RotJ Force Pike Accurate Build/Research

The pommel always reminded me of a stern light on a boat. Our boat growing up had stern lights with a very similar shape. If the pole was marine equipment, why not the pommel?

Hi Tom,

I've been following this thread here and on forcepike.net for a little while, and love what you've been doing. Great work! I'm very keen to sign up for this initial run, and pay the deposit, but just wanted to confirm a few things first.

Firstly, what is the total length of the pike? As you would know, the ROTJ CRL states that "the scale of the forcepike should be suited to the height of the individual costumer (ie: someone 6'4" would use a longer pike than someone 5'2")". I'm about 5'11" so just wondering if it is likely to be suitable, and if you have any plans to make them available at different lengths for those who are more or less than average height.

Secondly, I was just wondering about the change in your design from the gold/copper coloured rasp emitter to the grey one. Was that primarily influenced by the "much better reference material" you got access to? Can you share this material? I think I preferred the gold colour, but can live with the grey if it's closer to one of the props, there isn't any choice and it's 501st approvable. The CRL states that it needs to be "metallic copper, or silver". Do you think the grey counts?

Thirdly, are you at all concerned that the steel for the rasp emitter will make the pike a little unwieldy and top heavy? Also, are you confident that the aluminium shaft will be fine for it?

Finally, did you end up deciding not to include the pommel switch? Was that based on the lack of photographic evidence for it? I'm keen to understand your reasoning for it's omission.

Sorry for the barrage of questions! Thanks for all your hard work on this to date, and I look forward to signing up to this soon.

Cheers!

halliwax said:

Aaahhh so it’s more of a fishing spear then rod

When everyone was talking about fishing rods I keep thinking of a flimsy pole

Like the lightning hook on the back of the delorean, which was a fishing pole

Now a deep sea fishing spear. I totally see it

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It's just a thin fiberglass tapered tube, although it's pretty sturdy, not flexibly or flimsy like you might be imagining Managed to find one in Wal-Mart that matches the calculated dimensions to the fraction of a mm

Inquisitor Peregrinus said:

If the pommel is clear I can only assume they originally meant it to light up, either constant-on, or on when the Guards are actively using them, as in that scene above. But, again, nothing in the filmed material...

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Yeah the clear pommel piece was definitely supposed to light up and was possibly originally intended to be held the other way up so it would be the tip. I couldn't see it lit on screen at any point so they may have abandoned whatever shots it was supposed to be used in..

Trooper_trent said:

The pommel always reminded me of a stern light on a boat. Our boat growing up had stern lights with a very similar shape. If the pole was marine equipment, why not the pommel?

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It's certainly possible, altho the reference I have seems to strongly suggest they were resin casts of a wood master. The grain seems visible along with some rough sanding marks.

ShadowWraith said:

Hi Tom,

I've been following this thread here and on forcepike.net for a little while, and love what you've been doing. Great work! I'm very keen to sign up for this initial run, and pay the deposit, but just wanted to confirm a few things first.

Firstly, what is the total length of the pike? As you would know, the ROTJ CRL states that "the scale of the forcepike should be suited to the height of the individual costumer (ie: someone 6'4" would use a longer pike than someone 5'2")". I'm about 5'11" so just wondering if it is likely to be suitable, and if you have any plans to make them available at different lengths for those who are more or less than average height.

Secondly, I was just wondering about the change in your design from the gold/copper coloured rasp emitter to the grey one. Was that primarily influenced by the "much better reference material" you got access to? Can you share this material? I think I preferred the gold colour, but can live with the grey if it's closer to one of the props, there isn't any choice and it's 501st approvable. The CRL states that it needs to be "metallic copper, or silver". Do you think the grey counts?

Thirdly, are you at all concerned that the steel for the rasp emitter will make the pike a little unwieldy and top heavy? Also, are you confident that the aluminium shaft will be fine for it?

Finally, did you end up deciding not to include the pommel switch? Was that based on the lack of photographic evidence for it? I'm keen to understand your reasoning for it's omission.

Sorry for the barrage of questions! Thanks for all your hard work on this to date, and I look forward to signing up to this soon.

Cheers!

Click to expand...

Total pike length is a little over 48 inches which should be fine for anyone vaguely near 6 feet tall, I think the CRL is probably referring to extremely short guards rather than a few inches over/under. I've also seen many approved guards with pikes that are obviously way way too long or short so it doesn't seem to be that big of a deal.

Yes, judging from the clear picture posted earlier in this thread I originally thought that the gold colour was probably something like a carbide coating given the real part is a machine cutting tool but the reference shows that it is not gold at all. The best reference I have is of a different rasp and it is very clearly steel, there is a warm tinge to it but it is definitely not a gold colour. The rasp from the earlier picture is also visible in my new reference and is definitely also steel and not gold, I suspect the exhibition lighting made me interpret the colour incorrectly. I've seen a large number of approved pikes that bear only a passing resemblance to the originals and given how much work I've put into this replica and the images I have access to if somebody doesn't approve this they may want to recheck their own reference material Unfortunately one of the conditions of being able to view the new reference material was that I was not allowed to share it

No I'm not worried about it being unbalanced, the original rasp was made from steel and the rest of the original pike was fiberglass and resin so my replica will be better balanced Steel is roughly 2.5 times the weight of the same volume of aluminium and there is more than 2.5 times the volume of aluminium in the grip than in the rasp. There is also the option of putting a steel tube or some weight in the hollow bottom half of the grip

I'm not intending to include a switch on the grip section, the original prop did have one wired up but it was not actually mounted to the pike. From the shape of the hole it looks like the original idea might have been to mount it but ultimately it seems the wires just come out through a hole and up the actor's sleeve like with the lightsabers in ANH etc.

Hope this helps

Thanks for the quick response Tom, much appreciated.

So the pike length just meets the minimum CRL length (4 foot), no issues there. I’m a bit confused though now. Is the tapered shaft going to be made of aluminium, or this fibreglass tube from Walmart? The CRL technically requires the pike to be made of “wood or metal”, even though I’m aware that the originals were fibreglass fishing rods. If it’s fibreglass, is it silver in colour?

Thanks for the clarification on the rasp colouring. I’m happy with that. I’ll just have to trust you on the reference material . Thanks also for the details about the balance of the pike and switch. I didn’t realise there was just a hole on the original props!

Thanks again for all your hard work on this. I daresay the CRL might need to be updated in a few places to match your research and work . Should have a deposit coming through soon.

Do we have any more info on deep sea poles available at the time? I'm also thinking if there were enough they might have fought with them..too....