More details on the Vader ROTJ saber - Please archive

Brevin Din-Shay · Apr 27, 2003

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Oohyeah KL wrote:<HR></TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS=$row_color>
It seems pretty obvious to me (I thought it was well-established, in fact) that the holes are teh Luke ESB holes.
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As DS and TDD mentioned, the distance difference could be cos the mid-band is at a different position to the graflex clamp.
Even if the position of the top holes are slightly different, I would just say that they merely used a different Luke ESB from the one(s) we've seen.
The way the holes are positioned, I just can't see this having any other explanation other than that they were there as Luke's ESB saber previously.

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I understand what you're saying, KL. The thing I neglected to mention in this thread is that the top grip holes are misaligned. In other words, you can't wrap a piece of tape or string (whatever serves the purpose) around the saber and come out with any distinct pattern.
Like the prop itself, the holes seem to have been "thrown together."

DS brought up a very important point about the length of the saber, however. How very true that it may be a different length due to the midband setup!

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Thanks for your response on my other questions!

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You're quite welcome, bud! We're always trying to figure stuff out, right?

DARTH SABER · Apr 27, 2003

Im stil;l wondering what the control box could be and how they attached the bottom and top shell...Do you think theres a connector tube inside the bodt holding the upper and lower half together??

dcarty · Apr 28, 2003

Great thread! For whatever reason this saber fascinates me too (kind of like the A-10 Warthog--mean, ugly, and dangerous).

One detail I have noticed that seems to get missed from time to time on our replicas is that the Linhoff bar for the D-ring has been painted black on the original.

You can see where the paint is chipping around the edges here:

Cheers,

Dave C.

Oohyeah KL · Apr 28, 2003

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dcarty wrote:<HR></TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS=$row_color>
One detail I have noticed that seems to get missed from time to time on our replicas is that the Linhoff bar for the D-ring has been painted black on the original.
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How interesting. I had always thought it was just a reflection. Then I checked some other MOM pics I had, and they all seem to show that the Linholf bar IS black!!
eg.:

See more pics in the Archive:
http://rpf.prop-planet.com/viewtopic.php?topic=39875&forum=4

But then, there's this other pic, which fried mon calamari posted on the archive thread that was meant to have been in an old Insider Mag:

Looks like it probably IS just a reflection afterall!
(unless they painted the thing black for MOM?!)

DARTH SABER · Apr 28, 2003

One thing I noticed that some people dont have on their replicas is that the two screws on the control box have flat head screwdriver slots on them...But most of the replicas I see have no slots at all, just a flat surface..
Why is this?? Where there caps covering these screws at one time??

Oohyeah KL · Apr 28, 2003

interesting...

I went to the Archives to look again, and it seems hard to tell that there are!

Here are a few shots (courtesy of you!

):

The bottom one seems more obvious but the top one is hard to make out. Even when there seems to be a line on it in a couple of the pics, the line angle does not seem consistent.

hmmm... I wonder whether Ob1Kenny's kit has them?

DARTH SABER · Apr 28, 2003

Im at work right now but when I get home I'll post some super closeups which have been brightened up and sharpened...

Oh, and also there are a couple of pics where you can see the threaded stem under the head of the screw...

TallDarkandDisfigured · Apr 28, 2003

Great pics guys! I can say Kenny's kit has no lines. But I never had them on my sabers. I thought I heard somehwere that the activator was some kind of circuit breaker.

obi1kenny · Apr 28, 2003

What are you guys talkin about?

The plugs in my control box are solid cylinders. But they are made so they can be pushed out from the bottom, should you choose to modify them, or paint them the correct way. As in the front cylinder in only painted black on the very top and not on the side of the cylinder that you can see through the front opening of the box. As seen in the pics above.

Pat, please post some cleaned up pics if you have them. I only see a faint line if anything, if you are looking for a screw driver slot on the top of the plugs.

DARTH SABER · Apr 28, 2003

Ill post some pics as soon as I get home...

jedi5150 · Apr 28, 2003

I don't think that they could have buffed/polished a graflex up to that finish. I have one graflex that I tried that with, and what ended up happening is that the nickel finish started wearing off and the brass shows through now...

And I was buffing by hand...

So unless the nickel on mine was just REALLY worn out, I think that the same would have happened to them.

It looks like a replate to me....in my humble opinion...

Doug

Probe Droid · Apr 28, 2003

Here's a pic of that saber I shot at MoM years back in Washington.

Is it my imagination--or bad eye sight--or is there an extra piece covering the screws that's now missing from the more recent pix? It's possible I'm just not seeing it.

Also, I've seen a lot of Graflexes in the last ferw years, easily more than a dozen, and some of them are pretty shiny. If the original finish was very bright, it's possible the prop guys could have given it a real good polish. The MoM guys also could have done it.

Just a thought.

steveday72 · Apr 28, 2003

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DARTH SABER wrote:<HR></TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS=$row_color>

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As far as whether this is the same saber from the MOM, I personally think it is...The photo from the "Indy to SW" book shows a set of scratches which look like teeth marks on the saber
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Ahh, that would be where the Wampa tried to eat it, then spat it onto the floor of his cave.

I'm planning to make a few of these too (one for me to keep) - I bought a bunch of the door latches from England already (a company called Darco made the original one and still manufactures them now).

I used to hate this saber, but after reading about it on the RPF over the last year, now I like it a lot (more than the Luke ROTJ).

Steve

kurtyboy · Apr 28, 2003

Maybe they filled the top of the screws with modeling clay/putty etc.

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Oohyeah KL wrote:<HR></TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS=$row_color>

The bottom one seems more obvious but the top one is hard to make out. Even when there seems to be a line on it in a couple of the pics, the line angle does not seem consistent.

hmmm... I wonder whether Ob1Kenny's kit has them?
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SinkTube Jedi · Apr 28, 2003

I don;t know about the replating the thing look slike Hell;. I would take the regular brushed finished. I thinkm it is the light that makes it shinny. But hell where is WadaYada he seen the thing in person.

obi1kenny · Apr 28, 2003

The finish does look to be a polished up graflex. I thought the Biskit blanks were too shinny at first. But now that I read through this thread and start thinking about it, they are dead on for this conversion.

I have a comparison pic I took of recent Graflex repos that I can post tomorrow to show the difference in those and a real graflex.

Also, I looked again at the reference pics I have, in talking about slots on the plugs in the control box. Well, they could be, but they are filled in with putty or a lot of paint or it is just a really bad uneven surface. I have seen some people make them with cut slots in them and it looks wrong. I think if you went either way on it, it is more smooth that slotted. But like I said the plugs in my control box can be pressed out from the bottom, if you wish and they can be beat to hell with a hammer or slotted or a simi-filed slot is probably the best way to go then a ton of thick paint. But I like them smooth and flat.

DARTH SABER · Apr 28, 2003

Okay, here are some close up of the front and rear screws....

Now, it seems that there was, at one time, something covering the threaded stem of the front screw...
Take a look at this-

These photos were taken at different times (probably years apart)..
One photo shows the "V" cut on the underside of the screw head and the threaded stem, while the other photo shows some kind of tube like covering over the "V" cut and stem...

obi1kenny · Apr 28, 2003

Here is a pic:

DARTH SABER · Apr 28, 2003

Jeez, what a crappy saber!!!

Anyhow, it looks like putty on the head or tape or something...

obi1kenny · Apr 28, 2003

Yup.

Geeezzz....someone posted a very wide pic in the thread, I hate when I have to scroll to the right!

Also, yes I have seen a few pics of where the front plug is broken away and the screw shows through. I wonder if these are earlier pics or later pics, well I know that if was probably not broken before and then after it breaks away it doesn't grow back on it's own. But the plug may have gotten turned at some point.

So it looks like a hollow cylinder with a screw head in the top of it and them painted or puttied over. Sound good to you?

More details on the Vader ROTJ saber - Please archive

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