Any pics before you got started weathering it?

Hi Mate,

Thanks so much, I'm really glad you like it.

I found the box on eBay. I spent a while thinking about what kind of box I wanted and the answer I came up with was I wanted it rugged but not modern looking. I specifically tried to get something from the 80's, as I wanted the box to be in keeping with ROTJ.

I figured that the prop department if they were making this box would have used some kind of industrial / military type box that they would have access to in the UK around the time. So this box fit the bill nicely. It's an 80's British Military case for holding some kind of ammunition or weapon component. I'll try and dig out a photo of it from when I bought it as I'm pretty sure I saved some.

It was basically a clean box in a dark army green type colour, and it had a few labels on it with serial numbers and what not. I'm sure if you look around you'll find something similar. I think if you're looking to make something like this I'd start looking at various military cases from the 70's and 80's, I had lots of options when I was originally looking as they seem to come in all different shapes and sizes.

I'd definitely recommend trying to find something a bit vintage rather than using a craft store box. Purely because it gives it that feeling of authenticity, with a good weight and feel to it. I always want the things I build to not only look right but also give you all the tactile sensations that the thing would if you handled it in-universe.

Hope that helps.

 

[TuckerMan]

Hi Mate,

Thanks so much, I'm really glad you like it.

I found the box on eBay. I spent a while thinking about what kind of box I wanted and the answer I came up with was I wanted it rugged but not modern looking. I specifically tried to get something from the 80's, as I wanted the box to be in keeping with ROTJ.

I figured that the prop department if they were making this box would have used some kind of industrial / military type box that they would have access to in the UK around the time. So this box fit the bill nicely. It's an 80's British Military case for holding some kind of ammunition or weapon component. I'll try and dig out a photo of it from when I bought it as I'm pretty sure I saved some.

It was basically a clean box in a dark army green type colour, and it had a few labels on it with serial numbers and what not. I'm sure if you look around you'll find something similar. I think if you're looking to make something like this I'd start looking at various military cases from the 70's and 80's, I had lots of options when I was originally looking as they seem to come in all different shapes and sizes.

I'd definitely recommend trying to find something a bit vintage rather than using a craft store box. Purely because it gives it that feeling of authenticity, with a good weight and feel to it. I always want the things I build to not only look right but also give you all the tactile sensations that the thing would if you handled it in-universe.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the info. I think I found the same box, just searching for 'british military box' on eBay. I'll keep my eye on this thread, and wait for your full reveal.