My lightsabers & blasters thread (Compac Super Scope)

I'm going to use this thread to show my props, share various lessons I've learned, and ask for opinions/help occasionally. I'm up to three lightsabers now and I have various parts that have been ordered for more lightsabers and blasters.

I never thought that I would get into the hand-held props because I was so interested in Star Wars ships when I first joined the forum. Anyone thinking about building props a word of warning it is a very steep, slippery and expensive path to start. I love it, it fits right in with all my other crazy expensive hobbies. For me it started with buying a completed Luke ANH lightsaber, when I arrived it was magical, I could not take my eyes off it. I still pick it up and look at it daily. #hooked

Since then I jumped on Boba Debt's ESB blaster run for two blasters, bought a Obi Wan kit from Roman, found a Heiland in an antique shop for next to nothing and converted it to a Vader ESB lightsaber. I have parts for more blasters and lightsabers including a near mint Graflex that I'm just sitting on for now.

Here is my Luke ANH fresh out of the box, I instantly fell in love.



But after a while I realized that the grips were not accurate, and I had a want to replace the fake bubble strip with a real one. So I took the bottom off the saber and threw it in the freezer, metal shrinks at a different rate than the epoxy and plastic so most of the grips popped right off after a couple hours.



I cleaned off the remaining epoxy by carefully scraping with an Exacto blade, and I used very fine steel wool rubbing only in the direction of the brushed metal lightly. It cleaned up well.

I ordered new grips from Roy, cut them to length, cut the correct angles, sanded and polished them smooth, and finally epoxied them on. It seems like a subtle thing, but it really makes a difference, in the look and how it feels in hand. My old t-track was narrower at the base and taller, and the angles were not correct.



And here is the finished product. (I know it's hard to tell in these pics).



I'm still to chicken to cut up my Exactra 20 for the bubble strip, I'll do it some day.

Re: My on going lightsabers and blasters thread

Next up is my Obi Wan saber. I ordered it from Roman to help along the Graflex replica project. I had to wait a while for the parts to come in but no biggie. I'd seen several people post theirs in various thread and I'd seen a couple real parts OB1 sabers that made me jealous. I really does seem like the most random collection of parts, what are the chances that someone would have all that on hand. I know that Roman was working hard to get these parts out to us as fast a possible because when the box came and I opened it, I could smell that he had been eating pizza while packing parts. Thanks for making me hungry Roman :lol.

I had my Vader shroud arrive the same day as my OB1 parts, you could say I was having a good day. It took less than a minute to put the OB1 saber together minus the D ring.

Re: My on going lightsabers and blasters thread

I really lucked out with the Vader saber. I caught wind of Roy taking measurements of a real MPP on a thread, so I started looking out for what to look for in a Heiland and what parts were already available. There are three areas on the Heiland that you need to pay attention to: the guts (bulb seat), the hole shapes (on the sides should be rounded), and the end cap (there are several different kinds). I managed to find a Heiland with the right guts, holes and the end cap that I preferred in an antique shop for $13 usd, pretty good if you ask me. It was less than a week later that Roy announced the shroud and bulb release would be available soon. I was actually pretty concerned with the condition of my Heiland because it was so scratched up, but it turns out that after you add the clamp and glue on the t-track, most of the metal is covered, so it became a non-issue. I ordered the shroud, bulb release, wire set from Roy, and ordered the clamp from TCSS.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I over tightened the bottom screw for my bulb release and it cracked. You can make out the crack in the bottom just barely. I'm still kicking myself for that one.



I thought I would be clever and order another exactra but, instead of getting the 19 or 20, I would get a 22 or 21. My logic was that I had heard that the number of characters was more on these calculators which is why they can't be used for Luke or OB1 lightsabers. But this was Vader's and the MPP clamp is shorter there for the bubble strip has to be cut down to six bubbles. Turns out that is a dumb idea. The exactra 22 doesn't have bubbles at all, and the exactra 21 has bubbles BUT they are smaller. So don't make the same mistake that I did.

Re: My on going lightsabers and blasters thread

Impressive collection you have assembled, and quickly too!

Re: My on going lightsabers and blasters thread

mugatu said:

Impressive collection you have assembled, and quickly too!

Click to expand...

Thanks. A year ago I didn't have any of this.

Re: My on going lightsabers and blasters thread

Here is my current lightsaber collection all together plus my unused Graflex. I'm still working out how I'm going to display them, that will be a fun project in itself.



More glamour shots of my spare Graflex. I picked up this as a 2 cell in nearly mint condition and later bought the 3 cell bottom in pristine condition. I'm still going back and forth on what I'm going to do with it. I may use it for an ESB Luke saber even though the bottom is not the right stamp. But I am getting a replica Graflex from Roman sooo maybe not. Thought about using it for a TFA saber, but with everything that keeps turning up about the possible use of a veneer on the clamp and other small differences, I'm just going to wait and let it look pretty on my shelf for now.



I have some parts for some blasters on hand, and a lot more that have been ordered and paid for on runs. I just missed out on Boba Debt's run of ROTJ DL-44s but I went a head and bought the machined Denix mauser drilled for the ROTJ parts thinking that I'll come across the parts eventually. The parts are surprisingly difficult to come by, but that's ok because I've had plenty of other stuff to spend money on. I've also picked up a M77c scope on the bay for cheeeep, while it's not used in the movies it looks like it could be and it looks great. It's identical to a M38a2, which isn't used either, but I figure it would be a good alternative if I get around to making an E-11, or my own custom blaster. One very late night on ebay I got a wild hair and bought myself a real M19 just cuz, but it's going on one of my ESB DL-44s (Luke or Han Hoth). There is something really special about real parts, they have a presence that most replicas don't.



This is a full list of what I have in the works (excluding model ships):

DL-44 Luke ESB
DL-44 Han ESB Hoth version
DL-44 Han ROTJ
DL-44 Han ANH
Luke Lightsaber ESB
Jedi Training Remote

On my to-do list:

Vader ANH lightsaber
Vader ROTJ/stunt lightsaber
Luke V2
E-11

Re: My on going lightsabers and blasters thread

Great lightsaber collection ... it took me much longer to collect and some if not all are still in various states of work in progress but that's because I was hoping we'd find the real accurate T-tracks used someday soon . . . alas, we have not yet and that's why I'm so glad Roy showed up to make his T-tracks after my observations and sketch and available to all Besides the Exactra 19 and 20 . . . there's also the TI-2000 made in Italy, which has the correct bubblestrip ... but it is rather rare to find indeed :wacko

I for one am looking forward to the rest of your works in progress ... and do you have a link or thread to your modelships?

Chaim

Re: My on going lightsabers and blasters thread

Nice collection.

A few days ago i bought me a second M19 - just to notice at its arrival .......... that i don't have enough MGCs to use it.

Re: My on going lightsabers and blasters thread

Sym-Cha said:

Great lightsaber collection ... it took me much longer to collect and some if not all are still in various states of work in progress but that's because I was hoping we'd find the real accurate T-tracks used someday soon . . . alas, we have not yet and that's why I'm so glad Roy showed up to make his T-tracks after my observations and sketch and available to all Besides the Exactra 19 and 20 . . . there's also the TI-2000 made in Italy, which has the correct bubblestrip ... but it is rather rare to find indeed :wacko

I for one am looking forward to the rest of your works in progress ... and do you have a link or thread to your modelships?

Chaim

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Thanks. I think I've seen a couple TI-2000 for sale recently.

I have only finished my MPC X-wing.
http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=204951

My current model I'm building is not Star Wars related. It's a PBY Catalina, my grandfather was a crew member for one of these planes in WWII.
http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=244946

My list of ships that I've got kits for:
FM Y-wing
FM 144 Slave 1
FM 144 Millennium Falcon
MPC Speeder bike
MPC Falcon
Hasbro Falcon

I'm going to the the FM Falcon next. I'm still collecting parts and kit-bashing kits for the MPC and the Hasbro Falcons. The plastic models take longer to build and paint, and take up a lot more work space so I only work on one at a time.

Re: My on going lightsabers and blasters thread

New parts came in today!!!!

Today's delivery brought a flash hider and adapter, and the sight greeblies for an ANH DL-44. The flash hider and adapter seem to be very good quality, the adapter fit snugly on my ROTJ machined Denix and the hider snugly over that. The greeblies look good to my eye, and the T-track looks like a similar profile to Roy's a little narrower, and the curved bottom channel is shallower (see pics below).

I received three little bags, two with screws and the third (furthest to the right in the top pic), a very tiny metal dowel.... that I have no idea what it's for.











And here is the comparison of the T-track to Roy's.
Roy's is on the right side in this pic.


Roy's on the top.

Re: My on going lightsabers and blasters thread

todds costumes or DEC?

looking good!

Re: My on going lightsabers and blasters thread

newmagrathea said:

New parts came in today!!!!

Today's delivery brought a flash hider and adapter, and the sight greeblies for an ANH DL-44. The flash hider and adapter seem to be very good quality, the adapter fit snugly on my ROTJ machined Denix and the hider snugly over that. The greeblies look good to my eye, and the T-track looks like a similar profile to Roy's a little narrower, and the curved bottom channel is shallower (see pics below).

I received three little bags, two with screws and the third (furthest to the right in the top pic), a very tiny metal dowel.... that I have no idea what it's for.

http://newmagrathea.com/forumimg/parts/IMG_2967.JPG

http://newmagrathea.com/forumimg/parts/IMG_2968.JPG

http://newmagrathea.com/forumimg/parts/IMG_2969.JPG

http://newmagrathea.com/forumimg/parts/IMG_2970.JPG

http://newmagrathea.com/forumimg/parts/IMG_2971.JPG

And here is the comparison of the T-track to Roy's.
Roy's is on the right side in this pic.
http://newmagrathea.com/forumimg/parts/IMG_2972.JPG

Roy's on the top.
http://newmagrathea.com/forumimg/parts/IMG_2973.JPG

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Where did you get the flash hider from? I've been looking into picking up some parts for multiple DL 44 builds as well

Re: My on going lightsabers and blasters thread

OdiWan72 said:

todds costumes or DEC?

looking good!

Click to expand...

Todd's Costumes

- - - Updated - - -

JaxAndTheMoon said:

Where did you get the flash hider from? I've been looking into picking up some parts for multiple DL 44 builds as well

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Todd's Costumes. So far they are only doing parts for the ANH DL-44 and they don't even have all of the parts available yet.

Re: My on going lightsabers and blasters thread

I think Todd really nailed the t track. If you really study pics of the original profiles it looks like he really nailed it.

Re: My on going lightsabers and blasters thread

I had no idea that Todd's was doing t-track now. It might be a little narrow, but still not bad for the price.

Re: My on going lightsabers and blasters thread

I like Roy's T-track better myself. While Todd's is nice, it has some inconsistencies. If you look at the profile Roy's is smooth and consistent, Todd's on the left side of the rib where it connects to the base is too sharp and doesn't match the right side. Also the right side is not a smooth curve, it has a couple small angles. But, in the end it's such a small difference that it's super hard to tell unless you really look at it and have something to compare to. We don't have or know what the real material is, we just have some pics to compare to so it's hard to say who's more accurate.

Re: My on going lightsabers and blasters thread

newmagrathea said:

I like Roy's T-track better myself. While Todd's is nice, it has some inconsistencies. If you look at the profile Roy's is smooth and consistent, Todd's on the left side of the rib where it connects to the base is too sharp and doesn't match the right side. Also the right side is not a smooth curve, it has a couple small angles. But, in the end it's such a small difference that it's super hard to tell unless you really look at it and have something to compare to. We don't have or know what the real material is, we just have some pics to compare to so it's hard to say who's more accurate.

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Oh yeah, I think Roy's is better overall too. For the price though, Todd's is worth consideration for a budget build.

I'm not sure what the deal is with the asymmetrical profile; Todd's claims their track is "Slightly asymmetrical like the original stuff" but I've never noticed that on any of the original props...

Re: My on going lightsabers and blasters thread

There's photo evidence to support his decision to do it that way actually. I never saw it until he pointed it out

Re: My on going lightsabers and blasters thread

scottjua said:

There's photo evidence to support his decision to do it that way actually. I never saw it until he pointed it out

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That's very interesting. I've looked through my reference photos and I can see one pic that does look like the profile sorta, but there are others that don't appear to have that profile. Old photos are unfortunately not that clear. It could be another clue as to what the t-track really is. Maybe it's something that was used and the irregular shape is worn from use, or the shape is deliberate for what it's used for.

Re: My on going lightsabers and blasters thread

So I've gotten a few packages, anyone what to take a guess at what I'm going to make with all this? I am still missing one kit for this project and it looks like it won't arrive until January.... stupid holidays. Your one clue is: this is not for a blaster or lightsaber. GO!