My obsession with Vader's lightsaber props

Benjo

Active Member
Hi,

I have an obsession for Vader's lightsaber props and I wanted to talk about it.
Back in 1997, I first saw the lightsaber props on a picture and I thought they were real stuffs. They seemed used, as if every battles in the Star Wars universe really happened. These things really obsessed me and that's how I get into the prop hobby.

The one that kept my attention was Vader's hilt (MOM version), and I've spent a lot of time slowing down the Star Wars VHS to catch all the details I could. I wanted to HAVE this stuff so badly, just to see what would happen If I pushed the on/off button.
I really thought these things really worked, I mean these props looked so REAL to me, there was something magical with the way they were assembled.

I've made many attempts to reproduce Vader's hilt with over the years, unfortunately I haven't kept any of those. Now we almost know everything about lightsaber's props my obsession remained intact. Thanks to many of you, I had the opportunity to study every Vader hilts variations. What I like the most about these is the poor job made the props. It might sound a little weird but that's what makes them look so realistic, like old ramshackle war material. That's what makes Star Wars universe so cool to me.

I wanted to share some replicas I've made. No clean job here, no straight lines, all is about glue marks, scratches, dents, uneven grips spaces, dust and grimes. These are not totally accurate but I did my best to keep all the flaws and wonky details I could, because that's what I like the most with props.

Please, feel free to show me your Vader's hilts replicas, I'll be glad to see what you guys have done :). By studying these props, I now have a bunch of theories about I'll be glad to talk about.

Barbican lightsaber, Aluminium tubing, MPP clamp replica, WannaWanga grips, 3d printed and scratch made greeblies. I think the design is great, but the job is awful. I used to hate that version until the ROTS hilt came around. We know the barbican was the ANH square shroud Vader stunt, used in ESB dueling sequence, modified then cast in resin for the severed hand scene in ROTJ. I don't really know when it's been modified to look that way but it seems like it was during or after ROTJ.

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The Energizer commercial version. Mounted on a Maglite, 3d printed and scratch made greeblies. I really love that version. I don't think the shroud piece is the same as the barbican, I'm pretty sure Don Bies made it from scratch.

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Gary Kurts version, made on a Heiland Strobonar with crudely made greeblies. Pretty small, but I really love that iteration. I think It's been done post ROTJ due to the grips section appearance.

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I now have a Graflex Top and some MOM parts, I might share the building steps here :).

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Great work! I would love to see how you fit together the Barbican emitter/body

I think you captured the true nature of these props

The MoM Vader... it's a complicated one. it seems you have a way of holding it together, which is awesome. My build has been de-constructed after we found out more about what's inside and I've been waiting for more info. Can't wait to see yours!
 
Great work! I would love to see how you fit together the Barbican emitter/body

I think you captured the true nature of these props

The MoM Vader... it's a complicated one. it seems you have a way of holding it together, which is awesome. My build has been de-constructed after we found out more about what's inside and I've been waiting for more info. Can't wait to see yours!
Thanks a lot :), I'm so glad to read that

The Barbican fitting is fairly simple. I can insert the tube directly into the shroud
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The emiter is stepped, there's a half wich goes directly into the beveled section, and the other half, slightly larger, wich goes into the tube
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The tiny allen Screw holds the parts together
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Concerning the MOM, I have hard times to find a good way to hold it together. It was used as a bladed stunt, so I assume there was a sort of aluminium core, held by allen screws, went through the entire tube.
 
Hi there,

I wanted to show my unfinished Vader MOM lightsaber. I wasn't looking for perfect accuracy, I very much prefered to focus on the craptastic features that make that prop so authentic. I've learnt yesterday the 2002 pattern was about to be updated :(, considering many of my parts were gathered around 2006/2007, my replica is definitely out of date .

The thing is I cannot find all the parts to complete that replica. I miss the thumb screw and the D-Ring cylinder. I've heard Elvis Trooper wasn't producing any more of his products, does anyone know where to find MOM parts please?

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Hey Benjo ... I love your Vader ROTJ stunt, it looks fantastic yet your missing 1 screw/bolt under the double ball catch, yes?

Also I know that obi1kenny did another run of parts in 2020 so you should still be able to order that D-ring part from the top and the missing thumbscrew.

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Yet with your scratchbuilding qualities and 3D printed or even plastic greeblie parts you could try to recreat the D-ring part, yes?

I'll attach some pictures.

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Also that D-ring itself is quite wonkey ... here's the shape, just disregard this set-up it's wrong.

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Chaim
 
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Hey Benjo ... I love your Vader ROTJ stunt, it looks fantastic yet your missing 1 screw/bolt under the double ball catch, yes?

Also I know that obi1kenny did another run of parts in 2020 so you should still be able to order that D-ring part from the top and the missing thumbscrew
Sym-Cha Thx a lot for ypur words ;).

I know about the bold under the Double ball catch, I just lost it and need to find a new one to fill the hole :).
I'll try to contact Ob1Kenny, at least to get a Thumbscrew. I can build the D-ring cylinder from scratch, I'm just not sure about its dimensions.

Thx a lot for the pictures and precisions about the D-ring. I honestly didn't pay much attention to it and didn't know that thing was totally wonky :).
 
Benjo I have that part here, don't know if it was originally obi1kenny ... it's dimensions are :

Big cylinder 12 mm in diameter, about 9.5 mm high. Small cylinder or screw part is 6 mm in diameter and about 2.5 mm high ... total height of the part should be 12 mm. and then there's a washer and bolt on the underside which is 8 mm in width.

That D-ring of mine is from a 2.5 mm wire, 37 mm at the widest and 20 mm high in the center.

Hope that helps to create your own :)

Chaim
 
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Wow. nice work, I love the Energizer bunny build as well. I have been toying with doing a few of the promo sabers. Any idea what the ribbed hose part is around the body? Fantastic props!
 
Wow. nice work, I love the Energizer bunny build as well. I have been toying with doing a few of the promo sabers. Any idea what the ribbed hose part is around the body? Fantastic props!
Thanks a lot ;)
According to thd9791 the ribbed part was shaped out of sheet metal by Don Bies.
I used table sheet rubber on mine and it's not accurate, the ribs are a bit thicker than the real stuff.
 
Yes, this is correct, with an embossing machine. There is corrugated plastruct siding that is close, at least to the distance between the ridges. I heated mine and shaped it to the tube
 
I'm digging up that old thread to talk about my last trial to replicate the energizer Vader hilt.
At first, I had dimensions from that resin cast:

but there was something weird about it. The energizer was made around a maglite body, way bigger than the resin cast itself.
That thread made me realize the resin cast was, for whatever reasons, slimmer but not that smaller than the actual prop:
Energizer Lightsaber project - as originally made

So I've made a second attempt to replicate the prop, smaller than my previous one. I had to eyeball most of the parts. Something still looks a bit off to me when I compare my version to other promo casts props, grips look longer than they should even if I kept the same dimensions as the resin cast.
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compared to my older and pretty messed up attempt, made back in 2020, by following and scaling up the resin cast dimensions.

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