v312's builds

[thd9791]

This piece:

View attachment 1772036

That piece was missing in the set of parts that Prop Store acquired, and which I assembled onto the MGC replica for them so they could auction them off. I scaled the dimensions of that part using photo reference of the screen-used Stembridge prop that Brandon provided in conjunction with the parts that I did have. Perhaps I didn't get it 100% correct, but I'm confident that I was at least 98% correct.

Im sorry for the confusion.

Every other Han Rotj DL44 prop had a machined scope rail that was rather thin. A flat rectangle.

The filming live fire prop literally had a thick piece of square stock instead. This is what I was remarking about, the difference.

The 48th Ronin duplicated it remarkably, I get it confused with the filming prop often lol

 

[chubsANDdoggers]

The 48th Ronin looks like you did a spot on job. Nice work.

 

[The 48th Ronin]

The 48th Ronin looks like you did a spot on job. Nice work.

Thanks. But as I've posted before elsewhere, there really wasn't much to it. I think it was more work to whip the MGC into shape.

v312 - FYI, the scope mounting bracket in the set of Stembridge parts was white Delrin (or what I am assuming was Delrin, by its appearance) and the piston halves on the left side were black Delrin (again, assuming).

 

[thd9791]

The 48th Ronin how did you cut the tiny dovetail edges on the mounts rail?

On the research side, I have always wondered who machined the Delrin or acetal parts. The fake scope bells, s mount, screw bushings and flash hosers… (the rest of the scope was found parts) you’d think there had to be some back and forth with calipers between the gun rental and Ilm with the model guns

 

[The 48th Ronin]

The 48th Ronin how did you cut the tiny dovetail edges on the mounts rail?

Easy - I had a friend do it

It was done on a mill - we were on a job at another friend's shop at the time, and the Prop Store build was a side project for me. I asked my friend how he would go about doing it, because the shape of the grooves needed to be like this:

I don't recall the specifics, but I do remember that the friend whose shop we were working at didn't have the mill bit that was required, so one day when we all went out for lunch we hit a tool supply place on the way back so I could buy one - I just about sh!t a brick when I found out how much it cost. I don't remember specifically how much it was, but I wanna say it was at least 50 bucks, if not more. I gave it to the friend whose mill we used, since I had no use for it afterwards.

On the research side, I have always wondered who machined the Delrin or acetal parts. The fake scope bells, s mount, screw bushings and flash hosers…

Well in the case of the Stembridge gun, those parts were created by Bapty. People often mistakenly think that ILM was responsible for EVERYTHING, but that's simply not true. During production in the UK, the weapon fabrication was handled by Bapty in conjunction with the Art Department/Prop Department, particularly on the first film. It's a little less clear to me who all was involved, and to what extent, on Empire and Jedi though - I've never really dug into it to figure it out.

 

[chubsANDdoggers]

That’s great info. Thank you for sharing!

 

[v312]

Thanks. But as I've posted before elsewhere, there really wasn't much to it. I think it was more work to whip the MGC into shape.

v312 - FYI, the scope mounting bracket in the set of Stembridge parts was white Delrin (or what I am assuming was Delrin, by its appearance) and the piston halves on the left side were black Delrin (again, assuming).

That's what I've assumed as well by looking at the few pictures that are floating around. For the piston halves at least. For the mount I was not sure if it is cast or cut. It's good that you clarified this. I can't make Derlin parts myself and I'm not aware of anyone offering them in the correct materials, so for my build I guess resin will still be the next best thing to use .

 

[thd9791]

Easy - I had a friend do it

It was done on a mill - we were on a job at another friend's shop at the time, and the Prop Store build was a side project for me. I asked my friend how he would go about doing it, because the shape of the grooves needed to be like this:

View attachment 1772128

I don't recall the specifics, but I do remember that the friend whose shop we were working at didn't have the mill bit that was required, so one day when we all went out for lunch we hit a tool supply place on the way back so I could buy one - I just about sh!t a brick when I found out how much it cost. I don't remember specifically how much it was, but I wanna say it was at least 50 bucks, if not more. I gave it to the friend whose mill we used, since I had no use for it afterwards.


Well in the case of the Stembridge gun, those parts were created by Bapty. People often mistakenly think that ILM was responsible for EVERYTHING, but that's simply not true. During production in the UK, the weapon fabrication was handled by Bapty in conjunction with the Art Department/Prop Department, particularly on the first film. It's a little less clear to me who all was involved, and to what extent, on Empire and Jedi though - I've never really dug into it to figure it out.

Oh my gosh, great info thank you.

I wholly apologize to the RPF for “flash hosers” I mean, my phone saw me type flash hiders and said hold up, I know where you’re going with this. It was wrong lol

Anyway - I had that idea too, it would also make sense if.. spitballing here… if it was Bapty or someone other than ILM working on Jedi, the hand made parts that are all a little different (like the flash hiders) I would more expect from a shop like that as opposed to model makers

 

[v312]

This was the second fx/reveal chassis build that I've made and the first one to try 3d printed parts (first one was entirely made from found/junk parts). It was years ago ...
I didn't take any pictures when I built it, but recently when visiting I was asked to change the battery, so I took as many pictures with my phone as I could( before I got bored) ... still didn't think of taking a picture of the assembled hilt, but it's just another ESB Graflex.

I based it on Martin Beyer's design (mb-sabers) - If you have not seen his site go check it out - his designs and builds are phenomenal. Somewhat for me they are even too perfect for the OT Star Wars universe where things are generally made from used junk, but still I like them so much that I've made 3-4 other builds based on his design since then.

For the electronics I used NEC Igniter 3 which was a pretty new board back then with tons of features, but sadly the guy stopped making them several years ago.
I was new to fx installs and I was pretty enthusiastic to use as many features as I could. I used all the possible accent LED contacts (I think there are something like 12 accent leds blinking here and there plus 2 UV ones for the "Plasma Gate" core (that was made of glow in the dark resin) 1 or 2 RGB leds for the crystal and a RGBW for the blade (there were no neopixel blades yet). 2 rumble/vibration motors - one tied to the main blade pattern just to give you a slight feeling that the hilt vibrates in your hand when you power it on and another that was tied to the "clash" effect.

I think were still plenty of features that I didn't use at all like some gestures stuff for the fonts and other things that are probably relevant for dueling or performing with the lightsaber, but I see my fx builds just as a static hilts that you can also power on.

As it was specifically luke's ESB graflex and not some custom saber I didn't even need more than one font, but still since I was enthusiastic I made it to power on by the graflex red button and used the small graflex slide switch on the side to change fonts. There were 3 fonts, but the only difference was the nuance of the blade (and crystal). First was blue like I remembered it in ESB:

then a lighter blue one closer to how it is in ANH and finally a more cyan-like version of the light blue as this is how it was in my memory from when I watched it as a kid - kind of like this:

That's pretty much all I remember about the build, I'm happy that is still working fine with the new battery and below is a picture dump from my phone:

 

[Halliwax]

phenomenal work

 

[v312]

Today I officially start my Hoth Scanner build. Will be fun if I manage to complete it one day to go back and check low long it took me to do it.

 

[v312]

And here is my last blaster-related project for the time being. Always wanted to do some "as production made" resin blasters. As I had no prior experience with casting. I started with making resin mounts for my other blaster projects and some other small greeblies, then I did a couple of scopes and eventually the full blaster builds:

I wanted to do one of each type that I have some references:

1. The "broken mount" blaster.

2. The "single picture" blaster (named it like this as I only have thit single one reference for it).

3. The "dirty blaster with brown grips in a holster".

Each of these 3 blasters is built little differently than the others. Most differences are in the scope mount, the rest is weathering and casting artefacts.

I'm pretty sure the mounts and scopes were made separately and then attached to the blaster. The greeblies probably were already on the source blaster when they made the mold, but I decided to make mine separately as I didn't want to glue them to the ANH hero DL-44 that I used to make the mold. So I used a vintage scope and greeblies to make separate molds as well as for each type of scope mount.
Although I can't quite decide what I'm seeing here:

Are these greeblies glued on over the paint and then broke off? Or were they part of the casting and after the pieces broke off someone masked the area with paint?

There was still enough resin for one more so I made a second "broken mount" version.

In parallel I was working on some Merr-Sonn Power 5 castings as well, but I'm still waiting for few greeblies to complete them

 

[thd9791]

excellent work on these casts! I have lots of questions.

Are your blaster molds all cubic 2 part molds? (blocks of sillicone, must have been expensive)

I've had some Jedifather resin MGC casts, are your gun bodies also satisfyingly solid and not fragile?

I ask because all the PropStore descriptions of ESB blasters seem to be "fiberglass" and the blasters are technically hollow, which I thought was a dumb way to do it.... unless its cheaper or something. I always thought fibers would show up on the outside of the cast

 

[v312]

excellent work on these casts! I have lots of questions.

Are your blaster molds all cubic 2 part molds? (blocks of sillicone, must have been expensive)

I've had some Jedifather resin MGC casts, are your gun bodies also satisfyingly solid and not fragile?

I ask because all the PropStore descriptions of ESB blasters seem to be "fiberglass" and the blasters are technically hollow, which I thought was a dumb way to do it.... unless its cheaper or something. I always thought fibers would show up on the outside of the cast

I don't know what was the original material. This looks like a fiberglass to me :

But these:

look much like the polyurethane resin that I used to me. I have no experience with fiberglass casting is it capable of capturing such fine details as the serial number and the proof marks of the Mauser as seen on the props? Or does it make this kind of little bubbles when cast like the resin does?

Two part molds, yes. The props castings look kind of rough with a lot of putty used to fill in or smooth the surfaces so I aimed to recreate that rather than trying to make a perfect mold of the Mauser. Truth is though that I could not have done it much better than how it turned out even if I tried to. I would not say the silicone was expensive. Certainly I paid more for the beer that went into making this than for the silicone.

Are they sold - yes, Are they fragile - yes. resin is fragile. If you drop them on a concrete floor probably they will shatter.

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

You'd typically do a "beauty coat" first with only resin to get the fine details, and then the next coats are laid with fiberglass and resin. You could do two halves in an open face mold and then sandwich them together with resin or epoxy, or you could do slush casting with your subsequent layers being resin pre-mixed with fiberglass shavings. There are a number of ways to approach it.

 

[v312]

You'd typically do a "beauty coat" first with only resin to get the fine details, and then the next coats are laid with fiberglass and resin. You could do two halves in an open face mold and then sandwich them together with resin or epoxy, or you could do slush casting with your subsequent layers being resin pre-mixed with fiberglass shavings. There are a number of ways to approach it.

Is the goal of the multiple layers to reinforce it with the fiberglass and make it stronger compared to simply filling it with the resin in one go?
I'm thinking about the DL-44s in particular, because I can imagine for something bigger also the weight and cost of the material might be a factor.

 

[chubsANDdoggers]

Damn those are nice. I just recently finished up my own versions of these Dagobah and Muppet Stunt blasters. One thing to note the bottom of these specific props are solid. In fact what I find interesting is that none of the c96 details (except for the 2813 and c/u) survived the casting. Your replicas are truly amazing and beautiful. Very nice work!

 

[v312]

Yes, somehow the rear side with the hammer, bolt, safety lever are much less detailed. I wish the serial numbers were preserved on these parts too - I've always wondered what parts were from the same pistol as the upper.

 

[v312]

Damn those are nice. I just recently finished up my own versions of these Dagobah and Muppet Stunt blasters. One thing to note the bottom of these specific props are solid. In fact what I find interesting is that none of the c96 details (except for the 2813 and c/u) survived the casting. Your replicas are truly amazing and beautiful. Very nice work!

I can only say the same for yours! In fact your thread DL-44 FDM c96 & MGC replicas was my main inspiration to start building some DL-44s

 

[thd9791]

I forget where but I’ve seen a comparison and there are details in the wood handle grips that match the ANH hero. (Scope side) so… it’s quite possible the base gun is a mold from Bapty. Those are probably the original threaded/welded studs underneath the ESB bracket