Darth Vader square shroud dedicated stunt saber + Barbican
- Thread starter eethan
- Start date
Gosh! thank you for those! I didn't have that good photo of the cast, that will be my best ref to model the greebly.
and thank you for the movie cap and for your D ring idea! amazing, I always wondered the reason behind the weird shape of that greebly, now I can totally see they cast a perpendicular D ring and then it broke and gave that weird shaped greebly!
awesome!
so, I guess we will have a D ring on the cast version as well
by the way, lol, yes, I know for the extra hole inside the Barbican hole, if you go back to this post, I notified it and I don't know if that made you realize it for the first time or just just congratulated me for noticing on the next post but yeah, ahah!
Darth Vader square shroud dedicated stunt saber + Barbican
The holes on the part used on the Barbican and Energizer saber are oval holes. The part looks a tad different too, not just cut down.
www.therpf.com
thank you Tom, this was a great help for this greebly
edit: ahah, lol! the good ref you are showing is a zoom of the montage with 4 photos from the cast, so I already got it, but somehow your zoom is of pretty decent quality!
Hey,
quite a bit of things to show today!
lets jump right in with what Tom was discussing above for the extra hole in the Barbican shroud, here are the 3 holes made on the shroud with there nice un-alignement! (the set screw on the right is also not centered on the shroud on purpose, that whole saber is completely wonky)
holes for the set screws done on all shrouds, Barbican D ring holder attached on the holes shown above. I also made a proof of concept knurled screw for the cast version. I'll try to source some accurate and properly sized if possible, but if not, I know I can do them myself if needed.
cast version:
Barbican:
wire hole on the back of the Barbican and square shroud version. I'll not be drilling this on the cast version as it's invisible.
switch hole on the other side, again, just on the Barbican and square shroud:
Now, I'm both proud and not proud of what follows! but at least this should show my dedication to the project
I asked my wife if she could acid etch the small brass bracket greebly inside the activation box for the run. However, since this is a technique that basically takes as long doing 1 piece or 50, I decided to "invest" right away in a sufficient number for the run. Now comes the not proud part, I wasted her time quite badly! I don't know what the hell I did, this normally never happens to me... Apparently I forgot to scale the drawing I gave her after rendering it from my 3D software. The size was close from the get go, so I didn't notice... she did the whole batch yesterday and then I noticed it wasn't fitting nicelly in the printed black box...
so yeah, I swallowed my pride and asked her to start over again... and she nicelly accepted.
So, me especially, but I think we can all give a big thanks to my wife Wonder Knight for her great work on this and for being patient about my stupid mistake!
two sheets on the left are the wrong size. She did a last sheet after those and it came out absolutely perfect. so, we will have great brass greeblies for this detail
still a few things to do, especially the 2 rounded corners of the shroud which are driving me crazy! i'm sorry this is taking so long, but we are almost there!
cheers
quite a bit of things to show today!
lets jump right in with what Tom was discussing above for the extra hole in the Barbican shroud, here are the 3 holes made on the shroud with there nice un-alignement! (the set screw on the right is also not centered on the shroud on purpose, that whole saber is completely wonky)
holes for the set screws done on all shrouds, Barbican D ring holder attached on the holes shown above. I also made a proof of concept knurled screw for the cast version. I'll try to source some accurate and properly sized if possible, but if not, I know I can do them myself if needed.
cast version:
Barbican:
wire hole on the back of the Barbican and square shroud version. I'll not be drilling this on the cast version as it's invisible.
switch hole on the other side, again, just on the Barbican and square shroud:
Now, I'm both proud and not proud of what follows! but at least this should show my dedication to the project
I asked my wife if she could acid etch the small brass bracket greebly inside the activation box for the run. However, since this is a technique that basically takes as long doing 1 piece or 50, I decided to "invest" right away in a sufficient number for the run. Now comes the not proud part, I wasted her time quite badly! I don't know what the hell I did, this normally never happens to me... Apparently I forgot to scale the drawing I gave her after rendering it from my 3D software. The size was close from the get go, so I didn't notice... she did the whole batch yesterday and then I noticed it wasn't fitting nicelly in the printed black box...
so yeah, I swallowed my pride and asked her to start over again... and she nicelly accepted.
So, me especially, but I think we can all give a big thanks to my wife Wonder Knight for her great work on this and for being patient about my stupid mistake!
two sheets on the left are the wrong size. She did a last sheet after those and it came out absolutely perfect. so, we will have great brass greeblies for this detail
still a few things to do, especially the 2 rounded corners of the shroud which are driving me crazy! i'm sorry this is taking so long, but we are almost there!
cheers
This is looking amazing. Is there any chance you might offer some of the greeblies as individual parts when you open up the run? That small brass detail really brings out the contrast of the black resin casting. A huge thanks to you and the Mrs. for going the extra mile on these.
thank you
I'll see what I can do depending on the interest. I have been working on this project for a long time and invested a lot. It's actually a very difficult project to nail perfectly and I am going for full accuracy on all the small details. I'm hoping there will be some good interest for full kits of all 3 versions and people will not just want a greebly here and there as this would be a huge miss for me. So, i'll see, but I will need to prioritize full kits. I hope you understand
cheers
I've invested enough time and money into certain projects to know that sometimes you have to go for broke. You don't get this type of quality without that kind of investment and if making full kits is going to help recoup your money/ time then that's perfectly relatable. Either way I'm keen to see how these turn out as the work you've posted thus far has been mighty impressive.
I was wondering where I have seen something similar lately and then I remembered:
Looks pretty close , but maybe little too big ... what should be the correct diameter for this ? Or was the original part already identified?
Oh wow! No I had no idea about this! Main diameter comes at 13,4mm on my model.
I actually worked on this today, I'll try to show tomorrow
Ok, so then the piece I found can't be it as it measures about 17mm :-( . It was the shutter button of an old film camera. Still looks very close, so maybe it was from a similar model. Or they just stacked some washersOh wow! No I had no idea about this! Main diameter comes at 13,4mm on my model.
I actually worked on this today, I'll try to show tomorrow
Looking forward for your next update!
Last edited:
oh man, that's too bad that looked so close! can I ask where you found that just out of curiosity?Ok, so then the piece I found can't be it as it measures about 17mm :-( . It was the shutter button of an old film camera. Still looks very close, so maybe it was from a similar model. Or they just stacked some washers
Looking forward for your next update!
(edit, oh sorry, I read quickly after waking up! you say shutter button!)
re edit, I see it has a wide base, di you measure over it? where it's cylindrical? because the 13.4mm is for the larger cylinder, then 12.3mm at the top where it's thinner.
hey,
here is the 3D model and comp with the refs for the cast saber shroud greebly:
this is just a very quick match to the movie cap to make sure the D ring was the same size as the one from the Barbican
alright, lets machine that!
first turning that round part, pretty straight forward, it has a curved recess, but it worked niclly with a slow speed with a 12mm ball end mill:
now, the flat holder is a different story, looks easy enough, but quite involved to machine!
I had to machine a holder piece to put in my totating table so I could position the part perfectly centered on the table but offset 1.3mm in an axis so I could machine the curve on one end at the proper position while holding it with the screw hole that is not centered on the curved end, if that makes sense!
there you go, piece secured in the right position:
and now I can machine the curve without having to position anything each time:
after that, I machined the curved underneath, to fit the curvature of the shroud, and then a small recess for the D ring in the right spot:
this part is a bit problematic because there is no room in the center for the chickness of the D ring, so i did like they probably did, cut the D ring in the middle, filed it a bit and now it fits while still not being able to fall from the holder:
it's a rather weird D ring holder as the D ring will either sit on the shroud flat part or on top of the round greebly in the front... But I think this is very accurate to the one they did
there you go, I hope you guys like it!
this project is stressing me out!
almost done with the prototypes
here is the 3D model and comp with the refs for the cast saber shroud greebly:
this is just a very quick match to the movie cap to make sure the D ring was the same size as the one from the Barbican
alright, lets machine that!
first turning that round part, pretty straight forward, it has a curved recess, but it worked niclly with a slow speed with a 12mm ball end mill:
now, the flat holder is a different story, looks easy enough, but quite involved to machine!
I had to machine a holder piece to put in my totating table so I could position the part perfectly centered on the table but offset 1.3mm in an axis so I could machine the curve on one end at the proper position while holding it with the screw hole that is not centered on the curved end, if that makes sense!
there you go, piece secured in the right position:
and now I can machine the curve without having to position anything each time:
after that, I machined the curved underneath, to fit the curvature of the shroud, and then a small recess for the D ring in the right spot:
this part is a bit problematic because there is no room in the center for the chickness of the D ring, so i did like they probably did, cut the D ring in the middle, filed it a bit and now it fits while still not being able to fall from the holder:
it's a rather weird D ring holder as the D ring will either sit on the shroud flat part or on top of the round greebly in the front... But I think this is very accurate to the one they did
there you go, I hope you guys like it!
this project is stressing me out!
almost done with the prototypes
It's from the Neoca camera with the 45mm f2.8 lens that are used for the stunt macros. 17mm was the diameter of the top concave piece. I just compared it against a Vader ESB shroud that I have (i guess its size is somewhat comparable to the Barbican shroud) and it is visibly much bigger than it should be. I've seen smaller washers with similar concave shape when I was looking for something for my Obi transistors, but then I didn't think of this prop and didn't get a sample.
Anyway, looks like you've nailed it, so I personally see no need to chase some found part anymore. Can't wait until this project reaches "ready to ship" status! Great job so far!
Hum! Interesting, thank you, I'll have to look into this tomorrow!Not to derail this excellent work in progress however that D-ring part looked kinda familiar ... I did some research and found these pictures :
View attachment 1691358
View attachment 1691359
What do you think? It is Vader related isn't it? And rather similar if you'd ask me
Chaïm
Hey guys, just wanted to say that I'm not dead! I know it's unusual for me to not update for 5 days!
I have been working like crazy all this time on the two rounded corners of the Barbican/cast version of the shroud! I have to say, I very much almost went crazy!
I had to do a very complex jig for both corners and I redid those jigs 3 times... I'm now confident the production run will be extremely accurate to the original with all it's flaws and assymetries, and my prototypes will be close, but sadly, the jigs needed a little bit more fine tuning, so that slightly un-square cut on one side of the shrouds will not be perfect on my prototypes:
However, I'm confident it will be for the production run!
I'm just running out of time for the prototypes, but my plans, tooling and techniques are now opperational, believe me, I think spending 5 days on a damn curve shows I'm trying really hard for the best accuracy possible!
I'll show pics of the finished shrouds tomorrow as well as a bit of explaining on that whole process! I still have to cut the front slopes on them hence why I can't show tonight, but wanted to post a quick update
cheers
I have been working like crazy all this time on the two rounded corners of the Barbican/cast version of the shroud! I have to say, I very much almost went crazy!
I had to do a very complex jig for both corners and I redid those jigs 3 times... I'm now confident the production run will be extremely accurate to the original with all it's flaws and assymetries, and my prototypes will be close, but sadly, the jigs needed a little bit more fine tuning, so that slightly un-square cut on one side of the shrouds will not be perfect on my prototypes:
However, I'm confident it will be for the production run!
I'm just running out of time for the prototypes, but my plans, tooling and techniques are now opperational, believe me, I think spending 5 days on a damn curve shows I'm trying really hard for the best accuracy possible!
I'll show pics of the finished shrouds tomorrow as well as a bit of explaining on that whole process! I still have to cut the front slopes on them hence why I can't show tonight, but wanted to post a quick update
cheers
Hello guys,
alright, so, here is a bit of the process on how I did the shrouds round corners for the Barbican and severed hand versions!
The idea was to get exactly what I had on my 3D model and be perfectly accurate to the original.
The original is extremely assymetric and uneven, and I have no idea how they did those 2 rounded corners, but it was obviously long after the shroud was first machined and they probably did one corner after the other, maybe even by hand, with an angle grinder or something!
so, in order to reproduce that, first, I 3D printed a simplified shorter version of my 3D model, so I could make sure that my tooling was perfecty working and my end mill positioned properly.
now, the idea of what I needed to do was a circular motion, achieved with my rotating table, but the center of rotation had to be different that the center of the round part of the shroud, for both corners!
So, I carefully machined some holder pieces that could be perfectly centered on my rotating table thanks to a cone at the base, and had an offcentered support round part to slide the shroud on.
On top of this, the offset would only work if the shroud was oriented properly, so I had to attach a support at the bottom of it so that the square part of the shroud would rest perfectly on it and assure me the angle was correct.
from the front to see they are both off-centered and different, but I guess this was already visible above.
now, and this is the annoying part, I worked on this for 4 days, doing those, redoing those, testing, redoing...
those are a few of the non working part, I took this photo in the middle of the process, so, sadly, the wrong parts kept stacking up after this!
anyways, this is where my 3D printed part came in handy, i could attach it to the setup and verify that when the rotating table was turning, my end mill was following perfectly the contour of the 3D printed part:
after this was finally perfect for both sides, I could attach the actual part and machine it:
the most complex part was that as I showed in my previous message, the corner is cut slightly unsquare on one side, and I wanted to reproduce this perfectly as well! it took several setups and tries, and sadly, I had to test on the prototype shrouds to make sure each time, and that means that they are both slightly un perfect. That being said again, this is now figured out and the production pieces will be perfectly accurate to the real shroud with the slightly out of square cut and all
alright, here is a photo of the 3 finished prototypes, and I'm actually working on all the photos, text and prices and will be launching the interest thread in a few hours! finaly!
thank you all for following this very complex project, it took much much more work and time to make it perfect than I thought/hoped, but I'm really happy with what I'll be offering and I hope you guys will like it!
alright, so, here is a bit of the process on how I did the shrouds round corners for the Barbican and severed hand versions!
The idea was to get exactly what I had on my 3D model and be perfectly accurate to the original.
The original is extremely assymetric and uneven, and I have no idea how they did those 2 rounded corners, but it was obviously long after the shroud was first machined and they probably did one corner after the other, maybe even by hand, with an angle grinder or something!
so, in order to reproduce that, first, I 3D printed a simplified shorter version of my 3D model, so I could make sure that my tooling was perfecty working and my end mill positioned properly.
now, the idea of what I needed to do was a circular motion, achieved with my rotating table, but the center of rotation had to be different that the center of the round part of the shroud, for both corners!
So, I carefully machined some holder pieces that could be perfectly centered on my rotating table thanks to a cone at the base, and had an offcentered support round part to slide the shroud on.
On top of this, the offset would only work if the shroud was oriented properly, so I had to attach a support at the bottom of it so that the square part of the shroud would rest perfectly on it and assure me the angle was correct.
from the front to see they are both off-centered and different, but I guess this was already visible above.
now, and this is the annoying part, I worked on this for 4 days, doing those, redoing those, testing, redoing...
those are a few of the non working part, I took this photo in the middle of the process, so, sadly, the wrong parts kept stacking up after this!
anyways, this is where my 3D printed part came in handy, i could attach it to the setup and verify that when the rotating table was turning, my end mill was following perfectly the contour of the 3D printed part:
after this was finally perfect for both sides, I could attach the actual part and machine it:
the most complex part was that as I showed in my previous message, the corner is cut slightly unsquare on one side, and I wanted to reproduce this perfectly as well! it took several setups and tries, and sadly, I had to test on the prototype shrouds to make sure each time, and that means that they are both slightly un perfect. That being said again, this is now figured out and the production pieces will be perfectly accurate to the real shroud with the slightly out of square cut and all
alright, here is a photo of the 3 finished prototypes, and I'm actually working on all the photos, text and prices and will be launching the interest thread in a few hours! finaly!
thank you all for following this very complex project, it took much much more work and time to make it perfect than I thought/hoped, but I'm really happy with what I'll be offering and I hope you guys will like it!
