Graflex Bank - EVERYTHING you need to know about the Skywalker lightsaber prop!

You're most likely correct, that could be the one he throws.

That or possibly the Strobonar version. But there was never a blade in the Strobonar hilt.

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk
 
You're most likely correct, that could be the one he throws.

That or possibly the Strobonar version. But there was never a blade in the Strobonar hilt.

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

tom refresh my memory, that is the saber vader throws are luke as well right? the part where the blade is embittered out the wrong end

Most likely not

The saber thrown at Mark or his stunt double had no blade. That's why one had to be added post production, and they rotoscoped the wrong side - OR decided the butt of the saber was oriented better and figured people wouldn't notice.

Also, the graflex-vader is pretty darn heavy. It most likely has one of those solid cylinders inside, countersunk and bolted in, to anchor the blade.

The thrown saber also seems to have foil tape between the grips. I've fantasized that versions like the strobonar were made to cast solid resin pieces for things just like this.
 
Most likely not

The saber thrown at Mark or his stunt double had no blade. That's why one had to be added post production, and they rotoscoped the wrong side - OR decided the butt of the saber was oriented better and figured people wouldn't notice.

Also, the graflex-vader is pretty darn heavy. It most likely has one of those solid cylinders inside, countersunk and bolted in, to anchor the blade.

The thrown saber also seems to have foil tape between the grips. I've fantasized that versions like the strobonar were made to cast solid resin pieces for things just like this.


aaah! good looking out tom! :thumbsup
 
thank you! its weird watching our knowledge change over the years

lets see if I have pictures

it does seem to have a graflex top

dull silver body, maybe painted. some greeblie in front and shiny stuff between the grips, what I'm guessing is foil tape like on other props.
117132.jpg

I remember someone telling me the blade would have covered his face and not "hit" his chin had the blade been correctly positioned.

edit: it seems to have no "shoulder" like the MPP fakes do. this could be a cast of the ANH stunt to be honest.
 
Right, I forgot about the backwards blade, which would rule out the ROTJ Graflex.

I keep coming back to the Strobonar idea, or a casting of it. It's real hard to tell in that photo, or in any screenshot probably, because the thing is moving so darn fast.

I see what you mean though about it looking like there's no shoulder up top, suggesting just a black painted emitter end like the ANH Stunt.

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk
 
Update logs, yes or no? In any case, I did some. Might help me get some feedback on changes/additions I do :p

I have to say; the way the site is built makes it such a PITA to update! Such goes it with severely limited web development skills, I suppose


January 18th 2018

- Updated Replica History:
- Graflex 2.5; Updated info and added pictures​
- Made separate page for Graflex 2.5 with additional images​
- Romans Gen 2; Updated info and added pictures​

- Updated "Where to Buy" page
ADDED
- Bottom Tubes section
- Other Parts section
- 2.5 from Parks, Korbanth and TCSS
- Graflex Shop Bottom Tube
- Graflex Shop Bunny Ear Rivet + Spacer
- Graflex Shop Clamp Lever Washer
- Graflex Shop Folmer Replica Glass Eye
- Graflex Shop Bulb Contact Pin
- Graflex Shop Slide Switch Assembly
- Graflex Shop Button Bezel
- Graflex Shop Red Button Plastic Insert​
ARCHIVED
- VV Flex ANH
- VV Flex ESB
- VV Flex TFA
- Parks installed ESB
- 2.0 from Parks, Korbanth and TCSS​

January 17th 2018

- Added lots of pictures to TLJ Gallery. Images from Star Wars Show, various cam footage clips and leaked Telecine
- Redid Gallery selection page, unhappy with the results, will change again later
 
Hey @Title ! One thing I noticed right off the bat is that your images are slow to load. This is because you're using the full sized images that you're sharing as your thumbnails. If you make thumbnails within a separate, specific folder, that have the lowest possible kb and the pixel dimensions you want to display without sacrificing too much optical quality, then make your links within those thumbnail click boxes go to your high-res, larger dimensions folder images, you'll have a much faster image/page load time!

Even the logo (great design by the way!) on your landing page is WAY TOO BIG!!! 1224x1448 at 2321.34KB is SUPER OVERKILL. I would reduce the pixel size by half and the kb's down to 150-300 depending on how it looks and maybe smaller still.

Your header logo, though way too big pixel-wise for how you're using it as your "home button" is much better kb-wise at 53.2, but it too would be smaller still if you reduced the pixel size down to the size you have the image displaying at for the button.

I would also suggest that you could make your high-res images open either in a new window, or a pop-up window. That way your gallery page won't have to reload for your visitors every time they come back from looking at a specific image.

I like your overall layout, and it's nice to see all the images of GRAFLEXes collected together in their different galleries.

Now, one little point of contention, maybe I woke up a little grumpy, maybe it's that as an artist I am exceptionally upset by this subject, and it is not my intention to be aggresive towards you! But I believe this bears saying...
My guess is you're going for historical accuracy for your Replica Hilts page by including them at all, but I would add a footnote to the 89 Sabers section that they're totally bogarting Roman's Graflex Replica's Bottom Stampings at the very least. One review I watched suggested that they were correcting their stamping to look like the ORIGINAL, but I find it most repulsive that they didn't even know what it was that they were 'recasting'. If everyone that was going to make a replica started from their own ORIGINAL GRAFLEX in-hand measurements, etc. that's understandable that all the replicas would look like the ORIGINAL, but when they straight up copy the 'tells' from another replica manufacturer, not only does it draw into question the accuracy of their replica, but their motives for creating it in the first place! Clearly it wasn't to make the most accurate replica ever built. At the very least I would have an asterisk next to their name, and have the footnote read, "Early 89 Sabers replicas and the images of them on the boxes they came in were copies of Roman Empire's Gen.1 Graflex Replica." And I would repeat that in your listing as such too like this...

"Visual Inaccuracies

  • Early 89 Sabers replicas and the images of them on the boxes they came in were copies of Roman Empire's Gen.1 Graflex Replica.
Tells

  • Early 89 Sabers replicas and the images of them on the boxes they came in were copies of Roman Empire's Gen.1 Graflex Replica and as such have the "R.E." in place of "U.S." within the centerline TRADE MARK stamping."

I'm still very curious about how they 'created' their replica as it smacks of 'Chinese Insider Trading'. I'm not sure whether or not they should be branded forever as 'recasters', but for me, it certainly stains and sullies their reputation. They have no mention of, nor retraction of, nor apology for their use of Roman's Gen.1 part(s) on their website.

Anywho, you can check out that video review here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PixCFQUco_A


O.K. then, back to your site's functionality. My only other suggestion is that you make your links to external websites open in new windows as well. You never want your visitors to leave/close your webpage to go somewhere else. If your visitor forgets that your site jumped straight to the link's external website and absentmindedly closes that window instead of having to click back to your website, or worse yet they can't click back far enough because of their browser settings, your potential customer just went bye-bye!

Thank you for your efforts on your website! It's nice to know that there's a gathering point for all the higher-resolution images of our beloved GRAFLEX based Lightsabers.

I hadn't seen the Graflex 3.0 yet, that's neat to see too!
 
About the images and adding lower res thumbnails; that's a very good point, and is definitely something I'll have to do something about at some point. It's just a huge pain in the ass to do everything manually, and as it is right now the entire gallery system should be re-done in a more flexible way, but being limited to only HTML and CSS (and trusty old Twitter Bootstrap!) kinda makes it difficult. I'm more into web design than development :/

Honestly I want to re-do the entire site; I'd love to be able to edit it without writing everything in HTML. I just don't know how to go about doing that yet. But in any case, that is one huuuge task!

Even the logo (great design by the way!) on your landing page is WAY TOO BIG!!! 1224x1448 at 2321.34KB is SUPER OVERKILL. I would reduce the pixel size by half and the kb's down to 150-300 depending on how it looks and maybe smaller still.

Oh, right. Yeah, I'll get that sorted!

I would also suggest that you could make your high-res images open either in a new window, or a pop-up window. That way your gallery page won't have to reload for your visitors every time they come back from looking at a specific image.

I thought this was gonna be horribly time consuming; completely forgetting I can use Sublime's replace feature. Shouldn't take long; I'll do that in a little bit!

Reminder to self; replace <a href="images/gallery/ with <a target="_blank" href="images/gallery/

I'll keep it in the back of my head and slowly make other links open in new tabs as I work on the site. It's a lot to do at once

but I would add a footnote to the 89 Sabers section that they're totally bogarting Roman's Graflex Replica's Bottom Stampings at the very least.

Oh I KNEW I was forgetting something earlier today! I was going to add it but forgot. Will do that soon


Thanks for the feedback! Super helpful
 
Fixed some things!

January 18th 2018 (2)

- Gallery images now open in a new tab
- Images in Replica History now open in a new tab
- Images on front page now open in a new tab
- Reduced image and filesize of main logo and header icon
 
Wait what that was 3 weeks ago? Wow.

Anyway, few changes:
February 8th


- Added pictures of TLJ hero prop; pictures from the Star Wars Show and StarWars.com
- Minor information about TLJ saber added
- Reworded the way I refered to the different movies for consistency; The Sabers [in header] used roman numerals, Gallery [in header] used movie titles, saber info pages used normal numbers. All are now movie titles to make it less confusing

I've got a crap load of work ahead of me, looking into making a WordPress site so I can update it easier and faster. So basically I'm redoing the entire website, woo! :unsure I have no idea what I'm doing, this is overwhelming ahah

Still exciting though!
 
That would be better suited for Seth's lightsaber guide - but he wont be doing that, and I have no plans to either.

I've been sort of interested in doing a download-able version of the website though, so in the event of it ever going down it can live on as a PDF and be shared around forever. But for now I'm busy trying to figure out how the heck wordpress works
 
Wait what that was 3 weeks ago? Wow.

Anyway, few changes:
February 8th


- Added pictures of TLJ hero prop; pictures from the Star Wars Show and StarWars.com
- Minor information about TLJ saber added
- Reworded the way I refered to the different movies for consistency; The Sabers [in header] used roman numerals, Gallery [in header] used movie titles, saber info pages used normal numbers. All are now movie titles to make it less confusing

I've got a crap load of work ahead of me, looking into making a WordPress site so I can update it easier and faster. So basically I'm redoing the entire website, woo! :unsure I have no idea what I'm doing, this is overwhelming ahah

Still exciting though!

Did you see it has smooth pins? We thought all The ST ones were Graflex inc. maybe not!
 
Oh right, I need to add that!

---

Spent a few hours trying to figure out WordPress, only thing I really managed to do was to get it running locally. This is harder than expected, hopefully I can figure it out eventually!
 
February 28th 2018


  • Merged Apparel and Store
  • Updated Store contents
  • Added update log page

February 26th 2018


  • Added KR Sabers items to Where to Buy
    • KR Graflex Collectors Edition DIY Empty Saber Hilt Kit
    • Graflex 3 Cell Lower – No Sound Holes
    • Graflex Clamp – No Text
    • Kobold D-Ring Kit
    • Replica Graflex Red Button
    • I know there are more to add, I'll try to get to it soon. I plan to re-do the clamp card section a bit to make things easier for myself
  • Added pictures from KR Sabers of 89Sabers replica to Replica History

---

I added a update log page (header -> helpful pages -> update logs) to the site, so starting after this I will only post noteworthy updates in here, and more detailed updates on the site :)

http://graflexbank.com/updatelogs.html

Gave up on redoing the site with Wordpress, too confusing lol. Maybe one day; for now I'll just keep writing everything into the html files manually
 
Any suggestions or requests for things to add / change on the site? I've got a good amount of time I can spend on it these days.

I know I still need to get up to date with TLJ (and update TFA with some new info), but other than that I can't think of much

I've done some housecleaning on Where to Buy, hopefully I'll get that pushed to the site soon. Been lazy about re-downloading FileZilla after upgrading my PC to upload the new files
 
Trying out ways to better display information (I have no idea what I'm doing!!)

I think it's an improvement over what it was before, at least.

ejfxOnc.png

Whenever stamping information is displayed there's now a link to Scottjua's Graflex variations thread, and for every applicable saber there's a link to Roy's blueprints
 

Your message may be considered spam for the following reasons:

If you wish to reply despite these issues, check the box below before replying.
Be aware that malicious compliance may result in more severe penalties.
Back
Top