oh my freaking god, I'm so excited reading this! if you make another run of this new master, I'll have to save up.
Can you tell us some things you've learned about the details of the V3 and V2? The idea of the V3 just being sanded makes a LOT of sense. My question there is, when was the V2 lathed and cleaned up.. maybe for the belt hanger use? both of these were apparently strong enough to fight with backstage
I haven't even started the one I listed, yet! :lol However, everything I make for that run and thenceforth will be off of this master. I really can't state just how pleased I am with it.
I only know what I've researched, hypothesized, and then experimented with during my trials trying to make this thing from a similar "square one,'' so I only can tell you what I think based on those experiences. For your question though, I have no question that the V2 was machined during production of ANH as it is now. It was as we see it now, minus 40 years of use, that is. It wouldn't have been possible for it to maintain as much original paint as it has currently had it been machined down as extensively as it shows to have been, based on the size of it to the raw cast and V3. It would've been left bare had it been.
To that point, our man Brandon Alinger stated that he believes that the only stunt used in ANH during filming the duel was the V2, and after my doing, I'm keen to believe it. In fact, I believe the SS/V3 didn't get any action until production of ESB started when they needed a practice-fencing sword. From all I've studied and seen in what images are available during the duel on the Death Star, I'm fairly certain what we see is
only the V2. The emitter flange/face plate on the V2 is a smaller diameter than that of the V3's or raw cast's, and from on set images available, they seem to all line up on that basis. I also believe that's where much of the V2's emitter plate's dings came from. Not just from contact during fencing, but primarily from the saber being rigged with the dummy drop when Vader strikes at Ben Kenobi and, possibly, for the close-up of it falling onto his robes. The V3 was then merely a back-up in case the V2 crapped out.
We know the V3 was cleaned up to a semi-current state in the walkway rehearsal photo for RotJ, at that point. So somewhere between that, the Throne Room showdown, and it winding up in California, was where it came to look as it does now. I can't decide currently if it had been sanded down at that point for RotJ, or had it been machined and prepped as a back-up for ANH in case the primary fencing sword (the V2) had a motor failure and the production/George decided it would be better to just scrap it entirely. All evidence thus far makes me believe the latter. Even more simply, we can just go off on how much paint we see it still have in the ESB rehearsal photo of Mark Hamill (yes, I believe that to be the V3 and none else) up until he uses it again for RotJ in the BTS photos there. I'm also fairly certain that it didn't have a dedicated clamp (the one we see it with now) until late, post-ESB, pre-pro RotJ, just going by the timeline of what it was used for during ESB and the double duty it pulled later, by being not just the fencing stunt but molded for stunt casts for the Stateside shoot, which later informed the design of the Yuma/Hero.