So here is my latest... my Canon Y (mostly).
I say mostly because there's a lot of flashes in this thing... I didn't do a build thread as this is something I have been working on for weeks, with a lot of trial and error, mostly related to trying to figure out how to extend the body of the Y into a full-sized saber. Most 2 cells you can add junk to the top-- but the Y's best features are the top, so I had to get a lot craftier.
I like to have stories for my sabers, and this one is no extension. This story was ambitious, which added to the extended build I think.
Simply put, this is Anakin Skywalker’s first lightsaber.
That’s right, I said it. I’m going to ignore the lame silver-finished MPP rip-off he had in AOTC… well, let’s be honest, I’m ignoring AOTC altogether. I’m putting myself back into the mindset I had from 1983 up into I got these flashes in 1994… and well… maybe right up until I saw TPM.
In my head canon, the Clone Wars were a very different thing, and a young Anakin was not a whiney ****** nozzle that hated sand. Part of me thinks that a Jedi should have one lightsaber for life, and constantly rework it— but hey, accidents happen. You could lose one (and your hand) to some jerkface with a red lightsaber.
So my working idea is that the Graflex, with its industrial, mechanical look, was a lightsaber Anakin pulled together between battles, midway through the Clone Wars. It was a little cleaner than his first attempt. He kept it right up until Obi-Wan took it for him.
He made the Graflex to replace a saber he lost in his first real duel with a Sith/Dark Jedi/Ren/whatever. This is my idea of what that first saber looked like.
Given that it would be a precursor to both the Graflex and the MPP, I wanted it to have elements of both to serve as a protosaber. If you go the route most have to build the emitter, and consider it has the 3 sets of sockets, it's a natural already at capturing the spirit of both the class sabers.
From the Vader saber lineage I adapted:
A little bit of black detailing
A black wrinkle-painted shroud
From the Graflex:
the style of extended body shroud/emitter
a single rivet d-ring
And from both-- a little built up detail on the back of the emitter end, calc bubbles, and t-tracks grips.
Since this would technically be pre-ANH I should have done 7 grips... but I will be honest. I am so NOT mathematically inclined I struggled with figuring that algebra out. For three nights in a row, after the kid was in bed, I would sit down, measure, draw a template in Illustrator, print it out, tape it on... and it would be off. On the fourth night, when I just started to eyeball it, I finally got it... only to discover I only had enough t-track for 6 grips.
After all this time I was eager to show it off, and wanted it to be done, and my brain so dislikes the un-even arrangement, that I just went with 6.
And lastly… even though I have no desire or ability to wire/light/add sound to this…. in my head this saber is yellow. I am one of those people that grew up CONVINCED Luke had a yellow lightsaber in ANH because the toys programmed me to think so. So I painted the calculator bubbles to tell that part of the story.
If anyone cares to know the recipe of parts, I'm happy to share.