A Journey Begins... My first Vintage Graflex Build

Hello! This will be my first movie prop replica project, which is fitting, considering that SW is my #1 hobby/passion. I just got in the mail my vintage Graflex, and I wanted to share! Overall, I'm very happy with the purchase. There aren't too many scratches, and all the rust is contained to the inside. However, there are two weird things about it. One, the clamp. The lever seems to be upside down, because when viewed normally ("Graflex" right side up) the lever pulls down instead of up. Two, instead of a rivet holding the bunny ears in place, a really rusty nail-type peg is there, and it is loose, and makes the whole bunny ear-clamp assembly wobbly. But, with the Mylar tape in place over the "graflex" letters on the clamp, I can just invert the whole clamp and the lever then points the right way. And I'm sure with some epoxy or something I can fix the bunny ears. But anywhoo, here are "da pics"!



















Oh, if any of you were wondering, I am planning on converting this guy into an ESB "Hoth/Bespin" saber (static for now). Thanks for looking!

The clamp needs to be on the right way so that the locking screw and tab is correct, but with the clamp removed from the tube, the lever can just be rotated 180 degrees. Mine was like that too. The pin should be a brass one going through the ears and should be easy enough to replace. I notice you are missing the beer tab from the button too, looks like it has snapped off. Nice basis for a project though, I just finished my ANH version, I do have some spares left over if you need anything.

Nice looking vint. For lightsabers my favorite.
Even if you are going with a static hilt, the brass pin in the bunny ears could be replaced with a really small machine screw and nut. I found one that work pretty easy at Ace.
I went ESB on mine as well.


Here's a pic of that tiny machine screw and nut, its on the back of a larbel I did for a friend a while back. Same set up as a vint


Maybe that helps

Thanks guys! Yeah, clamp lever is now fixed, points down like it should. And thanks Pfillery, I might take you up on that eventually! And Noyl, yeah, it was suggested to me that I could get a 3/4" 4-40 screw (I think) to replace the bunny ear rivet. I think that's what I'll do.