Defining the OWK tunisia saber. Is it even possible?

Not sure why you would assume that the handwheels were brand new. Tunisia pic, I can clearly see that the plating has been worn off of the edges of one of the cubes

I'm not assuming. They were made in the 1970's. If a good amount of them are still found in excellent condition today... it's certainly safe to assume they were quite new in the 1970's... when they were made... brand new.

And that's what I mean by the photo is "bad". I don't see the chrome worn off anywhere. Much less "clearly" see it worn off. Sorry man, I just don't see what you see.
 
mathmatically, that would mean the second ring on the tunisia saber is the last ring on the chronicles (before the clamp). Eh...not sure I see that. Anyone else?
 
I don't think I have seen any Mark I's with the original front ring being tall enough to be the no slope ring on the Tunisia. Albeit, I haven't seen every Mk1 out there or anything, but the no slope ring on the Tunisia appears to be closer to twice the width of the other frag cube rings than it does to being the same width as those other frag rings. The three Mk1's I've dealt with in person had a top ring nearly the same size as other non-end rings. Based off of this personal experience, I find the backwards frag body theory unlikely.
 
There are some grenades that have a slightly thicker ring on the end, similar to how Russrep replicated his.

For instance, this one looks to be a bit thicker like that:
y48Zc7Zl.jpg

(I believe this photo is courtesy of Pulseriflefan)

Compare that to Scott's on the previous page and you can see the difference in thickness.
 
There are some grenades that have a slightly thicker ring on the end, similar to how Russrep replicated his.

For instance, this one looks to be a bit thicker like that:
http://i.imgur.com/y48Zc7Zl.jpg
(I believe this photo is courtesy of Pulseriflefan)

Compare that to Scott's on the previous page and you can see the difference in thickness.

That's a great picture. Thanks for posting it.
That is an interesting picture, and definatly has one of the thickets rear rings of any MK1 I've seen. All of mine are quite thin and the last ring looks about the same width as the other cubes.
But, since in this photo the back ring looks almost the same as the front ring of the IWM Hales grenade, I don't quite understand why we're bending over backwards to try to figure out a way that a MK 1 could look like the Tunisia saber, it the IWM Hales grenade already does that.

If we think that the front ring of the Tunisia saber has no slope, then to me this says IWM Hales grenade.
If we think that the front ring of the Tunisia saber has a slope, the to me this says MK1 grenade.

That seems to be the issue as I see it
 
are we thinking with a male BP?


I don't think that there is any photographic evidence to argue for one side of the other. On one hand, it would make sense since they come in pairs. But on the other, since they had a full Derwent engine, matching to female BPs would have been pretty easy,

It is strange that the details on the ROTS saber sortof copy the male BP, in the past I had considered that maybe the prop guys had some photo of a Male BP on an unpublish picture of a OWK prop variant and so they copied the emitter lip on the ROTS saber. But, that's just speculation and doesn't have to mean anything
 
Even just a full-res look at the other photos in the Tunisia series would help. What is the origin of our favorite reference?

I have always wanted to believe it was the same exact prop, but I could never match any specific weathering from Chronicles to the Tunisia image even trying to visualize the individual parts oriented differently. Is the smudge on the clamp simply some icing from Sir Alec's birthday cake? The only thing that matched was the frag body grooves, aligning with the clamp in the same position as the screw-secured Chronicles reference. Perhaps a simple coincidence. My eyes always see a problem with the grenade neck, and while I have only seen the real grenade reference here on the RPF, the windvane seems impossibly lower and does indeed appear to match the other grenade variation instead.

Just to see if I could get similar results in profile, I inverted the russrep grenade and drew that mysterious line on with chalk. I have the neck barely one turn into the wrong end of the frag to get that step, and the windvane tightened down as far as it can go, slightly beyond the peg-hole. It would almost seem impossible to match this replica's MK 1 neck to the reference. Although I did not get the shot exactly, this version has a thicker bottom ring.
image.jpg
Inconclusive.
 
Another thing to remember is the Chronicles photos are nice close-ups, the Tunsia photos are blown up from a much larger photo where the saber is about an inch long.

Film stock provides excellent detail but there are limits to HD and chrispness when you blow-up a detail in a photo too much. It will never be as sharp as a close-up, and those frag cubes have so many angles and shadows it's impossible to make anything except speculation based on that photo.

Plus remember the 'obituary' photo, showing the handwheel, booster, clamp and the top of the grenade? The frag cubes look super sharp and that is from the Mos Eisley hillside and the photo was taken in Tunsia. So did they take 2 prop sabers to Tunsia, or the same one and it just looks different in different photos?
 
Here's my Roman's saber with the grenade flipped. The windvane is screwed down as far as it can go but it stops at the pin. If the pin wasn't there it would probably go down a little more. I'm not really sure what we're seeing here.

 
I'd like to also point out these differences in a small blurry photograph. Different saber, but you'll see my point. I had no idea the grip rings were silver and the windvane was brass colored until I saw the better photo. We can be missing a LOT of detail.

This being said, I can see the threading of the windvane poking out on the tunisia saber.
 

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Here's my Roman's saber with the grenade flipped. The windvane is screwed down as far as it can go but it stops at the pin. If the pin wasn't there it would probably go down a little more. I'm not really sure what we're seeing here.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j243/mattycairns/obiwan_zps7wqee3vi.jpeg


Great comparison. Thanks for that.

We just need more references. Unfortunately, I think that this is as far as we'll get from this one picture. Does anyone have a close up of the saber on the ground picture?

Dan
 
Also, lets compare the brass stems.

View attachment 528680

To my eyes, These two pics have to show two different brass grenade stems.

Look how much closer the windvain is to the frag body on the Tunisia saber.

Now some of you may say, the windvain screws up and down, maybe they just screwed it down farther. My response will be that on a regular no3 grenade, it does not screw down that much farther. I've tried to replicate the Tunisia saber look using the brass stems from over 4 different original grenades. I have never been able to get the windvain that close to the frag body.

It's the exact opposite problem IMO... in order for me to get my wind vane as far up as it appears to be in the Chronicles pictures, I have to unscrew it almost to the point where it's coming off the thread; hence why you can see the hole in the stem so clearly. Otherwise, the windvanes on my grenades that I have sit fairly close to the frag body when screwed in all of the way.

I took a couple of pictures of my grenade windvane to show what I mean:

Chronicles
like:
FullSizeRender_1.jpg

Windvane screwed in all the way:
FullSizeRender.jpg

As you can see... that's a pretty narrow gap when it's screwed in all the way....
 
I took a couple of pictures of my grenade windvane to show what I mean:

Chronicles
like:
View attachment 529512

Windvane screwed in all the way:
View attachment 529513

As you can see... that's a pretty narrow gap when it's screwed in all the way....

That's really got me thinking. I suppose it's entirely possible that the pin was lost, thus allowing the windvane to sit lower, and the windvane could have been threaded into the opposite side of the grenade, thus giving the non-sloped appearance.
 
That's really got me thinking. I suppose it's entirely possible that the pin was lost, thus allowing the windvane to sit lower, and the windvane could have been threaded into the opposite side of the grenade, thus giving the non-sloped appearance.

Who could ever be careless enough to lose a pin?!!?!?

*I broke off and lost a pin

photo 1 (4).JPG
 
Just found this on my iPad. Appears to be decent resolution compared to others I have on my laptop. I might be leaning toward regular No.3 now that I can see that edge better.

Poor R2 is missing a ton of parts!
 

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i am truly amazed at the attention to detail all you pros have. i have over looked so many things, you guys have a eye i tell ya.. amazing
 
Just found this on my iPad. Appears to be decent resolution compared to others I have on my laptop. I might be leaning toward regular No.3 now that I can see that edge better.

Poor R2 is missing a ton of parts!

i was gonna say, the jawas really parted him out!!
 
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