Star Wars Scope Repair & Restoration

[thd9791]

Im looking for some advice - i have a small project now before me.

This M19 was altered to be used on a camera of some sort. A hot shoe (plate) was screwed to the front foot, with a section of the original foot sliced off. There originally was a blanked screw in the main M19 hole so thankfully its still there.

The rear foot was removed. Does anyone know if these were welded on? Wtf?

My plan is to take some square brass stock, drill and tap for the rear mount, carve it and attach it to the body. Should i be learning how to braze it in place?

I was planning on using strong, industrial glue. Maybe something thats a bit easier to remove like that yellow hot glue or a silicone? Not sure whats best here, it has to take a lot of weight/stress. Jb weld has cracked on me which is why i worry about it..

Also, should i re wax the letters? Im only worried about a small.amount of historical value here

 

[Solos blaster]

That’s a cool piece that we’ve not seen before. I had figured they were all just single piece molds, I never entertained that the feet were added onto them. It’s such a clean removal it must have been separate pieces. I’m going to take a closer look at my real m19 tonight to see if I can spot possible seam lines on the feet.
Perhaps BD or one of the others who make bronze M19s can lend you a poor cast or part of one to take the rear foot off and attempt to fit it to yours?

If it doesn’t work I think it would make an awesome ESB/ROTJ “muppet blaster” custom with that single foot on the ROTJ scope mount.

 

[thd9791]

As we learned from the MoM Vader saber, super bright flash can bring out topographical details. I've only ever owned one M19 so here is a comparison. It looks like something is used to fill the gap between them, but I can't tell if they're separate. Seam lines on both the foot and body

Also looks like the hot shoe screw goes right into the lens retainers.

 

[Mouse Vader]

Brazing on brass is technically welding. Parts would get bright orange hot. You will screw up the paint work & run a high risk of screwing the lenses & cross hairs (if present). High strength solder may work. Parts won't get visibly hot but there will be some paint damage & again there will some risk of cracking a lens or two. I would recommend trying to work out a mechanical fixing, screws of some sort, with glue or possibly soft solder.

 

[kurtyboy]

If you're going for glue you can't go wrong with JB Weld.

 

[thd9791]

Has anyone had JB Weld crack or crumble.. or not bond and pop off? Any tips on getting it to bond?

Ive used JB Weld and JB quick on a number of things with mixed results. But i have a hunting scope that has a JB Welded scope knob and its like indestructable. I must be doing something wrong lol

 

[Edraven99]

Ah... so you were brave enough to pick this up! I was eying it, but don’t have the resources to do a proper repair on it.

Best of luck on the reclamation!

 

[GrenadeKing]

That lug is cast into the body from the factory I'd bet. Someone just ground it down and repainted it.

If you want to get it brazed or soldered you can disassemble it. It's not really that hard to do, even without special tools, you just want to be careful and you want to try and keep the lenses and prisms clean and dust free. Try not to touch them with bare hands, easier to brush off dust than clean off fingerprints.

 

[thd9791]

This is really good info.. weighing my options.

I decided to minorly disassemble the thing today - everything went great except for those two TINY side set screws. They stripped so either i drill them out and replace them (anyone know the thread count?) Or I leave them be for good

 

[thd9791]

I didnt touch the skinny lenses in the center or the prisms.

I did scratch the outer rim a little.. i think its a little out of round, made it tough gettin it out.

Not much thickness for set screws in the foot

I also couldnt get the second rear side set screw out, i think someone cut the head off a screw for that one. The one on the M19 labeled rim had a slot in it i could easily unscrew

 

[GrenadeKing]

The whole thing is screwed together and the set screws lock the parts in place. The ones in the middle hold the reticle so, if you get them out make sure to note the orientation of the cross hairs. I believe the front prism assembly also unscrews, I have a memory of putting screw drivers in the holes and turning it. I might be mistaken of course. I have the other scope, the long one but, perhaps the set screws are the same size so, I can try and check. I wouldn't be opposed to replacing mine with strong screws, as you've seen, they're kinda soft.

 

[redbutton]

very interesting...I'd go with JB weld.

 

[thd9791]

Thank you!

I would like to ask a specific question for anyone that's disassembled these. There is the front ring, and then the big cylinder in there.

Every time I tried to screw it back in, it would get stuck, scraping around where the serial number is on the inner cylinder. I don't see how, it's SKINNIER than the threaded portion, it shouldn't be touching anything. Can the threads skip? Whats happening here?

 

[thd9791]

I think this scope might have been struck or dented. The rim doesnt have the same distance all the way around the retaining ring. The threads inside might lead the cylinder to rub against the inside wall. Im probably the first to unscrew it since the incident

 

[thd9791]

Yep, i cleaned the inside with a q tip and applied oil with another q tip and it screwed back together a little smoother but the body itself is scratching the lens insert.

Anyways LOOK WHAT I GOT

2 pieces of brass 3/8 stock.
Now the foot on an M19 is NOT square. One side is around 3/8 but the other is a little less, so i have some trimming to do as well as sculpting and drilling/tapping

 

[thd9791]

Okay folks - i tried using vinyl to transfer the shape of the foot to the brass. Didnt work as well as i wanted, so i got creative.

I made a gaff tape fence and molded the shape of the foot in hot glue. (This gaff tape is a little stickier than i thought, pulled up a little paint and white lettering ) since its mostly square ish i just needed the silhouette which is very asymmetrical. Shorter on one side than the other, and the curve is centered closer to one end.

I did 3 hot glue molds and they got a but better, but i had to trim them and sculpt them with the hot tip of the glue gun too.

I did this glue thing with silicone caulk and cornstarch which melted a pair of slippers and coated things permamantly but i put glue in them and it worked.. so the low temp i felt was safe to just pile on to get the same shape!

 

[redbutton]

Nice Job! A lot of angles, curves, and dips....

 

[Mouse Vader]

Interesting (& useful) method. Slow & steady shaping the brass. Lots of test fits.

 

[thd9791]

Mouse - did just that.

Actually, I was planning on doing 2 or 3, but the first came out so well I decided not to second guess a good opportunity. I spent an hour drawing up plans - one in a general blown up view 3-4 inches across, and then one real-size. The foot is basically 3/4" wide, or a little more, and I distinctly measured the curve on paper again.. by using....

A C.O.C. NY Flash unit! it's the exact same size as the outer M19 hull. That gave me a perfect swoosh and a pointy corner. The M19 foot has these corners clubbed off, at different heights on both sides, so I looked at this in pieces.

After mapping out the curve, I measured height at different points along the curve and they matched up with my sharpie pattern I already drew on the brass. I measured the location of the start and end of the curve. It all lined up. The different heights on the sides could be put to the back burner, once I had a whole chunk sliced out of the top anyway.

I started by leaving the brass whole, and slicing 3 different depths along the curve, like the AT&T symbol. Then I went at an angle and cleared the sections those cuts made. After that I used a good sanding drum to polish up the curve. leaving me with this.

Next was a hacksaw, rotating the bar every few minutes, to get a clean cut.
A test fit or two with the un-sculpted piece. Compared it to another of redbutton's scopes. He has a few... Shhhh....

It was a hair too high, look at the front foot. It's ****** up at the back a little bit. So I did this to adjust the curve.

sanding drum and a sand paper flash unit! See how it's still pointy and tall?
Fits better

but I still had to trim the height of the sides. Look above - the cradle is exact but the height of the end not cradling the scope is different.

Much better.

I painter taped it to the flash unit again and drilled and tapped for a 10-32 screw, same as the Boba Debt screws I have with me. I should mention I flipped the foot over and measured a real scope - top to screw hole, bottom, left side, right side, etc. and made a tic tac toe sign on the foot. drew an x in that square (did not win)

This enabled me to drill in the exact, uncentered, spot. It's not even the same front to back! I'm really sorry for the glistening WD-40 fingers...

This deserves a test fit.

on a real M19 (and my custom foot) the hex bolt goes no deeper than the foot. My screw might be 0.25 mm too long, but I screwed it into place with a standard washer and it left quite a bit of space.

I used an existing blaster bracket to mount the front screw, mount the foot and let the scope sit in some JB Quick Weld.

This was after rough sanding, where it exposed this. What the hell is this.

@fieldmarshall

 

[Dann]

I just skimmed over this, and wish I'd seen it before now. Not even sure how I missed it in the first place!

I would've said contact FM about it, since he's one of the experts on these scopes.

But it looks like you've got things figured out in a solution you're happy with, so that's good!