Re-inventing Lukes ANH Lightsaber- And Vaders too??!?!

I hear you man, I dont want to admit it either...as I said in an earlier post I am highly resistant to new theories for this we all took as FACT over the past years.

I am going to pop in ANH right now and check everything out as best I can.

I can tell you, from just now performing a practical test by putting seven grip on a saber, there is still a good amount of space left between the grips.

I am dead set the chronicles pic has Seven...now onto the movie!
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OK first take a look at this pic to use as a point of reference:

<img src=http://mywebpages.comcast.net/lonepigeon/btm_anh_saber1.jpg>

Now here is a another render. on the red handle we have seven grips that are evenly spaced, and match the POV seen in the real photo from Chronicles above.

On the blue handle is an example of six grips, again they are evenly spaced, and the POV is such that the grip most toward the center is in the same position as the 7 grip example.

gripproof.jpg


CLEARLY there is NO WAY this saber in the Chronicles pic can have 6 grips, as they do not line up properly at all and the gaps between them appear far to wide.

Also make not of how far out from the handle the fin portion of the grip sticks out, notice the blue hadle is just about the same on the top and bottom? But the Red handle shows that one sticks out further because its being viewed directly from its side, thats because with an odd number of grips no two grips are directly opposite each other.

Also noticed the Red arrow I plade next to the red handle, it marks the ever so tiny sliver of flash handle you can see between the two upper grips. If you look above at the chronicles pic, you can also see a bit of the handle peaking through in the same location.
 
Just from eyebaling the red and blue examples, I agree that the top grip is viewed from the side, which leans me toward the 7 grip theory.

However, same eyeball, the largest gap between grips seen in the chronicles pic seems closer to the blue 6 grip model, even though the blue ones top grip is not at a position to be viewed from the side, keeping with the 6 grip theory. The space between the grips on the red model seem too close together to line up with the chronicles pic.

Can you make the red and blue drawings the same size as the chronicles pic, and superimpose them onto eachother to check the gap spacing? Maybe draw a few thin lines to see which one is closer?

I want to believe that the chronicles saber had 6 grips that were not evenly spaced, and always photographed from the same side, even if the rest of the saber was not. I'm probably wrong, in light of overwhelming evidence, but then again over whelming evidence also set OJ Simpson free, so.......

BTW, thanks Chip for the drawings, you are the man for doing them!
 
OK here is an overlay as requested...

Please note that the grip area closest to the clamp is what we are looking at for comparison here.

...first the 6 grip overlay, notice how the top gap almost lines up, but the second gap is obviously way too large. Also notice the fin portion of the grip on the bottom it comes up as looking short because its in perspective.

anhblue.jpg


Now here is the 7 grip the top gap is just a hair small but the lower gap is dead on. Also note the "fins" here too, they match up perfectly height wise

anhred.jpg
 
Jeez, thanks for these great renders Chip...I appologize for the argument I was insistant on persuing on the previous page...I thought we were discussing the D-ring center placement, not the clock position...My appologies TReadwell.

Back to the Grips..This thing is giving me a headache...
Heres whayt I did...I took the known known photos of the Luke ANH saber...The BTM Saber, the production pic of Luke with the saber at his feet, the pic thats at POSW with th green grid in the background, and the pic from the VD....
What I did was take one picture and actually fut numbers on the grips..Then I moved on to a pic which had a diffeent angle as the previous one and continued labeling numbers to the grops that wer out of view on the last pic, etc...
I took into consideration the clamp being in a slightly different position.

I also took my graflex which hasn't been converted yet and made grip strips out of black electrical tape and positioned all of the grips following all the known referrence and I got 6 grips...

Has anyone tried measuring the width of the grip strips??? they might be different than ours and could be why it looks like theres a shorter amount of space between the grips.
This is very Confusing.

Before I said I though it was 7 grips, now after checking my method I think its 6!!...
Confusing...
 
</SPAN><TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD CLASS=$row_color>Quote:<HR></TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS=$row_color>first the 6 grip overlay, notice how the top gap almost lines up, but the second gap is obviously way too large. Also notice the fin portion of the grip on the bottom it comes up as looking short because its in perspective.</TD></TR><TR><TD><HR></TD></TR></TABLE><SPAN CLASS=$row_color>

Do you think the reason why the space between the grips is so thin is because of a shadow being cast on the metal??
 
Darth Saber, just numbering the grips like that wont really yield any useful info, its a spacial relationship problem were trying to solve here. Therefore it very important to formulate factual links between all of the pics when trying to figure this out.

I ahve done just that, and I keep getting 7 grips...readmy last post and see the part about the grip spacing in relation to the holes on the graflex clamp, if you follow that it will work out to 7 every time.

Ill be posting more renders in a bit...youll see from these renders that its definately seven.
 
Thanks for doing the 3D renders Chip....Good show, maybe we'll be able to nail this thing after all....
but take into consideration this (you probably already have though), we know that the clamp is moved on almost every pic just slightly, BUT remember the bottom half of the Graflex can also be moved WITH the clamp. This is why the control box is always aligned with the space between two grips....Now IF the bottom is moved with the clamp this could be why the grips sometimes appear in the areas where there should be a space between the grip giving an illusion of 7 grips...
Basically try disregarding the placement of the grips in accordance with the landmarks near the emittiter, instead line the grips in accordance with the control box and the any landmarks on the clamp...You'll see what I mean...Thats how I keep getting 6 grips.
Also, if align the grips in the position I stated above you will notice that when you move the clamp and the bottom together in unison you can get every position weve seen in the pics so far in accordance with the landmarks near the emitter.

I hope that made sense...
 
I vote for 7 grips...


LonePigeon, what is the FULL KNOWN history of the Vader ROTJ?
I understand it migrated from ESB, but did THAT Graflex EVER see action in ANH?


Also, just refresh my memory... How many CONFIRMED versions of the ANH saber were there, and did they ALL have the same number of grips?
 
Can anything be said for the grip attachement method?

I know that in ANH grips were generally "stuck" on, while in ESB they typically screwed on, but I'm not quite sophisticated enough to know if this was 100% consistent.

The ROTJ Vader grips are not screwed on, are they?

So did that Graflex (ROTJ Vader) originate from an ANH Luke?
 
Heres a diagram I made...REMEMBER DO NOT USE THE LANDMARKS NEAR THE EMITTER TO SYNCHRONIZE THE GRIP PLACEMNT because the upper half of the GrRaflex can be rotated and probably was during these production pics.
I used the landmarks on the clamp instead...Also, using this placement places the D-ring between the #5 and #6 grip which is the exact clock position where Chip showed us in his 3D render....
jpg.jpg

You will notice that the TOP and BOTTOM pic have the top half of the Graflex (red button) rotated farther away from the control box than the two middle pics..

One more thing to add...4 grips can be seen from a profile view of a 6 grip saber....Example- the pic of Vaders saber in the Chronicles book.
 
</SPAN><TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD CLASS=$row_color>
DARTH SABER wrote:<HR></TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS=$row_color>
Thanks for doing the 3D renders Chip....Good show, maybe we'll be able to nail this thing after all....
but take into consideration this (you probably already have though), we know that the clamp is moved on almost every pic just slightly, BUT remember the bottom half of the Graflex can also be moved WITH the clamp. This is why the control box is always aligned with the space between two grips....Now IF the bottom is moved with the clamp this could be why the grips sometimes appear in the areas where there should be a space between the grip giving an illusion of 7 grips...
</TD></TR><TR><TD><HR></TD></TR></TABLE><SPAN CLASS=$row_color>

Someone didnt read my posts
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IMO that last pic cinches the 7-grip theory. There's no f-ing way there's only two grips between #1 and #4...



Also, here's another thought...

Looking at the side view (as with the Vader ROTJ in the SW To Indy book, and in your pic above) you're seeing a little more (JUST a little more) than half the circumference of the saber, and you can see four grips. So how could just two grips effectively fill the remaining 45%(ish) of the circumference of the Graflex?
 
I think I might have figured something out...
PhArchivest, I just looked in the SW to Indy book...And looked at the ROTJ Vader saber and suddenly something hit me..If you look at the spacing between the grips you'll notice that they are a bit thinner than the spacing in Lukes saber pics. and if you look at Lukes saber pics you'll notice that the space between those grips are thinner than most of the Replicas we own....So I scaled the grip WIDTH on Vaders ROTJ saber with the 1/2" hex socket screws on his saber...The grips are WIDER than the 1/2" screws.
Arent Blastechs grip widtch 1/2"???


Look at the ROTJ VAder pic and youll see how thin the space between the grips is in comparisson to Lukes....the space on Lukes is about the width of the calculator bubbles.
 
Darth Saber, this is the post I thought you didnt read, apparenty I never clicked submit, it was just sitting in the backround for the past 3 hours!

Wow I have been staring at the pics in this thread for a bit now, and I believe I can offer definitive proof on the 7 grip theory.

First off that close up of the B&W pic where Hamill is kneeling down, I dont know about the rest of you but I count 7 there.

Now keep in mind the overall orientation of everthing as we go along here...

We can see from the pic on the lower left that the middle of a gap between two of the grips is lined up dead center with the clamp
<img src=http://mywebpages.comcast.net/lonepigeon/anhsaber1.jpg>

On the above right we see that the edges of the holes in the side of the graflex clamp actually line up with the edge of the grip.
This pic also supports this:
<img src=http://mywebpages.comcast.net/lonepigeon/btm_anh_saber1.jpg>

Now so far from just this spacing alone, if you continued to space the rest of the grips accordingly, you will end up with SEVEN grips on your handle.

If you use six, they just will not line up right on the clamp.

It also seems to be a constant that the gap between two grips is always centered on the clamp, this could mean that the Graflex bottom and clamp are possible connected together somehow. Most people refer to the clamp being rotated in some pics, but the truth of the matter seems to be that only the top of the Graflex it rotated to either side of the keyway it locks into.

This also means the D-ring will rotate with the bottom and clamp together as well.

Upon further investigation the d-ring seems to be parrallel to the width of the "control box" and about .125" off center
 
</SPAN><TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD CLASS=$row_color>Quote:<HR></TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS=$row_color>but the truth of the matter seems to be that only the top of the Graflex it rotated to either side of the keyway it locks into.</TD></TR><TR><TD><HR></TD></TR></TABLE><SPAN CLASS=$row_color>

Thats what I wrote on one of my previous posts....
Also the in referrence to the two pics which you have posted above, I placed masking tape (cut to the same dimensions as the grips) on my Graflex (6 grips) in the same placement as the pics above(control box in gap, edge of cut square lines up with edge of grip) and they line up perfectly....This is strange...
BTW did you look over the width of the ROTJ saber grips from the SW to indy book pics???
 
OH another thing Chip...I in no way trying to personnaly oppose your theory, I just figure that the best way to come to sa difinitve conclusion is to have opposing theories against eachother and then slowly, step by step throw out anydiscrepencies until there is no longer left anything to to debate...Does this make sense???

BTW I am not convinced of the 6 grip theory either, Im just playing devils advocate......plus its fun!
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I was trying to stay out of this, but I had to respond to a few things. I think I agree with the center ring theory. But I do NOT see 7 grips at all.

I'm looking at both my DV ROTJ and my Luke ANH as a reference. Using 3D models is nice, but not too helpful when you consider that fact that grip spaces vary when they're stuck on by hand. I doubt the prop builders were as anal as some of us about getting these even. You can see in the pics that one of the grips is crooked too! These were not placed very carefully.

I don't think either 3D model matches the picture perfectly, both are off within some degree of error. I DO know that on a 7 grip lightsaber like the DV ROTJ, 5 grips are often visible from the side. NONE of the actual photos show 5 grips at one time, from any angle, all 4. I think we should pay more attention to DARTH SABER'S photo sequence.

Lastly, though this is not proof, think about how much harder it is to put seven grips on evenly. With 6, you have one across from the other. 7 is a mess for those of you who have tried (without a template, they start to get way off). I'm pretty good at eyeballing, but i screwed up and used a template myself). It would seem to me like the only good reason to use 7 grips would be if you're trying to cover up what's underneath--i.e. a bunch of holes!
 
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