New Elstree Studio documentary with discarded Graflex.

[Halliwax]

The rivet brand “arrow” specifically makes washers for each size. I’ve used them in the past on other products

Funny fact, never time you are in a porta-john check out how the thing is held together. All with rivets and capture washers

At ace they are sold right beside the rivets

 

[Drew Baker]

Did that red button come with that vintage Folmer?

(The sync pins are the stepped, Inc-era style so I expect not. Even if he got them together, that wouldn't make sense as an oem configuration.)

 

[Gregatron]

I may have to grab another, unbeveled bubblestrip to experiment with. The inherent problem with determining the shape of the strip is its translucency—that makes it hard to tell what’s the edge of the clamp rails, what’s the bottom surface of the inner clamp (the parts that the bubblestrip sits on), and where the edges of the strip are.

However, I think I AM seeing the slightly-rounded edge/slope of a bevel in this image, highlighted in red. I think if the strip was just shortened on the ends and then wedged between the clamp rails, there would be more space seen between the rails, since the strip would be holding them apart, like, by another mm or two (...unless the sides of the strip were shaved down, rather than beveled so that they fit slightly beneath the rails. In other words, a thinner strip, rather than a full strip with beveled edges.). I tend to think that the Elstree saber is a Rosetta Stone in a number of ways, and it makes sense to me that both props would use the same method for inserting the strip.

 

[AnubisGuard]

So, who will be the first to offer an accurate bevelled bubble strip?

roygilsing ?

 

[IronDestinyProps]

Not sure I'm ready to believe for certain yet that the ANH hero had a beveled bubble strip. Pardon the rough Photoshop job, but comparing the un-beveled bubble strip in this client build with the toe-pic's I feel like I'm seeing quite a space between the clamp rails similar to the distance between the rails on my client build. My gut tells me that the angle of the shot above with Mark holding the Graflex at an angle away from the camera rather than more straight on like in the toe pic makes me doubt it was beveled.

Without clearer photo evidence, though, we may never know and end up wearing ourselves with interesting but fruitless hypotheses.

 

[James Kenobi 1138]

We don’t know that the bubble strip is beveled, currently there are no photos showing it either way. It’s dangerous and reckless to say a beveled bubble strip is accurate without photographic proof.

 

[Dann]

Right, I just liked the look of the beveled edges, so that's really my only reason for doing that. Like I said, I think Scott is likely right about the bubbles on the real prop being sandwiched between the edges of the clamp rails, and that a very slight bevel could be possible, but likely not as pronounced as the Elstree. But James is right, it's not clear enough for those of us without high res pics to know for sure, at the moment.

As far as my red button/stepped pins go, some of my vintage flashes are mixed and matched, and I've had them since the late 90s. I definitely remember swapping out the straight pins LONG ago, because I personally preferred the stepped pins, and that was before anyone cared whether any specific prop was a "Folmer" or an ", Inc.", or a "Patent" or a blah blah blargh. I have a baggie full (it's a very small baggie!) of vintage pins somewhere, so I'll have to see if the straight ones are still there.

I will say I've NEVER had any other button style but the full-knurl, so either my Folmer came that way from the factory, or the previous owner swapped it out. (And that previous owner would've been a camera dude)

Tom, I installed the double-rivet D ring just a couple days ago, and had to remove a single-rivet style in the process. This is the second authentic Graflex bottom that I've done this with, and personally, I haven't had any problem with either one. They both feel solid.

 

[Gregatron]

Ordered another bubblestrip to do some experimenting.

 

[Trooper_trent]

Not sure I'm ready to believe for certain yet that the ANH hero had a beveled bubble strip. Pardon the rough Photoshop job, but comparing the un-beveled bubble strip in this client build with the toe-pic's I feel like I'm seeing quite a space between the clamp rails similar to the distance between the rails on my client build. My gut tells me that the angle of the shot above with Mark holding the Graflex at an angle away from the camera rather than more straight on like in the toe pic makes me doubt it was beveled.

Without clearer photo evidence, though, we may never know and end up wearing ourselves with interesting but fruitless hypotheses.

View attachment 1067004

Yep. A really close lined up overlay could help confirm the distance between the rails and how much bubble strip is visible.

 

[dcarty]

I've built saber hilts both ways over the years and, these days, I am more in favor of the strip being beveled than not and here is my reasoning. With the Elstree we now have three production related saber hilts with beveled LED strips (assuming it is genuine). The other two being the Vader ANH stunt/RotJ severed hand hilt and, of course, the ESB Vader Hero. I also think that from a build standpoint it makes sense.



I put this ANH Hero together this summer to keep in the office at work and I experimented with groove and no groove. It is the removal of the lever washer that really makes me prefer a grooved, or in my build notched, strip. I was really loathe to cut into the Rebelscum LED strip I had been hoarding so I tried to get things to line up with an unmodified strip first. After removing lever washer I found the spacing with the strip didn't look right. The edges of the clamp were too far apart. I also found that I couldn't have the lever extended and get the clamp to tighten down enough to for the top half of the flash to lock in place. Then Gregatron noted that you could see the lever screw protruding from the top of the clamp which meant tightening it down even more. Once I tightened the lever another turn I couldn't get the strip to fit into the clamp well at all (I snapped the corner off the strip in the attempt).

Since an unmodified strip wouldn't fit I started experimenting with grooves on a spare strip I had to hand. I first tried to cut it out with a deep groove like the Elstree and found it was too loose so I cut the edges off at a slight angle with a file:



Once I did this things started to line up nicely with the Toe picture and the strip still provided enough resistance that it was difficult to close the lever but still have everything locked in place. In the intervening months the lever has started to close more -- just like the screen hilt -- so I have to be careful with it.



I'd like to try again with another strip once Rebelscum starts up production again (fingers crossed). I'm still staring at those photos trying to glean more information from their fuzzy images like we all are.

Cheers,

Dave

 

[thd9791]

Thanks guys!

 

[Gregatron]

I've built saber hilts both ways over the years and, these days, I am more in favor of the strip being beveled than not and here is my reasoning. With the Elstree we now have three production related saber hilts with beveled LED strips (assuming it is genuine). The other two being the Vader ANH stunt/RotJ severed hand hilt and, of course, the ESB Vader Hero. I also think that from a build standpoint it makes sense.

View attachment 1067247

I put this ANH Hero together this summer to keep in the office at work and I experimented with groove and no groove. It is the removal of the lever washer that really makes me prefer a grooved, or in my build notched, strip. I was really loathe to cut into the Rebelscum LED strip I had been hoarding so I tried to get things to line up with an unmodified strip first. After removing lever washer I found the spacing with the strip didn't look right. The edges of the clamp were too far apart. I also found that I couldn't have the lever extended and get the clamp to tighten down enough to for the top half of the flash to lock in place. Then Gregatron noted that you could see the lever screw protruding from the top of the clamp which meant tightening it down even more. Once I tightened the lever another turn I couldn't get the strip to fit into the clamp well at all (I snapped the corner off the strip in the attempt).

Since an unmodified strip wouldn't fit I started experimenting with grooves on a spare strip I had to hand. I first tried to cut it out with a deep groove like the Elstree and found it was too loose so I cut the edges off at a slight angle with a file:

View attachment 1067248

Once I did this things started to line up nicely with the Toe picture and the strip still provided enough resistance that it was difficult to close the lever but still have everything locked in place. In the intervening months the lever has started to close more -- just like the screen hilt -- so I have to be careful with it.

View attachment 1067249

I'd like to try again with another strip once Rebelscum starts up production again (fingers crossed). I'm still staring at those photos trying to glean more information from their fuzzy images like we all are.

Cheers,

Dave

Exactly. Once I noticed that the washer was missing and the lever screwed down that extra rotation on the hero, I did the same to my TGS. That extra turn makes the clamp lock VERY tightly onto the upper and lower halves. So much so that you could actually scratch up the tube halves when unlocking and sliding them out of the clamp when the lever is open. Because there’s so much tension in the clamp and the parts fit so tightly, I didn’t even TRY to fit an unbeveled strip into the clamp, for fear of breaking it. That, combined with the other (apparently) production-made sabers having beveled strips convinced me that the hero strip was also beveled. As it is, the beveled strip is a very tight fit. And, as noted, I think I can see the edge of a bevel on the strip in that publicity photo. Perhaps not as wide as on the Elstree prop, but just enough for the clamp lips to sit over the edges of the strip.

 

[IronDestinyProps]

Yep. A really close lined up overlay could help confirm the distance between the rails and how much bubble strip is visible.

I am not quite as skilled with Photoshop yet to be able to do that successfully, Trent. Maybe you or someone else (roygilsing?) would like to have a crack at it?

I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that the bubble strip was beveled since we see that present on the Elstree hilt, but without further confirmation evidence on the actual hero hilt I think we may be at an impasse.

 

[R5D4]

I've built saber hilts both ways over the years and, these days, I am more in favor of the strip being beveled than not and here is my reasoning. With the Elstree we now have three production related saber hilts with beveled LED strips (assuming it is genuine). The other two being the Vader ANH stunt/RotJ severed hand hilt and, of course, the ESB Vader Hero. I also think that from a build standpoint it makes sense.

View attachment 1067247

I put this ANH Hero together this summer to keep in the office at work and I experimented with groove and no groove. It is the removal of the lever washer that really makes me prefer a grooved, or in my build notched, strip. I was really loathe to cut into the Rebelscum LED strip I had been hoarding so I tried to get things to line up with an unmodified strip first. After removing lever washer I found the spacing with the strip didn't look right. The edges of the clamp were too far apart. I also found that I couldn't have the lever extended and get the clamp to tighten down enough to for the top half of the flash to lock in place. Then Gregatron noted that you could see the lever screw protruding from the top of the clamp which meant tightening it down even more. Once I tightened the lever another turn I couldn't get the strip to fit into the clamp well at all (I snapped the corner off the strip in the attempt).

Since an unmodified strip wouldn't fit I started experimenting with grooves on a spare strip I had to hand. I first tried to cut it out with a deep groove like the Elstree and found it was too loose so I cut the edges off at a slight angle with a file:

View attachment 1067248

Once I did this things started to line up nicely with the Toe picture and the strip still provided enough resistance that it was difficult to close the lever but still have everything locked in place. In the intervening months the lever has started to close more -- just like the screen hilt -- so I have to be careful with it.

View attachment 1067249

I'd like to try again with another strip once Rebelscum starts up production again (fingers crossed). I'm still staring at those photos trying to glean more information from their fuzzy images like we all are.

Cheers,

Dave

The second picture in this post, the close up of the bubble strip it that what you mean by beveled?

 

[Gregatron]

The second picture in this post, the close up of the bubble strip it that what you mean by beveled?

Borrowed this image from Skywampa’s Etsy story for illustration. The sides are angled instead of at 90 degrees.

 

[Trooper_trent]

Got my rivet kit and D-ring from roygilsing today! Thanks Roy! Looking forward to sitting down with some reference pics and see what's what.

 

[Trooper_trent]

sooo....this may be an unpopular opinion, but after playing with it in person I'm honestly seeing three big and one small, rather than two big, two small. The top left one looks to be the same size as the top right one, but the bottom left is clearly smaller than the bottom right. Nobody's saying each "set" has to be the same size, so after drilling the holes, I test fit all options and this is what I decided on. Partly to just be different, but partly because that's what I see, and then mostly because I don't care! lo
l

 

[Gregatron]

 

[R5D4]

sooo....this may be an unpopular opinion, but after playing with it in person I'm honestly seeing three big and one small, rather than two big, two small. The top left one looks to be the same size as the top right one, but the bottom left is clearly smaller than the bottom right. Nobody's saying each "set" has to be the same size, so after drilling the holes, I test fit all options and this is what I decided on. Partly to just be different, but partly because that's what I see, and then mostly because I don't care! lo
lView attachment 1071016

Try doing that with this black and white promo photo that shows the two left rivets and they are both the same size.

 

[Trooper_trent]

Try doing that with this black and white promo photo that shows the two left rivets and they are both the same size.

are they? And wouldn't the smaller one on the right be closer to the camera?