I've been thinking about this.
For ANH, we know the stunt blades were wood because it's documented multiple times and listening to the behind the scenes footage the sound when 2 blades strike definitely sound like wood hitting wood.
Most of the time I've heard/read that wooden 'dowles' were used for the blades.
For most of us when we think of wood dowels we think of the round stock of dowels at our local hardware store.
Since this was a movie production, between the prop/costume/set department I've got to think they had access to actual carpentry stock / professional carpentry stock and not just what a consumer would but at the hardware store. Pro carpenters have commercial vendors to supply wood products not easily available to consumers.
No matter the source, was the dowel stock used round, oval, square, hexagonal, octagonal, etc... and what type of dowel stock is available to pro carpenters?
Another think to think about is that I think every BTS photo I've seen of the ANH duel shows tapered blades. Did the prop dept purchase some kind of wood stock that comes tapered, or did they but round stock and taper it themselves?
If regular round stock was tapered, could the process of making it tapered add faceted that then made the middle/ends hexagonal/octagonal ?
Peter Diamond has said they broke 'so many blades' during the ANH duel. No matter the process, each blade needed to have the 'movie screen' material added. Was someone modifying each round dowel with facets as it was tapered and the reflective material was added, or did they start with square stock and all that was needed was to add thew reflective material?
In 'Empire of Dreams' you see Mark and Bob practicing on-set and off-set with the ANH stunt sabers and you can still hear the sound of wood hitting wood. I don't remember any BTS video where we're seeing the newer made EBS stunt sabers (The bladed MPP and the bladed Graflex) where the blades of these sabers strike each other and you can hear if the blades are wood or metal.
In 'EoD' you do hear Luke lose a stunk blade in the Throne Room duel and it's definitely a metal blade sound when it hits the floor.
I don't know, something to crew on.
James I’m not being a punk, but I was watching that EoD on YouTube for this v3 reason
We don’t actually see the blade hit the floor, did it knock something over? And that is the sound we are hearing?
Also before this listen to the strikes blade to blade, then when Luke and Vader hit the hand rail listen to those strikes
To me it’s 2 totally different sounds
I think fiberglass to fiberglass (or carbon) makes a wood sound then when the fiberglass/carbon hits metal, you hear a more metallic ding sound
Again I’m not being a smart @$$
I respect everything you’ve said, and love all the info you have shared
As for wood dowels, I’ve been a carpenter all my life and worked on many different custom jobs. I’ve never seen a tapered dowel, this doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but my whole life I’ve never seen any, when asked they can’t be found...and we have ordered lumber from Germany and Russia. And this place can’t get my taper wooden dowels
But you could easily make this on a wood lathe, they had all kinds of wood working tools to make the falcon, I have no doubt they had access to a wood lathe to make these blades
Which isn’t good for us, because it’s not easy for your average joe to taper one
I’m going to experiment this weekend with square blades, using a electric plan to try and taper it
