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

[Gregatron]

Had this spare vintage female sitting around and in desperate need of its clothes back! Lithium grease and blowtorch strat was employed !!

View attachment 1909349View attachment 1909348

Congratulations Sym-Cha on such a huge achievement, being the creator of the thread after all. You’ve helped me out tremendous amounts and I still owe you!! 1 million next

Care to elaborate on this? Could this be a better weathering method than the paints I've been using on my Roman's?

Torching real grease onto the balance pipe to simulate actual engine wear? Brilliant.

 

[PadawanLoLo]

Care to elaborate on this? Could this be a better weathering method than the paints I've been using on my Roman's?

Torching real grease onto the balance pipe to simulate actual engine wear? Brilliant.

Well I think you have to choose your method based on material and the look you are after. I wouldn't paint my balance pipe, but that's an option if you want what result that actions provides.

For this real part, being made of Inconel makes it capable and willing to take a more prolonged and higher heat than other blends, some steel or aluminum. So certainly if you want and authentic look the best way to achieve is to treat the original metal exactly as it was treated in the wild. My thoughts are that this example you are looking at is proof why it's so nice to have a real part. We can treat it/them as it would have originally been. Remember, Lucas told the props team he didn't want some set/props director coming in to create an "out of this world" look but instead preferred current parts available reused to make them unrecognizable from the original uses. So it would make sense the props team wasn't in the back deciding what color to make these parts or stripping them and adding aluminum black/blue or perfecting the "imperfect" balance pipes.They were busy deriving a way to use what they had to look foreign but familiar.

So IMO it's not a "better" method than you painting a Romans, I really feel this is the only and correct way to treat a real part and have an authentic look to your part. Because you aren't color treating it or idealizing it in any way, you are actually repeating the natural occurrences that the part would have faced in use. I feel this is the same for all the real parts. Treat them using the same behaviors they'd originally have had over idealization, grenades, clamps, hand wheels etc.

I love Romans and have many of his replicas and parts. But I believe only DaveP, ShadowFoil and the real part BP would likely turn out looking this close to an authentic patina b/c it's made precisely or damn close to what the original was. So in theory it would accept the same treatment and turn out mostly the same. With other mixed metals, they have density differences and different staining tolerances/resistance levels so it's probably worth a try to see what happens, but my guess is that they wouldn't turn out the same.

and FWIW, I'm no metal guy like Shroadinger, nor a patina specialist, just looking at this logically for what occurred during the lifetime of these parts, and seeing it as X marks the spot, where X represents the original treatment of these various parts.

 

[DarthBra]

To be honest I came here to counter this. I simply couldn’t believe that it was true.
In doing research before I replied, he is absolutely correct.
Jet Engine Fuel burns around 2000 degrees C , a butene or propane flame torch is around the same and as he rightly points out, the melting point of various alloy, steel mixes or even steel itself is lower than this point.
So I guess it depends upon how much you focus the heat and for how long it has to be done in order to achieve a similar look.

For example, whilst you may not damage the main bulk of the balance pipe since the sides are thicker and therefore can take more heat, the top lip, may start warping ?.

 

[cwoodreplicas]

To be honest I came here to counter this. I simply couldn’t believe that it was true.
In doing research before I replied, he is absolutely correct.
Jet Engine Fuel burns around 2000 degrees C , a butene or propane flame torch is around the same and as he rightly points out, the melting point of various alloy, steel mixes or even steel itself is lower than this point.
So I guess it depends upon how much you focus the heat and for how long it has to be done in order to achieve a similar look.

For example, whilst you may not damage the main bulk of the balance pipe since the sides are thicker and therefore can take more heat, the top lip, may start warping ?.

Ive torched Romans and Inconel - both hold out fine as the blowtorch will never get it that hot.

 

[DarthBra]

Ive torched Romans and Inconel - both hold out fine as the blowtorch will never get it that hot.

To be honest I figured.
I may actually try this on my own balance pipe, a converted male that I stupidly cleaned. It sits now in a clamp in my collection up against another converted male, at the back so it’s not seen rofl

 

[PadawanLoLo]

To be honest I came here to counter this. I simply couldn’t believe that it was true.
In doing research before I replied, he is absolutely correct.
Jet Engine Fuel burns around 2000 degrees C , a butene or propane flame torch is around the same and as he rightly points out, the melting point of various alloy, steel mixes or even steel itself is lower than this point.
So I guess it depends upon how much you focus the heat and for how long it has to be done in order to achieve a similar look.

For example, whilst you may not damage the main bulk of the balance pipe since the sides are thicker and therefore can take more heat, the top lip, may start warping ?.

Thank you. For sure there is a technique needed. Adding uneven heat would create uneven patina and maybe impact how you feel about the final outcome, or if severe enough misapplied heat occurs, well it's metal and can warp.

 

[DarthBra]

Had this spare vintage female sitting around and in desperate need of its clothes back! Lithium grease and blowtorch strat was employed !!

View attachment 1909349View attachment 1909348

Congratulations Sym-Cha on such a huge achievement, being the creator of the thread after all. You’ve helped me out tremendous amounts and I still owe you!! 1 million next

Maybe I will see if Chris (K) feels like doing this for me for a price don’t want to mess mine up.

 

[ChrisRWars]

Maybe I will see if Chris (K) feels like doing this for me for a price don’t want to mess mine up.

I’d be okay with that, can’t guarantee the same results every time but will certainly do my best on it Just pop me a message over on fb

 

[schrodinger555]

A quick shot of the upgraded booster and wind vane! Beautiful vintage vane with no stamping. I strongly believe the original vane was unstamped. Looking at the chronicles photos with the amount of glare from the flash even the lightest lettering would be well visible. Anyway, here it is! New cubes are in their way and then this will be truly 100% done

 

[Scruffylooking]

A quick shot of the upgraded booster and wind vane! Beautiful vintage vane with no stamping. I strongly believe the original vane was unstamped. Looking at the chronicles photos with the amount of glare from the flash even the lightest lettering would be well visible. Anyway, here it is! New cubes are in their way and then this will be truly 100% done

View attachment 1909759

I’m with you with the no stamping theory, very similar to my grenade. Amazing!

 

[schrodinger555]

So the parts showed up in record time, shipped out Tuesday and delivered Wednesday afternoon! Very fast from UK to US.

The plan was to disassemble my sabers middle section and swap the booster with my new one. Once the switch was made then it's time to assemble the bottom section for Kian!

Here we've got my printout at scale which I use for alignment reference and my saber ready for some upgrades.

Closeup of the new booster in all its beautiful imperfection

This is how the clamp is assembled to the booster. One of the first boosters I owned had copper wire wrapped just like this in lieu of cotter pins. This allows the booster and clamp to stay aligned and tight to each other.

This is roughly how the bearing sits in there, with plenty of wire poking out to bend into the fins of the booster.

The first time I did this I didn't leave enough hanging out, so I fixed that on both of these clamps this time around!

There's not a ton to show in terms of actually fitting it on there, the cotter pins get splayed out a bit at the bottom and then the whole thing gets put inside the clamp. You can use the booster itself to start the threads and pull it down if the fit is too tight. Here's my saber with the booster clocked correctly and tied to the clamp.

Here's how Kians clamp and booster assembly turned out.

I bent these to match the length and angle on the Chronicles photos. Both of these boosters are put on here with the bearings and cotter pins they came with which is a detail I'm very pleased with.

The other side showing the other pin

Last but not least bubble strip time! I spent all of the time figuring out how much to offset the bubbles on my strip, so I removed it, taped it to protect the back, and took it to the belt grinder as reference.

Here the offset is done and I've sanded the rails to make it a little frostier looking. I've also gone a given the sides of the bubble strip a gentle filing by hand to make it fit nicely in the clamp.

Jumping forward a bit I started playing with the wind vane to get the patina right. After a few hours and some stripping, application, stripping etc. I landed on a finish and color I liked! I tried to match the relative color values of the sections here as best as I could given the materials I was working with.

Essentially the wind vane and grenade have about the same color in terms of darkness, the bottom of the neck is brighter, and the top of the neck is brightest. The top of the neck is brightened quite a bit and then waxed, we'll see how long it stays shiny for. I'm not using a flash here so the neck doesn't light up as bright as the chronicles pics.

The first one is without the top of the neck being brightened

And here you can see it shined up, with a flash I think it would look a lot more like the reference pic!

So here's where I've landed for now. Mine is done save for the cubes which I'll work on soon and once my set and Kians are drilled both sabers will be done. I'll let Kian be the one to show off the parts and then his finished saber when they arrive!

 

[PadawanLoLo]

So the parts showed up in record time, shipped out Tuesday and delivered Wednesday afternoon! Very fast from UK to US.

The plan was to disassemble my sabers middle section and swap the booster with my new one. Once the switch was made then it's time to assemble the bottom section for Kian!

Here we've got my printout at scale which I use for alignment reference and my saber ready for some upgrades.
View attachment 1909894

Closeup of the new booster in all its beautiful imperfection
View attachment 1909895

This is how the clamp is assembled to the booster. One of the first boosters I owned had copper wire wrapped just like this in lieu of cotter pins. This allows the booster and clamp to stay aligned and tight to each other.
View attachment 1909896

This is roughly how the bearing sits in there, with plenty of wire poking out to bend into the fins of the booster.
View attachment 1909897

The first time I did this I didn't leave enough hanging out, so I fixed that on both of these clamps this time around!
View attachment 1909898

There's not a ton to show in terms of actually fitting it on there, the cotter pins get splayed out a bit at the bottom and then the whole thing gets put inside the clamp. You can use the booster itself to start the threads and pull it down if the fit is too tight. Here's my saber with the booster clocked correctly and tied to the clamp.
View attachment 1909899

Here's how Kians clamp and booster assembly turned out.
View attachment 1909900

I bent these to match the length and angle on the Chronicles photos. Both of these boosters are put on here with the bearings and cotter pins they came with which is a detail I'm very pleased with.
View attachment 1909901

The other side showing the other pin
View attachment 1909902

Last but not least bubble strip time! I spent all of the time figuring out how much to offset the bubbles on my strip, so I removed it, taped it to protect the back, and took it to the belt grinder as reference.
View attachment 1909903

Here the offset is done and I've sanded the rails to make it a little frostier looking. I've also gone a given the sides of the bubble strip a gentle filing by hand to make it fit nicely in the clamp.
View attachment 1909904

Jumping forward a bit I started playing with the wind vane to get the patina right. After a few hours and some stripping, application, stripping etc. I landed on a finish and color I liked! I tried to match the relative color values of the sections here as best as I could given the materials I was working with.

Essentially the wind vane and grenade have about the same color in terms of darkness, the bottom of the neck is brighter, and the top of the neck is brightest. The top of the neck is brightened quite a bit and then waxed, we'll see how long it stays shiny for. I'm not using a flash here so the neck doesn't light up as bright as the chronicles pics.

The first one is without the top of the neck being brightened
View attachment 1909905

And here you can see it shined up, with a flash I think it would look a lot more like the reference pic!
View attachment 1909906


So here's where I've landed for now. Mine is done save for the cubes which I'll work on soon and once my set and Kians are drilled both sabers will be done. I'll let Kian be the one to show off the parts and then his finished saber when they arrive!

Very nice update, such a great build!

 

[thd9791]

So the parts showed up in record time, shipped out Tuesday and delivered Wednesday afternoon! Very fast from UK to US.

The plan was to disassemble my sabers middle section and swap the booster with my new one. Once the switch was made then it's time to assemble the bottom section for Kian!

Here we've got my printout at scale which I use for alignment reference and my saber ready for some upgrades.
View attachment 1909894

Closeup of the new booster in all its beautiful imperfection
View attachment 1909895

This is how the clamp is assembled to the booster. One of the first boosters I owned had copper wire wrapped just like this in lieu of cotter pins. This allows the booster and clamp to stay aligned and tight to each other.
View attachment 1909896

This is roughly how the bearing sits in there, with plenty of wire poking out to bend into the fins of the booster.
View attachment 1909897

The first time I did this I didn't leave enough hanging out, so I fixed that on both of these clamps this time around!
View attachment 1909898

There's not a ton to show in terms of actually fitting it on there, the cotter pins get splayed out a bit at the bottom and then the whole thing gets put inside the clamp. You can use the booster itself to start the threads and pull it down if the fit is too tight. Here's my saber with the booster clocked correctly and tied to the clamp.
View attachment 1909899

Here's how Kians clamp and booster assembly turned out.
View attachment 1909900

I bent these to match the length and angle on the Chronicles photos. Both of these boosters are put on here with the bearings and cotter pins they came with which is a detail I'm very pleased with.
View attachment 1909901

The other side showing the other pin
View attachment 1909902

Last but not least bubble strip time! I spent all of the time figuring out how much to offset the bubbles on my strip, so I removed it, taped it to protect the back, and took it to the belt grinder as reference.
View attachment 1909903

Here the offset is done and I've sanded the rails to make it a little frostier looking. I've also gone a given the sides of the bubble strip a gentle filing by hand to make it fit nicely in the clamp.
View attachment 1909904

Jumping forward a bit I started playing with the wind vane to get the patina right. After a few hours and some stripping, application, stripping etc. I landed on a finish and color I liked! I tried to match the relative color values of the sections here as best as I could given the materials I was working with.

Essentially the wind vane and grenade have about the same color in terms of darkness, the bottom of the neck is brighter, and the top of the neck is brightest. The top of the neck is brightened quite a bit and then waxed, we'll see how long it stays shiny for. I'm not using a flash here so the neck doesn't light up as bright as the chronicles pics.

The first one is without the top of the neck being brightened
View attachment 1909905

And here you can see it shined up, with a flash I think it would look a lot more like the reference pic!
View attachment 1909906


So here's where I've landed for now. Mine is done save for the cubes which I'll work on soon and once my set and Kians are drilled both sabers will be done. I'll let Kian be the one to show off the parts and then his finished saber when they arrive!

I really like your choice of screw near the clamp is this a salvaged screw from some old electronics or a new one?

 

[thd9791]

Care to elaborate on this? Could this be a better weathering method than the paints I've been using on my Roman's?

Torching real grease onto the balance pipe to simulate actual engine wear? Brilliant.

I did this and took pictures in my backyard while I did a couple years ago. I have a hero Obi Wan thread on here, used a benzo torch and some really cheap lithium grease. Weirdly I got a darker color if I put grease on after I heated it up, as opposed to cooking off the grease first.

 

[DarthBra]

I

I really like your choice of screw near the clamp is this a salvaged screw from some old electronics or a new one?

believe the original prop used a screw from the Kalimar Six Sixty.

 

[thd9791]

I

believe the original prop used a screw from the Kalimar Six Sixty.

Excellent theory! Love it Love it

 

[PadawanLoLo]

I did this and took pictures in my backyard while I did a couple years ago. I have a hero Obi Wan thread on here, used a benzo torch and some really cheap lithium grease. Weirdly I got a darker color if I put grease on after I heated it up, as opposed to cooking off the grease first.

You did this to a vintage BP, or was it a replica?

I’d hazard a guess that applying while hot means it’s more porous and therefore better opportunity to maybe take the LG deeper into the surface. But a cold application then heat would work its way onto the surface, but not get as deep into the pores?

 

[ChrisRWars]

I did this and took pictures in my backyard while I did a couple years ago. I have a hero Obi Wan thread on here, used a benzo torch and some really cheap lithium grease. Weirdly I got a darker color if I put grease on after I heated it up, as opposed to cooking off the grease first.

Thanks for sharing the method, man!! It worked great

Edit: just to show you how good your method worked, here’s a pic of the refinished bp next to my personal female (on the threaded rod), which still has its untouched/straight out of the engine finish:

 

[ChrisRWars]

I

believe the original prop used a screw from the Kalimar Six Sixty.

This is a plausible theory, however not everyone knows that people tend to use a brass screw because that’s what they used on the Master Replicas Obi - the only reason THEY used a brass screw, is purely out of preference because it “looked cool” (not totally paraphrasing there).

I think it’s legit the only part of this thing that we won’t be able to fully determine; whether the screw was brass or just plain steel. So pick ya poison, ha!

 

[ChrisRWars]

So the parts showed up in record time, shipped out Tuesday and delivered Wednesday afternoon! Very fast from UK to US.

The plan was to disassemble my sabers middle section and swap the booster with my new one. Once the switch was made then it's time to assemble the bottom section for Kian!

Here we've got my printout at scale which I use for alignment reference and my saber ready for some upgrades.
View attachment 1909894

Closeup of the new booster in all its beautiful imperfection
View attachment 1909895

This is how the clamp is assembled to the booster. One of the first boosters I owned had copper wire wrapped just like this in lieu of cotter pins. This allows the booster and clamp to stay aligned and tight to each other.
View attachment 1909896

This is roughly how the bearing sits in there, with plenty of wire poking out to bend into the fins of the booster.
View attachment 1909897

The first time I did this I didn't leave enough hanging out, so I fixed that on both of these clamps this time around!
View attachment 1909898

There's not a ton to show in terms of actually fitting it on there, the cotter pins get splayed out a bit at the bottom and then the whole thing gets put inside the clamp. You can use the booster itself to start the threads and pull it down if the fit is too tight. Here's my saber with the booster clocked correctly and tied to the clamp.
View attachment 1909899

Here's how Kians clamp and booster assembly turned out.
View attachment 1909900

I bent these to match the length and angle on the Chronicles photos. Both of these boosters are put on here with the bearings and cotter pins they came with which is a detail I'm very pleased with.
View attachment 1909901

The other side showing the other pin
View attachment 1909902

Last but not least bubble strip time! I spent all of the time figuring out how much to offset the bubbles on my strip, so I removed it, taped it to protect the back, and took it to the belt grinder as reference.
View attachment 1909903

Here the offset is done and I've sanded the rails to make it a little frostier looking. I've also gone a given the sides of the bubble strip a gentle filing by hand to make it fit nicely in the clamp.
View attachment 1909904

Jumping forward a bit I started playing with the wind vane to get the patina right. After a few hours and some stripping, application, stripping etc. I landed on a finish and color I liked! I tried to match the relative color values of the sections here as best as I could given the materials I was working with.

Essentially the wind vane and grenade have about the same color in terms of darkness, the bottom of the neck is brighter, and the top of the neck is brightest. The top of the neck is brightened quite a bit and then waxed, we'll see how long it stays shiny for. I'm not using a flash here so the neck doesn't light up as bright as the chronicles pics.

The first one is without the top of the neck being brightened
View attachment 1909905

And here you can see it shined up, with a flash I think it would look a lot more like the reference pic!
View attachment 1909906


So here's where I've landed for now. Mine is done save for the cubes which I'll work on soon and once my set and Kians are drilled both sabers will be done. I'll let Kian be the one to show off the parts and then his finished saber when they arrive!

I love how this is the only functional / plausible reason for the cotter pins being there, and that they actually came off of the 303’s booster/nut arrangement.

Mili knows I feel this way, but seems to me this is what they would have done unless it was just totally aesthetic.. which I doubt lol