Jedi / Light Side Anakin ROTS Costume and Lightsaber 2.0

The glove looks great!

Did I realt that right and you just copied the rubies glove for a pattern, but otherwise recreated it yourself?

Eitherway looks great!

Are you going to upgrade to the actual buckles when they become availiable?

An Update from me...Get your droolers ready...

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This is SO awesome! I get this Saturday in my hands for the first time but the pictures speak for themselves!

Based off the C3 saber and with a few tweaks in design this will be the only one of its kind and a prized peice in my collection!!

 

Very very nice, Justin! Youve actually inspired me. Ive got an idea up my sleeve that I think Im going to make a tutorial for. We will see how it goes.

-Mike

 

Thanks! Yes, I recreated it myself following the sewing and sizing patterns of the rubies. Everything but the buckles is home-made. The fake-leather was way to lighter than the real glove, so I had to paint it with two different colors: dark brown first, but the color combination on the artificial leather came out an awful military green and then I had to go with a black, which couldn't cover all the color below...so it came out a nice, dark brown...LUCKY ME! I really like the buckles I have on and I think I'm gonna stick with that, simply 'cause I'm in making other costumes and Anakin is just fine like that.

 

Awesome saber Justin, i just saw it on Petri and was chcking i you wrote something about it on here

 

i am liking that glove...and nice saber too btw justin..is that an actualy graflex? looks awesome..hey flo...still waiting to hear from you regarding the issue we discussed

 

In no way, that is custom machined. Just like the screen used prop(s) were.

 

Thats great that my saber is your muse! What are you working on? Your saber looked great before, unless this is something totally different

Can I ask why you did not make it from real leather? Was it a cost or sewing machine issue? It looks VERY well done! I still have to get myself a good glove in the next while...here in canada finding decent brown leather gloves like this is next to impossible! If anyone has a way to get two pairs of this similiar glove in size 8 (or womens XL since most seem to find these in womens sizes) Let me know

Thanks Flo! I thought you would like it, its been a long time coming and I will have to show the stages of it being created sometime...which you have seen anyway

And JD, sal is correct, this is fully custom made to spec, no graflex conversions and as close to the real deal I saw at C3 as I could get!

Thanks everyone for your compliments!

 

Leather is way thicker than fake-leather and also is twice if not three times more expensive.
Anyways, thanks again.

Let me ask you some...the saber I see in the pics...looks like a MR hilt, but from what I read it's not. What's the casting? The material? It looks great! Sometimes I'm really astonished to see what common people can do with their hands, I think it's great. Passion is a great thing

 

Yeah, if you don't mind Justin, I was wondering what the cost was for that saber. Compared to an MR hilt ya know?

Don't need to answer if you don't want to discuss it.

 

First off, I'd like to thank Primrodo for giving me the opportunity to make this saber. As he said, it was at times rather frustrating, but I used it as a valuable experience to learn my potential as a 'garage' machinist and the abilities of my machines. That being said, your kind words of praise toward Primrodo let me know that I did a good job on this saber.

Here are some specs on this saber.
Primrodo supplied me with several pics of the saber as seen at C3 and I scaled off of these basing it on a 1 3/8" od on the main body. I used an MR LE I personally own to fill out any details not clear enough to be determined from the pictures. Some of the differences between the MR and the C3 saber are the overall length, grip and covertech knob placement, activation circuit, detail on endcap, and shape of grips. Overall it has a polished finsh on the exposed aluminum, brass and copper pieces, as well as 3 black anodized pieces. Weight wise, it tops the scales at a lean 1 1/2 pounds, almost half the weight of my MR LE.

It consists of 47 seperate pieces: 15 machined aluminun, 6 machined brass, 2 machined copper, 6 machined Delrin, 4 borrowed parts, 1 custom made piece from a seperate jobber, and 13 pieces of hardware. Total time invested on this project exceed 250 man hours.

With the exception of the activation circuit card, red button bezel, spring, cup, and retaining ring all the other parts were machined. The 13 pieces of hardware include the variuos threaded rod, nuts and screws needed to hold everything together.

I did all my own polishing and anodized the 3 pieces myself (unfortunately, I was continualy having problems maintaining a polished clear finish after anodizing so this was abandoned in favor of just polishing the aluminum).

The activation circuit was based on the artwork present on the C3 saber and not the MR artwork. I originally had planned to etch this myself but was unable to satisfactorry results and ended up relying on a secondary source to get it made. I then cut the piece to fit and mounted it.

I could go on all day about how it was made but I will leave that alone unless anybody is really interested in the entire sage of it's construction. Just to make sure this saber maintains it's personality, I have promised Primrodo that this will be a very special saber as I have no plans to make another like it. Kind of like a SUPER-elite edition.

 

i know the original luke saber that was using in ANH was an actual graflex flash handle with wiper blades as as the handgrip, it also included the magnifiers from a calculator for the detail by the switch area. i was researching this and found that actual graflex handles are very hard to come by but they have all the details in the hilt without much extra parts needed...thats why i had asked if primodos was an actual graflex...meaning the actual handle from the graflex camera flash...i know someone actual reproduces these as well to the exact specs as the flash handle for a costly some but ive been fleamarketing to try and score an actual graflex flash handle with no luck as of yet.

what was the cost for this reproduction...it is very nice

 

Actually Graflex's aren't hard to find. Maybe an original but there's 2 or 3 places making replicas nowadays. I have one that I got to make a Anakin conversion. Search on eBay and a few will pop up and I can point you to two sites selling them alone or with ANH or Anakin kits. If you know what real Graflex's look like there's no mistaking them with the machined look of the Anakin ROTS. The materials are different, the bunny ears are different, the "emitter" is different, and the control box is an actual clamp on the Graflex. Among other things.

Also, the wiper blade thing is just a rumor (to some a myth) like the Indian Homespun fabric thing. Never been proven though it is feasible. The current theory is either 70's era metal or platic t-track for cabinet drawers.

 

Id love to hear more about the construction of it. You did an amazing job!!

 

OMG!!!! That saber is AMAZING... great job!

 

so the fact that anakins saber goes to luke in anh and them looking different is another GL inconsistancy? I figured the sabers were at least close to the same? I know my MR anakin saber looks very similar to the anh saber hilt

 

Well Lukes saber changes from ANH to ESB, and vaders from ANH to ESB to ROTJ, yet are supposed to be the exact same Not a GL inconsistancy, just prop stuff. On screen it looks similiar enough, same with all the props, Hans blasters, trooper armour and weapons, etc etc.

With movies, close is close enough

 

I've heard an explanation for the saber hilt inconsistencies between ROTS and ANH say that Obi-Wan made some slight adjustments to both his saber and Anakin's over the years. This includes the addition of a D-ring belt attachment instead of the Covertec clip, different activation boards, etc. Both sets of sabers had some minor detail adjustments between the two films, but their overall basic design remained the same.

 

They're similar. They share a similar shape and some features. But, yes, not the same. Ani ROTS uses a few features from a Graflex (the bunny ears, the clamp and control box, the button and eye) but since the OT sabers were made of found parts and most of the PT sabers are custom machined they are not the same.

The bunny ears and emitter/bulb holder on the ANH Graflex go through the back wall and form a ring that would hold the flash bulb. Whereas, on the ROTS the ears are a machined piece that attch to the back of the saber.

On the ANH Graflex the clamp is the actual clamp used to attach the flash gun to a camera. Prop builders covered the Graflex logo with metal tape and added the aforementioned calculator bubbles into the clamp. On the ROTS the "clamp" is a machined piece with knurling working into it and the control box is another machined piece attach to the knurled ring. The ROTS features a custom-created "circuit board" instead of the calculator bubbles.

The prop builders obviously added grips and a D-ring to the bottom half of the ANH Graflex. The ROTS has similar grips but lacks the D-ring as Covertec clips are all the rage in the PT. The bottom of the ROTS instead has a ring detail that the Graflex lacks as the bottom of the flash gun contains the company's stamp.

They did the same thing with Obi Wan's saber. The ROTS is custom machined to be similar in look to the ANH OWK saber whcih was made from foudn parts. But the OWK ROTS has a longer neck, lacks a real Mk1 hand grenade and real graflex clamp, and sink knob pommel. It also features a custom circuit board in the "clamp" instead of the calculator bubbles. Though, in some ways, the OWK ROTS is closer to the ANH saber than Anakin's. In some respects it does resemble a newer, cleaner version of the ANH saber. As if OWK made some changes over the years and it got really weathered during the time between ROTS and ANH.

But, for those that call foul on Lucas' inconsistency with the sabers between ROTS and ANH, they sabers changed between ANH, ESB, and ROTJ as well. Since most of the sabers were made by a prop house from found parts for ANH and the budget was so small, the prop house took them back and probably disassembled some of them and used them for other things (like the Han blaster; leading to the Greddo Killer gun seen in the Cantina scenes). So for ESB the sabers were re-made and changed.

Luke's saber was still made from a Graflex but the number of grips changed and they now had rivets holding down the back of the grips. This could have been a practical result of them using the same Graflex from ANH and the grips were falling off. The D-ring was replaced with one from a Kobold flashgun held down by pop rivets (at least for the Wampa Cave scenes). The calculator bubbles were replaced with a circuit board and the bottom "eye" was replaced with another button like the one on the top of the handle. The tape around the clamp was now textured as well.

Vader's saber had similar small changes and in ROTJ his saber was actually made from an old Luke Grafflex stunt saber with added parts that looked similar, in soem respects, to the MPP flash gun shroud and clamp. You can still see the stunt rod in the emitter as it was cut off for the hero handle.

In conclusion: Ani ROTS is not like Luke's ANH but similar. Money and design possibilities change props in all movies sequels.

 

I might be able to ask the man who machined the top part of my sidious saber how much he would think a whole saber might cost, or I could ask him how much parts of the saber would cost to be machined, like ears, emitter, etc..

 

FYI - Since it came up in PM's with people and perhaps even in this thread - I went to Thai Silks (aka Exotic Silks) in Los Altos today and they do not carry any Anakin Ep III fabrics. I even went to the back room and showed my swatches to the woman in charge of placing and tracking orders for the store just to make sure.

- Kay Dee

 

That sucks...but thank you for checking!

 

very interesting post darthdefyitall, in regards to the sabers...and i suppose its a good exscuse that obw updated stuff and changed things over the 20 or so years between the two movies.

 

I wouldn't nessesarily even call it an excuse. I mean if you haven;t ever seen up close the props or knew much about them and then watched the movies the only inconsistancy you'd really notice is that it goes from covertec to d-ring. They look really close to the original props, especially when they are an inch tall on screen I mean after all they thought no one woudl ever notice the differences between ANH and ESB

 

they never knew there would be folks like us that wallow in every minute detail and love doing it..hehe

 

Of course now they do...and MR is happy with that...and every garage machinist who is in the know lol