Mugatu’s Souvenirs, Novelties, Party Tricks: LIVE FIRE E11

mugatu

Sr Member
RPF PREMIUM MEMBER
Hello. Thanks for checking this out.
First off, I need to say thanks to a few people for their help and advice with acquiring some of these pieces and also with their help and advice (some of which I ignored to my own detriment) on what to do with these pieces. These folks are:

Planettera
teecrooz
Edraven99
ataru72ita
Romans Empire
Pukkalemons
and of course, Master Sym-Cha

All of your help, in various ways have made this saber what it is so far. Some of that help may not have come directly from you but from me picking up on your advice within threads right here at theRPF. Normally I would just present a finished piece and hide all of my numerous mistakes, but perhaps my mistakes will help others avoid making their own.

ALSO, this is obviously not finished. I still need to acquire a real booster and balance pipe as well as the D-Ring needing to be attached, but I can't go on with all these pieces spread out like a tornado disaster area on my work table for years waiting to acquire those parts...

Finally, I have just opened a Photobucket account and am going to attempt using that for this thread, so there could be a lot of reading with no pics. If so, I will edit this later the old way.

Here is what I have so far completed:

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Here are the original real parts at my disposal:

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These pieces are from left to right: Graflex Clamp, Armitage Shanks Hand Wheel (center bidet wheel version), Hales No3 Mk1 Rifle Grenade, Texas Instruments Exactra 20 Calculator, vintage Transistors. The clamp looks really good from this side, but you will have a chance to check out its other side later. The AS hand wheel caused some issues which I will go into later as well. The grenade tested my patience, even with great advice from Edraven99 (and I failed that test haha). I have not installed the bubble strip from the calculator yet, nor the transistors as I am trying to figure out the best way to attach them.

Here are the replica parts that I am using until I secure the final real parts:

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These pieces are all RomansEmpire parts of various vintages. From left to right they are: Clamp Spacer, Modern Booster Replica, Vintage Booster Replica, a life saving Nut-type of device, Vintage 3-piece Emitter. The clamp spacer may be the most current version... I don't really know as all of these pieces I picked up from Planettera I prefer the look of the Modern Romans Empire Booster, but it doesn't work with my AS bidet wheel (or really, my bidet wheel doesn't work with this booster), which led me to get the black vintage one. The nut-device was actually sent to me with the emitter, but I think the way I ended up using it is how it is supposed to be used. Perhaps someone with experience can correct me here. I opted for the emitter based on how shiny it is. At some point I will be building a super clean all-RomansEmpire OB1 as his parts are really only second to the real thing from what I can tell. I spend about as much time on his website as I do here, just ogling his work and salivating. One day...

These are the other non-real, non-Romans behind the scenes parts that I have used:

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These are: Black Gaffers Tape, 8 Washers, and a 3/8-16 threaded rod. The rod was originally a 12 inch length that I used a rotary tool to cut down to about 10.25" per Romans' recommendation on his site.

C5DE6F2D-48C3-45F0-B927-B3FCA7BC435F.jpeg


First I had to figure out how to put the emitter together. Unfortunately, I don't have an image of the three pieces of the emitter because the way I got them to stay together was by covering the shiny emitter parts with a towel and then using pliers to pinch the whole thing together as the inner piece (with the ring of holes) has a circumference a bit larger than the interior section of the outer piece that it sets into. When all else fails, use pressure and/or beat on it. This worked well with the emitter.
There is also a brass (?) section, very similar to a piece that screws into the real Hales No3 Mk1 grenade, that goes in the middle of the inner chromed (?) emitter piece. The inner chromed emitter piece is held to this brass piece with hex screws. I then screwed my 10.25" threaded rod into this brass piece as seen here:

73BA1A48-68BE-4956-8155-6FF6020AFABA.jpeg


Next came the grenade:

FF99E9A8-24F2-497E-A06D-A9D372A63DAF.jpeg


That somewhat pointy piece, below the windvane in this image, is the detonator. It normally resides within the brass shaft of the grenade. It is held in place by two pins/screws that allow the detonator to travel a short distance up or down inside the brass shaft. Having spent the last 100 years buried in the French countryside, the screws/pins of the grenade were a bit stubborn about being removed. My detonator did not want to come out. Unfortunately, the threaded rod needs to go through the very same area of the brass shaft.

Edraven99 was kind enough to answer my questions about the grenade and how to remove this piece. One suggestion was to gently tap the detonator with a screwdriver or something to see if that loosens the pins/screws or even gets them to come out altogether. I followed this advice for several minutes until my impatience got the best of me, at which point I really started banging away on the detonator. You may not know this, but that kind of pointy detonator in the photo, in reality, was actually VERY pointy before I started trying to remove it. This is an example where beating on metal is not necessarily a good thing. All of my banging on the detonator caused the bottom threaded plate (that screws into the grenade's frag body) to warp. Now the brass shaft plate won't screw into the frag body.

To fix this, I used my rotary tool to rid the brass shaft plate of most of its lower threads. I'm sure this grenade never thought a 100 years ago that it would meet its brutal demise AFTER a world war, across the ocean in the garage of some middle-aged Star Wars fan. Stupid grenade! I taught him!

Anyways, its passable. The French countryside was also not very kind to the finish of the grenade. And onto the rod it goes:

8DFEC53B-D8EE-477E-9A91-D81E93F624EE.jpeg


Next comes the clamp spacer and Graflex clamp. Pretty straight forward. Just line up the holes of the Clamp with the threaded areas that RomansEmpire put into the spacer for his threaded transistors.

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And onto the rod:

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Next comes the booster. I do prefer this more accurate booster, but as I mentioned, it won't work with my AS bidet wheel:

ED5B6ABE-BE3A-4180-BA3C-F3FE734DD29C.jpeg


The interior part of my bidet wheel is shaped differently than that of a typical basin-type vintage AS hand wheel. For reference, this image is the underside of the bidet wheel:

21111BEF-3B40-4E56-B08E-F96D46900E76.jpeg


This image is the underside of a correct basin-type vintage AS hand wheel:

EF3BAA07-9648-4FA9-94BF-2CFD7AE4EBF5.jpeg


SO, this also means that a real booster also will not work with my bidet wheel. I will have to have it machined at some point once a real booster is in hand. As for now, I opted to buy a vintage Romans booster that does not have the side section:

EB94726C-A3A0-4181-84D0-1497B13F5E1C.jpeg


It goes on easily enough:

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Now the issue is spacing between the booster and the hand wheel as the vaned "gear" portion of the booster does not sit flush with the bottom of the handwheel. What I did to fake this part for now was to take 8 washers and wrap black gaffers tape around their circumference:

FD230470-497B-4304-A0E7-81BA0AA04C1F.jpeg


Romans' vintage booster even had a little circular section cut out of it for these washers to seat in almost perfectly:

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Next was putting the hand wheel on, which after the test fitting with the washers was no big deal:

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To secure it all together, I used that amazing nut-device I mentioned from earlier. Again, I thought it went with the emitter, but I think this is much better use of it (if it wasn't actually designed to be used this way):

D34B725A-F43B-4386-B022-0DC4441FC529.jpeg


And here it is all together:

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Here it is with my Luke ESB (now fixed!):

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Again, I still have to put the Exactra bubble strip on, as well as the transistors. Can anyone recommend how to attach these vintage transistors?
I also need to know what size D-Ring to get too, so any help there is appreciated.

I also want to show you the pommel end of the OB1 as the bidet wheel I am using did not come with a traditional end cap. It was what I have figured out to be a switch that I presume caused the bidet to flush. It would not look right at all. Here is what the OB1 (so far) looks like without any end cap:

8E1056A5-C0B8-4057-8A95-07D58B8C2896.jpeg


I could leave it open as I don't believe there are accurate images of what the screen-used OB1 had on the end. Still, I did order some rare earth magnets that cover the hole pretty well:

3C0CCFDF-73D5-4AE6-BC21-E2CE64AC7D0B.jpeg


I have also made a custom end cap for it out of one of the magnets and a locket I found on eBay:

98A1C5C3-4E0B-432C-8BE4-A22B60EBE97D.jpeg


Not only is it informative, but it bridges the gap between two of my favorite amazing film universes.


Just kidding.

Thanks for checking this out.
Hopefully the images have embedded properly. (They didn't the first time)

I am serious about the transistors. Any advice is appreciated on my OB1.

Andy
 
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Re: My In Progress OB1 ANH (some) Real Parts Build

Word of advice ... once you uploaded your pictures in photobucket and used the links in threads ... leave them alone ... don't start shuffling them around in special folders later ... since that might affect the pictures and their links, of photo's you've posted, to disappear from said threads :wacko ... don't ask me how I know, okay!

Chaim
 
Re: My In Progress OB1 ANH (some) Real Parts Build

That looks mighty good mugatu ... I wonder if your Exactra 20 contains the all round bubbles ... the darker see through plastic is usually a hint is does ... and then you maybe in luck and don't have to sand all under the bubbles ... just cut/sand some excess of the sides :



Chaim
 
Re: My In Progress OB1 ANH (some) Real Parts Build

As for the transistors ... I was just going to bend the 'legs' inside the G R A F L E X cube holes ... and some black gaffer tape should hold them in place ... did you get the metal washers already?



Chaim
 
Re: My In Progress OB1 ANH (some) Real Parts Build

Luke ESB? I think you meant Luke TFA! :lol

I can0t help myself looking those kind of pictures without wanting to steal them all!

You're right KaanE! With that glass eye it's a TFA Andy! :)

You guys are right! How did I miss that?!?

I will need to rectify that shortly. I was moving pieces around prepping for my first nickel-plating experiment and I don't know how I left that glass eye in there! I will fix it.

- - - Updated - - -

That looks mighty good mugatu ... I wonder if your Exactra 20 contains the all round bubbles ... the darker see through plastic is usually a hint is does ... and then you maybe in luck and don't have to sand all under the bubbles ... just cut/sand some excess of the sides :

http://i833.photobucket.com/albums/zz258/Sym-Cha/Exactra_06A.jpg

Chaim

As for the transistors ... I was just going to bend the 'legs' inside the G R A F L E X cube holes ... and some black gaffer tape should hold them in place ... did you get the metal washers already?

http://i833.photobucket.com/albums/zz258/Sym-Cha/Transistors01.jpg

Chaim
Chaim,
I do still need to get the washers for the transistors. As far as the Exactra, I guess it's time to crack that puppy open and see what I'm working with here!
 
Re: My In Progress OB1 ANH (some) Real Parts Build

andy it looks awesome! very exciting thread if i do say so myself! i love the grenade! where the heck did you find that?! arent the grenades the hardest part to get?

awesome job buddy!
 
Re: My In Progress OB1 ANH (some) Real Parts Build

Fantastic. I really like seeing it come together, especially with the details about the challenges.
Have to say, that grenade takes this piece to another level. So much character.

Looking forward to more progress pics.
 
Re: My In Progress OB1 ANH (some) Real Parts Build

andy it looks awesome! very exciting thread if i do say so myself! i love the grenade! where the heck did you find that?! arent the grenades the hardest part to get?

awesome job buddy!

Fantastic. I really like seeing it come together, especially with the details about the challenges.
Have to say, that grenade takes this piece to another level. So much character.

Looking forward to more progress pics.

Halliwax, thanks for the support! I'm not sure the grenade is the hardest to find, albeit the condition of the grenade is a very large determining factor on the difficulty level. Some members have very clean, symmetrically cut grenades...those, yes, are extremely difficult to find. I'm still not sure if it's harder to find than a booster or a balance pipe, but the super accurate, super clean grenade with the super accurate windvane ring is very difficult to locate and even harder to obtain than say, mine which looks like it's been chewed on by a Rancor for a while.

Panaflex, thanks man. Yeah I might be coaxed into revealing just what the bottom plate threads on my grenade actually look like now, but it was definitely a challenge. Having proper tools and a proper work area really do go a long way in helping to avoid many self-caused issues. My work bench with the hammering is made of a large flat concrete material. I also park my cars on it.

I think whenever I do get the real booster, I will in fact need to upgrade to the completely correct hand wheel.

But there is something charming about the grenade being gnarled up a bit. I don't know that it goes with the chromed emitter so much, but it definitely looks like a Tatooine relic.
 
Re: My In Progress OB1 ANH (some) Real Parts Build

On my Obi saber I decided I liked the idea of mechanically fastening as many parts as possible. No epoxy or anything like that. So, I drilled out the transistors, then found screws that fit inside the hollow transistors. Then, just drill out the holes in the clamp and secure with a nut. I'm using one of Roman's hollow spacers, so that makes it easier. Since you're using a solid spacer which I believe already has threaded holes for replica transistors, you just need to find the appropriate screws and voila!
 
Re: My In Progress OB1 ANH (some) Real Parts Build

On my Obi saber I decided I liked the idea of mechanically fastening as many parts as possible. No epoxy or anything like that. So, I drilled out the transistors, then found screws that fit inside the hollow transistors. Then, just drill out the holes in the clamp and secure with a nut. I'm using one of Roman's hollow spacers, so that makes it easier. Since you're using a solid spacer which I believe already has threaded holes for replica transistors, you just need to find the appropriate screws and voila!

Thats a really good idea. Probably will make the transistors much more secure that way too. Good advice.
 
Re: My In Progress OB1 ANH (some) Real Parts Build

It looks really great.
Considering how hard to find a real balance pipe is...you have all the right to use a replica ;)
I can't imagine how it feels to posses these real parts obi sabers, especially that your friends will never understand what it means and would probably like a all replica parts saber more :wacko
 
Re: My In Progress OB1 ANH (some) Real Parts Build

Luke the Belter, thanks man. I live close to the USAF museum. They have lots of WWII planes there. I'm hoping they get an RAF loaner some day of a Gloster Meteor, in which case, I'll have to pull some serious Jedi mind trickery! In the mean time, my work table was getting so cluttered that I was afraid I'd misplace something, so I had to get this together now.

And yeah, my friends wouldn't understand.
 
Re: My In Progress OB1 ANH (some) Real Parts Build

THD would be able to tell you how to do the trannies (wait, that looks bad...)

These builds have got me itching for a saber, even though I'm a blaster guy.
 
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