Well as far as a summary, the only thing to do is start writing one. How about we draft it here and then maybe put it into a new thread and ask for it to be archived? Maybe one thread with the handwheel, emitter, and gear stories all included? Although really the handwheel story is pretty short: "Many knew what it was, many tried to find one, but Howard, through unbelievable dedication and imaginative research was the first to track one down and publicly show it off."
The emitter story goes like this:
Once upon a time, long long ago (well last year anyway...), no one knew what the Obi ANH emitter was. Some people thought it might be some kind of burner assembly, others thought it might be a composite of multiple pieces, good research had been done into sprinkler heads, and others were still searching inexplicably for sink drains.
RPF member Blaxmyth was researching the Derwent Mk 8 jet engine that ESB assasin droid IG-88's head came from (who made that discovery?), when he came upon an illustration showing what looked like a possible emitter shape. Blaxmyth had actually posted this idea before in another thread but no one picked up on it.
Peope got excited and started to find other illustrations of the part. Analysis and renders were shown and debated. The general consensus was that the part (officially termed a 'balance pipe') in the illustrations of the Mk 8 engine was the emitter. Confirmations were received from aeronautical contacts, and then Chris Trevas (lonepigeon) posted the first pictures we'd ever seen of an actual interconnect and everyone swooned.
Although most people were utterly convinced, speculation continued about possible discrepancies between the part in the photo and the prop, and about details in how the balance pipe was constructed and what it was made of. Chris' UK contact researched the question and Chris posted updates. We learned that there are different models of balance pipe for different levels of modification in the engines, and that there are two sizes used in any given engine.
Then Chris posted the news that the 'mate' to the balance pipe initially pictured was an even better match to the prop emitter, and then posted the first picture ever seen of the correct balance pipe which was used on the Obi ANH lightsaber, which is worth seeing again, I hope he (and the RPF) don't mind:
Then I got lucky thanks in part to Chris' principled behavior, and my early information source ended up selling me a balance pipe. The discussion continued about other ways airplane parts were used in the SW movies, and then Killdozer posted a pic of a couple of machine guns with Obi 'gears' on the ends of them and all heck broke lose.
