Defining the OWK tunisia saber. Is it even possible?

Anakin Starkiller

Master Member
RPF PREMIUM MEMBER
Hey everyone.

So for some time now. I've been one of those who contend that the OWK ANH lightsaber prop used in the Tunisia shoot was an entirely different prop then the one that was used in the Death Star scenes (often refereed to as the Chronicles Saber).

Here's a side by side comparison.

Chronicles/Death Star

swobiwansaber.jpg

SWLightsaber01.jpg


Tunisia

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k0VWaGh.jpg

Now first off we have the different assembly:
Chronicles v Tunisia Cubes flipped differently
Chronicles has cotter pin, Tunisia no cotter pin
Chronicles has screws in clamp, Tunisia has no screws in clamp
Chronicles has one transistor washer, Tunisia has no transistor washer
Chronicles windvaine sits high, close the the emitter; Tunisia windvaine sits low, close to the frag body
Chronicles brass stem is bright and gold near the emitter, Tunisia brass stem is dark consistently

So if they were the same prop, this would mean that the saber was completely disassembled and then reassembled at some point during filming.

But when I look look at the individual parts. I also see some major differences.
The most noticeable to me is the frag body. To me the frag bodies look completely different.
On the Chronicles saber, the top most ring on the frag body (towards the emitter) is entirely unseraded and has a very steep slope (so much so that when Serafino replicated this design for Russ's grenades the slope he came up with was more steep then any real grenade that has ever surfaced.

On the Tunisia saber. This top ring, to my eye almost has no slope. and it also looks like the bisecting groove of at lease one of the frag body grooves continues to the edge of the frag body.

Now almost all frag bodies that I have seen (and I've seen a lot and owned 5) have a steeper slope then what I see in the Tunisia pic.

But a while back, at the Imperial War Museum, I came across this weird version of the Hales Grenade. Which had me wondering if the Tunisia saber had a grenade that was something like this.
large.jpg


So, I'm throwing this out for discussion.

What do you guys see here. Two sabers or one. Normal grenade or weirdo slopeless frag body grenade
 
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From a production standpoint, I feel like there could have been two "heroes"; it definitely would make sense. At that same time, this being a relatively small budget movie for something of Star Wars' size (6 million), I could also see why if they just stuck with one and it ended up being disassembled and reassembled later on. The Chronicle saber sports stuff never seen on Ben's saber at any point, IE: the screws and the cotter pins. To me, that all the more reaffirms the idea that the Chronicles was taken apart and put back together at a later date.

But regarding the "Tunisia", I see both serration and slope on the upper grenade ring.
 
Two sabers makes sense, but at the same time, were those oddly jumbled together parts that readily available to be able to make 2? We know they had lots of clamps and balance pipes, but the other stuff?
 
I see exactly what you've said. There must have been an all dark one too - the V2 was sprayed continuously black along its length. This is the first I've heard of the Hales grenade variation and I think it fits!

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There is also a mark on the Tunisia saber that is NOT in the chronicles, to the left of the bubbles, on the clamp, before the transistors.
 
Dan, I have some more pictures I'll send you tomorrow. I've done the same analysis using the museum grenade and another that I came across. Extremely rare item. Only two have come to market in the past seven years.
 
d0056023_508fe9275d3dc.jpg

I see serration on the upper grenade ring on the Tunisia saber as well.

To me, it looks kind of similar to the 3rd and 4th grenades from the left in this photo. Could they have used a different grenade "body" but the same windvane?

d0056023_508fe9275d3dc.jpg
 
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I had read that there were at least two variations of the nonsloped top ring of the frag on the Mark I at the very end of its production cycle, before moving to the MkII. The brass neck plate on the nonsloped frag also had a small lip that does not sit flush with the top ring, unlike the more typical No3 MkI's we are all used to seeing. You can see this lip on the grenade in Anakin Starkiller's IWM photo. Are there any higher res Tunisia saber photos showing the top of the frag?
 
I had read that there were at least two variations of the nonsloped top ring of the frag on the Mark I at the very end of its production cycle, before moving to the MkII. The brass neck plate on the nonsloped frag also had a small lip that does not sit flush with the top ring, unlike the more typical No3 MkI's we are all used to seeing. You can see this lip on the grenade in Anakin Starkiller's IWM photo. Are there any higher res Tunisia saber photos showing the top of the frag?


This is interesting info. Do you have a source for this material we couple pick through?

I wish we had more. But, I don't have any more Tunisia shots on hand.

Back in the day (sever hard drive crashes ago) I has a great shot of the bottom of the saber, from the clamp to the handwheel. It was pulled from Alec Guiness's obituary actually.

But I no longer have that pic, it got lost on a couple of old dead computers.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about or have this pic on file?

Thanks

Dan

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I see serration on the upper grenade ring on the Tunisia saber as well.

To me, it looks kind of similar to the 3rd and 4th grenades from the left in this photo. Could they have used a different grenade "body" but the same windvane?

http://pds25.egloos.com/pds/201210/30/23/d0056023_508fe9275d3dc.jpg

This picture is not working for me
 
Could be a No.3 MkII frag body with the windvane and stem swapped out...​

These parts are not interchangeable. Although it's possible to put the brass stem of a MKI on the lathe and turn it down until you can cram it into a MKII frag body (I've done this before.

But the MKII frag body is a little thinner in diameter on that top ring, which I'm not seeing in the Tunisia pic
 
It's certainly possible there were two. I thought I had heard the story that the death star drop pretty much jacked it up though and it needed fixing... hence the chronicles version.

Either way, here's the best I have

obiTunisiaScottjua.jpg
 
This is interesting info. Do you have a source for this material we couple pick through?

I haven't been able to find the source of info I got. I had read it when one of the flat top ring grenades went up for auction. I'll try to track that webpage down though. Here are the pics I coopted from the auction. They aren't great photos:

image.jpg
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These parts are not interchangeable. Although it's possible to put the brass stem of a MKI on the lathe and turn it down until you can cram it into a MKII frag body (I've done this before.

But the MKII frag body is a little thinner in diameter on that top ring, which I'm not seeing in the Tunisia pic

Not necessarily... as with everything it seems, there are variants...

Here's the stem from my relic grenade along with the stem from my mail grenade in my Obi build:

IMG_1863.JPG
IMG_1864.JPG

Notice that the diameter of my main stem is slightly larger than my relic stem...

I discovered this difference when I was going to swap stems with Neorutty... it was too small for his frag body....
 
I am thinking the rarity of this variant of the No3 Mk1 makes it unlikely that it was used on the Tunisia. If what I read was correct about that grenade variant's quantities, and about these grenades being individually milled/fragmentized (is this correct?), then very few of these variants were made, probably fewer made it into combat, and these were already halfway to relic status by the time Star Wars got around to using them. Without better photos, I just don't think it's likely.

However, the top ring on the Tunisia saber has what appears to be a very long error cut in it. You can see it in both photos of the Tunisia in this thread. Neither the IWM pic or the ones from the auction show any error cuts (perhaps one small one towards the top of the first pic I posted), which if this was a prototype for trials, would probably have had the worker's added attention when cutting.

I don't know, maybe I'm just hoping too hard because that top ring doesn't look slanted in either photo. If we could only check the lip or have a crisp outline of the Tunisia frag.

Dammit, Dan!


Anyone have good HD screen caps of the Tunisia?
 
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