Star Wars Holiday Special Lightsaber

[Howlrunner]

You know it and you loath it.... :lol

Picked up a cheap Graflite and had to give it a go. I've seen some beauties (if you can really call this thing by that name!) here on the RPF. Thanks to Kurtyboy for providing some of him measurements - they pretty much lined up with what I had calculated from (small, blurry) images of the original prop, with a difference of about 5mm. In the end, my measurements are a mix of my own and Kurtyboy's.

T-Tracks are 85mm. Graflite was cut down to 222mm in length.

I went with 7 T-Tracks (same as Kurtyboy) rather than the 6 that I've seen on some other replicas as it appears to better match the spacing/amount of silver between tracks that I can see on reference images.

Emitter shroud, control box and end cap/belt hanger still to go....

 

[NeoRutty]

I love mine...

And a lot of the time when I show someone my collection they are drawn to it first... not sure why...

Maybe it looks a little more cartoony?

 

[JaxAndTheMoon]

Geez guys, can't I go one day without having to relive this nightmare??? :facepalm

 

[Lichtbringer]

Geez guys, can't I go one day without having to relive this nightmare??? :facepalm

It´s movie history.

 

[Lichtbringer]

I ended with slighly different dimensions.

7 tracks of 80mm on a body of 230mm. To set a special mark to it´s cheapyness i used rubber tracks instead of the usual plastic.

 

[OBIWANJALOPY]

Following. I have been waiting to build my own, I have the graflite sitting on my workbench. Following this will be just the inspiration to get started.

 

[Howlrunner]

Not a lot more done, but I've been working on the control box and building it out of sheet styrene. It was a tricky one to get the dimensions of, but I'm now pretty happy with how it lines up with the T-tracks and Graflite square holes as compared to the reference images. This is one CHUNKY box!

 

[NeoRutty]

Yeah when I did mine I went for idealized... I kind of regret it now, and often think of redoing it.

But really, it's the holiday saber... Do I really want to go through all that pain of "What IS THAT BOX?!?"

Yours is looking pretty good!

 

[Howlrunner]

Thanks.

Just a little bit more work done - painted the control box. Still need some kind of greeblie to go on top.

 

[Howlrunner]

Bit more work done...

End cap and hanging ring (from a retractable keyring):

Black arrow details (I hand cut them from black electrical tape):

And my interpretation of the control box greeblies (made from cut up cable tie and miniature heat sinks):

Getting there....

 

[Howlrunner]

Drew out the shroud templates on paper, transferred them to 1mm aluminium, then used the old dremel, rasp and needle files to get this:

Red light will be up next - I'm experimenting with different sizes at the moment. Have tried it with 5mm red LED in bezel (too small) and 10mm LED in bezel (too big). Waiting for an 8mm red LED in bezel which I'm hoping will be perfect.

Another issue is the bezel (surround) colour. All of the replicas I've seen previously appear to have a chrome bezel around the red light. Out of all of the (limited) reference I've seen of the red light (posted above) only one picture actually has it looking silver (bottom, second from left) - and that one has a camera flash line going straight through it, which would make it appear bright/silver. To my eyes every other pic shows the bezel as being black, so I'm going with black on mine.

 

[Blue Leader]

This is really looking awesome.

 

[Howlrunner]

Cheers.

Finally got this monstrosity finished. Aluminium emitter stuck in position with epoxy resin:

And 8mm red LED with black bezel holder inserted and epoxied into a 12mm hole I drilled in the hilt:

So, some finished pics:

And in case anyone else wants to build one, here's a compilation of every single image of the real H.S. saber that can be found (pretty much all from other RPF threads):

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

Looks like a right monstrosity, alright! Wouldn't have it any other way!:thumbsup

 

[SethS]

Definitely. The awesomeness lies in the commitment to monstrosity!

 

[Lichtbringer]

I like it. :angel

I lost my holyday special with the crash of my last notebook, but having it on disc with proper cover and hull - that´s so great to see. :cool

 

[SethS]

I have it on VHS. Been using it to clear unwanted party guests for 25 years now.

 

[Lichtbringer]

lol:lol

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

I genuinely like the Holiday Special, myself. It truly is utterly bizarre and you can see why Lucas was so protective of his franchise and would rather it sink himself than in someone else's hands.

Bea Arthur's bit is still far and away my favorite segment.

 

[SethS]

It's a true testament to how high everyone was in the 70s... Carrie Fisher visibly so...