The Ultimate Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi Real Vintage Parts Lightsaber Group

Sym-Cha i have the history on the engines somewhere but the mk8 was at the end of the run. Not many mk8s were made and few of those mk8s got the upgrade. By that time they were starting production of their new engine. And i thought it was widely known that the obi saber parts went back to bapty.

Edit. However i believe the bp came from production not bapty.
 
Sym-Cha said:
Actually between 1942 and 1954 a total of 3.947 Gloster Meteors were build with Rolls Royce Derwent engines most of which the F8 ... some of those got the upgraded balance pipe Mk9 which was used for Obi-Wan's lightsaber ... given the fact that many burner cans were used in the cantina scene ... the propmakers must have had an abundance of complete male/female balance pipes in their greeblie bins. Whether some of those ended up on the lightsaber props composed by the members here remains a question, let alone the original BP that was on Sir Alec Guinness his belt-hanger lightsaber. Personally I hope that the original prop is still intact and in either George Lucas's own private collection or perhaps even in the possession of the heirs of the late Sir Alec.

A picture, I have posted before, of the many engines that were at the propmaker's and set designer's disposal :

View attachment 1650287
Picture courtesy Lucasfilm Ltd.

Chaïm
Click to expand...
Wow it never occurred to me that they had access to so many engines, or that that many engines were made in the first place. I suppose it being war time it makes sense that they were produced on mass. How many balance pipes are in existence then? (including the ones that are blown up at the bottom of the thames)

I agree with you entirely. I enjoy the thought that Alec Guiness' grandson, or great grandson may one day inherit the families secret saber, but it would be fantastic for one of us to be able to identify our balance pipe as being production used. I'm hoping that one day a trove of photographs comes out with more detail for this prop and others, hopefully then someone could identify their balance pipe amongst the various hilts created.
 
coolhanluked said:
Sym-Cha i have the history on the engines somewhere but the mk8 was at the end of the run. Not many mk8s were made and few of those mk8s got the upgrade. By that time they were starting production of their new engine. And i thought it was widely known that the obi saber parts went back to bapty.
Click to expand...
Are we able to work out definitively how many mk8 female balance pipes were ever produced?
 
coolhanluked said:
Possibly. I don't know. I do have a number on how many mk8s were made somewhere in my files but no number on how many got the upgrade. But it wasn't that many.
Click to expand...
Okay well that's a start. I want to try and figure out roughly how many were in existence, then maybe see if people are interested in making a visual database of known balance pipes, so that in the eventuality we are able to identify production used ones people could start spotting their pipes.

They each seem to have a relatively unique patina, set of dents and marks that would make it possible for us to identify them.
 
mikesprops said:
Okay well that's a start. I want to try and figure out roughly how many were in existence, then maybe see if people are interested in making a visual database of known balance pipes, so that in the eventuality we are able to identify production used ones people could start spotting their pipes.

They each seem to have a relatively unique patina, set of dents and marks that would make it possible for us to identify them.
Click to expand...
Ok well i don't remember where i saved the page of info. Probably on one of my old hard drives but i found the info on a site about Derwent specs. I'm sure i or anyone else could find it again. I remember it saying that the mk7 went to the mk8 in the last year of production and it was towards the end of production that the mk9 upgrade took place. Can't remember the year but i think symcha posted it above. I also remember that around around 700 mk8s were produced. I dont rember the exact number. Thats the best i can do till i find that site again or another source that has the production run info. But this is the conclusion i have personally come too. I decided to assume that half the mk8s that were produced are probably gone forever. So in my mind there are probably around 350 on land somewhere including the ones we know about. It would be an interesting thread. You should make it happen.
 
coolhanluked ... Gloster started building the Mk8 in 1948 and since 1950 at least 300 Meteor Mk8 were build here in the Netherlands under license by Fokker and 30 assembled in Belgium ... now how many of those had the upgrade I can't seem to find either o_O

Chaïm
 
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Sym-Cha i will get back into a deep dive on this. This could be an interesting sleuthing job for the fine detectives here. I'm not sure that there is a person on this planet that knows exactly how many mk9 upgrades happened. I don't think that there is a singular database that has them all.
 
Just an idea, maybe stupid, but we know the serial number of the right pipes from the amazing founds and photos you guys made in the years. Would it be possible for someone with an access to the Rolls-Royce museum could find a shipping manifest or an order of the specific part in one of their archives? Someone had to manufacture those upgraded pipes and there should be an order or a list.
 
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I cleaned my grenade because I tried to cast this darned saber cheaply. (Don’t try it)

Anyway, when putting it back together I forgot that I did NOT use the bearing to pinch the clamp to the booster. It was just too short. And you’d see the bearing behind the clamp tab hole.

I sat the clamp on top of the bearing. When it’s screwed all the way down, it sits right where the chronicles shot is.. sort of choking up to the first line of grenade sections.
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image.jpg
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