Re: UserD's Blaster Builds
I've been doing some 'kitchen table' assembly on my real parts Obi-Wan ANH saber, and testing a theory;
Personally I believe that the original Tunisia saber was assembled with parts of Browning booster bearings inside, as well as a simple piece of pipe for the clamp spacer and the grenade striker-end cap still in place to keep everything aligned and intact, and this is the theory I'm testing here.
I started by taking a dome-head nut and fitting it tightly to the end of an M8 (8mm) threaded rod, which I then rounded off with my bench grinder to produce this rather fetching dome-ended rod (It would have been a simple flat nut painted black in there originally of course).
Anyway, this fits inside the cone section of a Browning ANM2 booster-bearing (a replica in this case) which I already hack-sawed in half to get rid of the mounting-flange. My genuine Rolls Royce Derwent balance pipe (rpf engine #4) seats over the booster bearing snugly and gives the nice 'deep' effect seen in publicity pictures.
The Hales grenade then slides down over the M8 rod with it's brass striker-end cap still in place. This is the easiest way to keep everything centred and I think the end cap was still inside the hero prop for this reason (and so it didn't get lost and could be returned to Bapty in one piece).
Since all the elements I mentioned have narrow centre holes it just seems like a no-brainer to me that they would all be left like this, to keep everything centred, and since that seems to work all you need for a spacer under the Graflex clamp is a simple piece of metal pipe. Easy! The metal pipe I used is standard 38.1mm aluminium pipe (exactly one and a half inches!). I cut the pipe shorter than the length of the clamp to provide a simple 'step' at each end into which the other components sit. Again, simple and obvious! The vintage graflex clamp slides snugly over this pipe.
The Browning booster is then screwed onto it's bearing and this sits in the 'step' on the other end of the pipe spacer. You can see the bearing holes between the vanes on the booster and this adds a nice detail to the build.
This group of parts simply drops down onto the rod and is centred-up by the addition of the Armitage Shanks Starlite handwheel, which has a hole in the centre of just 8mm - perfect for the M8 rod to centre everything!
I cut the threaded rod pretty short but there is still enough thread here to attach the nut. The recess in the end of the handwheel allows enough room for a nut to be attached and still add the end-cap.
Some people say the end cap was not used in Tunisia but I say 'use it if you got it!'
And all that's required to finish it off is a few twists of the spanner to make everything solid and a couple of small holes in the pipe spacer to mount the transistor 'buttons'. Since the spacer made with pipe is hollow you can add some thin threaded rod to the transistors and attach them with internal nuts or you can splay-out the wires inside the pipe and add tape to hold them.
I know that it will never be proved but I'm convinced the brass-work, bearings and pipe were all in there, just because it's the easiest way to do it and it keeps everything lined up properly.