OK, I know "complete" can be a subjective term, with a little bit (or a lot) of wiggle room. But I'm finally at the point where I'm reasonably confident that there won't be any more upgrades or tinkering with these.
There's also the "all encompassing" definition of "complete," but this collection is obviously not that. I started to collect some of the stunt and other variant sabers in years past, but I soon realized that that was a slippery slope, and decided to refocus my collection on just the hero belt hangers.
As for the sabers themselves, they're definitely not hyper-accurate to the original props - they're a mix of accurate and idealized, run through the filter of my own impressions and preferences. The present-day rusted shroud and broken grips of the ESB Vader, or the mangled emitter of the Luke V2 - along with the gaffer's tape around the neck - simply don't appeal to me, so I have chosen not to reproduce those kinds of details.
I had also grown tired of the same old horizontal cradle displays. Wanting to display the collection all together, I decided to go with vertical stands. A few years back, I found an Etsy seller who had simple, no nonsense, clear acrylic stands - just what I was looking for. The bases flared out at the front though. I asked if he could do straight, parallel bases so that I could line the sabers up close together - he was accommodating with that request, and actually ended up offering that style in his store afterwards. Unfortunately his store is now closed. I also custom ordered an acrylic case, which was the largest that I had ever commissioned from a really great plastics company. They are sadly also no longer around.
Anyway, here they all are:
And here are each of the sabers, from left to right...
The mac daddy of all Graflexes (in my collection). Whenever I think "lightsaber," THIS is what I picture in my mind. It's the mintiest mint Graflex that I've ever owned.
Back in the day, I was in the habit of periodically upgrading my Graflexes - whenever I ran across a nicer example, I would acquire it and then sell off the one that it was replacing. This ultimately became my ANH version because it was the nicest one that I ended up with (this version being my favorite). And it's coincidentally also a Folmer. I bought it years before the discussion about the ANH Hero Graflex being a Folmer - I think it must have been 2009 or 2010 when I acquired it.
When I received it, it had a short knurl red button, but it had a Graflex Inc. style glass eye. First thing I did was swap out the button, and I picked up a vintage flat-rimmed Folmer glass eye (thick variant) in the Junkyard a few years ago. The bubble strip is authentic Exactra 20 and the grips are old Gino grips that I got from him way back when.
I bought one of the WannaWanga replica stamped sidebars, when those were eventually offered. I've purchased pretty much every iteration of parts that Roy has done over the years, ending up with the wonky "hand made" style D-ring clip and the improved 3D printed grip placement guide.
When it came time to finally re-work this saber once and for all, and re-do the D-ring and the placement of the grips, I ended up changing my mind and decided to use the symmetrical/idealized clip. Unfortunately, the mandrels on Roy's rivets ended up jamming in my pop rivet gun for some reason, and clearing them was a time-consuming pain. After the two in the D-ring, I really didn't relish the idea of having to go through that 4 more times... so I clipped the heads off of the rivets that go on the tube between the grips and stuck those on with a tiny bit of J-B Kwik epoxy.
This saber shares "favorite" status with the next one...
My real vintage parts Obi-Wan. I acquired it in its original form in 2009 from RPF member "Killdozer." He was the guy who identified the Browning ANM2 machine gun recoil booster piece. When I received it from him it was 99% complete - all I had to do was install the D-ring and the transistors.
Per my usual MO of upgrading... over the years I picked up a couple different machined plugs for mounting the balance pipe, a nicer Graflex clamp + Exactra bubble strip, a faucet knob that was in much better shape, and a couple different pairs of transistors and op amps with various different washers, ultimately acquiring a pair of Marconi ICs. I recently acquired yet another clamp (a Folmer) also with Marconi ICs, and I also recently swapped out the grenade (for the second time), before calling this one "done."
What became my ANH Vader was actually the second authentic MPP that I acquired (in 2012). I seem to recall that it was semi-complete when I received it, with D-ring installed and Gino grips cut and shaped, but not attached (or maybe partially attached... or perhaps poorly attached). I can't remember for sure, but I also believe that the clamp may have had a bubble strip that wasn't trimmed correctly.
I eventually swapped out the D-ring with a better-shaped WannaWanga ring, and replaced the bubble strip with an authentic Exactra 19 strip. The clamp sidebars were originally black, so I pulled them off, sandblasted them, and then buffed them with steel wool. I decided to forego the wonky nail repair to the clamp lever.
I just recently took another look at the grips, since the angles of the bevels never seemed exactly right to me. As I had suspected, they were a bit off (too acute). I had some extra WannaWanga Classic T-track on hand, so I cut some new grips from that. I know that if you look at the Chronicles pics, it would appear that no two angles on the grips are exactly alike. I knew that my OCD couldn't handle that, so I picked one grip to follow and made them all like that. I couldn't bring myself to make them all different lengths either, but I did follow the wonky, offset placement, as indicated in Roy's blueprint image.
Lastly, I decided to stick a piece of authentic Exactra circuit board under the bubble strip. Obviously there's no evidence that they may have done that, but I figured that it might be possible.
My ESB Graflex went through a couple metamorphoses over the years, with a few different parts swaps. It's a Graflex Inc. and it was previously my ANH Graflex. I know this prop had a couple different variants, so I guess I tried to emulate the Bespin version with my replica.
For its final upgrades a few years ago, I finally removed the beer tab and swapped out an old replica Kobold clamp with an authentic one (with a new D-ring from WannaWanga). Its previous Gino grips got replaced with a set of the pre-notched WannaWanga grips + screws. Roy provides both black and silver screws - I went with the black, but I sanded and buffed the finish down to bare metal and then dipped them into Birchwood Casey aluminum black. It's surprising how many different metals aluminum black will have some sort of an effect on. I then lightly buffed them again with steel wool.
Many years ago - in one of its previous iterations - it had the smaller secondary screws on the grips up at the clamp end. I left them off when I acquired the WannaWanga grips, and I've decided to stick with that.
Instead of using mylar tape on the clamp, I went with a strip of aluminum tape instead.
The final piece of the puzzle came in the form of a vintage C.P. Clare & Co. circuit board that I acquired from thd9791 a few years back - it was the closest to correct that I'd ever seen. I had collected a few different vintage boards over the years that would have been "close enough," but this was the best one yet. I feel confident in considering this one "done" as well.
My ESB/ROTJ Vader was the first authentic MPP that I acquired - I bought it from Neil Ellis in 2009 for 300 British Pounds. It wasn't exactly the best specimen - it had an odd clamp with no liner, a variant translucent white trigger button, and a variant endcap with the smooth-faced black plastic insert (same as my ANH Vader). It also had a hand-engraved part number from an RAF S92 ground camera kit hidden beneath the clamp:
At some point it had lost its bulb socket and "guts," so Neil had replaced them with those of a Heiland flash.
It did have a 1-step shroud though.
This has been the one saber that has gotten the most parts swaps over the longest period of time (just beating out my Obi-Wan).
I picked up one of the WannaWanga steel shroud replicas from Roy's first run, which came with a D-ring and thumbscrew. I swapped out the thumbscrew with his more accurate diamond knurl version later on. I ultimately ended up selling the original shroud to Nick Cline.
A few years later, someone offered me an authentic MPP clamp, which I gladly bought. It had black rectangular sidebars though, so I eventually ended up buying one of Roman's replica clamps with the correct trapezoidal bars and swapped them out.
Another piece that fell into place a bit later on was an authentic endcap with the correct 3-ring black plastic insert, which ironically came from Nick Cline. I think I paid about as much as I received from him for the shroud (he got the better deal).
The final pieces of the puzzle were an authentic bulb socket and bulb release assembly - with the correct black trigger button - which I acquired recently.
I used a WannaWanga wire set, but I switched out the blue and white wires for skinnier ones. The bubble strip is authentic TI-2000 and the blue Exactra circuit board is from Slothfurnace. The grips are WannaWanga's Classic T-track.
I decided to lean more towards idealized with this one, so no screws in the grips, and I went ahead and used VHT wrinkle paint on the shroud, which worked surprisingly well - I didn't even have to bake it to get nice tight wrinkles.
I think I probably bought just about every one of the early V2 kits - I actually finished the first one, but the others have gone untouched. When PoopaPapaPalps offered his sand-cast 4145/A alloy V2s last year, I knew that would be the end of the line for me - to have an example that was created using the same methods and out of the same material as the original prop was the ultimate in my mind... so of course I had to have one.
I opted for a fully finished one, and while I commend Brian for the effort that he put into it, I was honestly a bit underwhelmed by the finish work. I guess since no one had developed a set of paint stencils for these, he had chosen to do the paintwork by hand, with a brush. The results looked like... it had been done by hand... with a brush.
I immediately made plans to re-paint it, but before I did that I also wanted to get some different tones on the metal - for that, I did some experimentation with soaking individual parts in bleach + water solutions. I had paint stencils from both Trooper_trent and DaveP - I decided to go with Dave's, as they appeared to be a bit more comprehensive. As I had anticipated, I ran into a couple of issues with dimensional discrepancies, but I did workarounds with pieces of Frog tape when there happened to be gaps in the stencils. While I may not have gotten all of the stencils clocked 100% accurately, it all worked out, and I was much happier with the results.
It's got a vintage Graflex clamp with the original version of WannaWanga's clamp lever, a vintage finish Slothfurnace clamp card, an authentic Michell cone knob, a genuine NOS boot stud that I soaked in vinegar to age down, and a WannaWanga D-ring.
OK, you might be wondering what this one is doing in my collection, since there's already a V2 present (and this one isn't really a belt hanger).
Yeah, this one IS a bit of an outlier... and it's from a deleted scene for god's sake! But I wanted one of these mainly for nostalgic reasons. This is one of the sabers that appeared in the book From Star Wars to Indiana Jones: The Best of the Lucasfilm Archives, which was something of a revelation at the time that it came out (along with Star Wars Chronicles). I look back on those mid-1990s early internet days fondly, and this saber reminds me of that time.
Much like the V2, I've had a couple previous kits of this saber - I finished the first, but never got around to the other. This is the DaveP kit, and I knew that this would be the final one for me, much like Brian's V2. I had been waiting for the day that the circuit board "guts" inside the control box would finally be identified, and the remarkable detective work on that did not disappoint. Dave's design work and replication of those components (and the saber) also did not disappoint, and I was eager to tackle this one - not only would it make a nice replica, but it would also mean that I could finally complete my collection.
This one was a pretty straight-forward build, but I did swap out the brass angle pieces with some old, sharp-cornered K&S stock that I discovered at work. I also dug out the "old stock" vintage blue substrate circuit board that I had acquired from BRRogers a few years ago and used that. I ammonia fumed the brass rails and the copper on the board to age them down, and I used Ace Hardware 'Antique Gold' paint on the neck.
I had also picked up a WannaWanga Energy Matrix Dampener tool replica to go along with this saber - although it's a beautiful piece, the fact that every part of it is perfectly pristine and shiny kinda' bugged me. When I saw a vintage correct model DeVilbiss atomizer that had already been trimmed down in the Junkyard, I figured "ah, what the heck..." and snagged that, and then acquired a modern dental matrix retainer. Much better!
I cobbled together a simple "bracket" out of some scrap acrylic and a piece of acrylic rod, and attached it to the saber stand - the tool mounts to that for display alongside the saber.
If I remember correctly, I acquired my first Graflex in 1998. So it's been 26 years now... and I'm finally calling my saber collection "complete."
There's also the "all encompassing" definition of "complete," but this collection is obviously not that. I started to collect some of the stunt and other variant sabers in years past, but I soon realized that that was a slippery slope, and decided to refocus my collection on just the hero belt hangers.
As for the sabers themselves, they're definitely not hyper-accurate to the original props - they're a mix of accurate and idealized, run through the filter of my own impressions and preferences. The present-day rusted shroud and broken grips of the ESB Vader, or the mangled emitter of the Luke V2 - along with the gaffer's tape around the neck - simply don't appeal to me, so I have chosen not to reproduce those kinds of details.
I had also grown tired of the same old horizontal cradle displays. Wanting to display the collection all together, I decided to go with vertical stands. A few years back, I found an Etsy seller who had simple, no nonsense, clear acrylic stands - just what I was looking for. The bases flared out at the front though. I asked if he could do straight, parallel bases so that I could line the sabers up close together - he was accommodating with that request, and actually ended up offering that style in his store afterwards. Unfortunately his store is now closed. I also custom ordered an acrylic case, which was the largest that I had ever commissioned from a really great plastics company. They are sadly also no longer around.
Anyway, here they all are:
And here are each of the sabers, from left to right...
The mac daddy of all Graflexes (in my collection). Whenever I think "lightsaber," THIS is what I picture in my mind. It's the mintiest mint Graflex that I've ever owned.
Back in the day, I was in the habit of periodically upgrading my Graflexes - whenever I ran across a nicer example, I would acquire it and then sell off the one that it was replacing. This ultimately became my ANH version because it was the nicest one that I ended up with (this version being my favorite). And it's coincidentally also a Folmer. I bought it years before the discussion about the ANH Hero Graflex being a Folmer - I think it must have been 2009 or 2010 when I acquired it.
When I received it, it had a short knurl red button, but it had a Graflex Inc. style glass eye. First thing I did was swap out the button, and I picked up a vintage flat-rimmed Folmer glass eye (thick variant) in the Junkyard a few years ago. The bubble strip is authentic Exactra 20 and the grips are old Gino grips that I got from him way back when.
I bought one of the WannaWanga replica stamped sidebars, when those were eventually offered. I've purchased pretty much every iteration of parts that Roy has done over the years, ending up with the wonky "hand made" style D-ring clip and the improved 3D printed grip placement guide.
When it came time to finally re-work this saber once and for all, and re-do the D-ring and the placement of the grips, I ended up changing my mind and decided to use the symmetrical/idealized clip. Unfortunately, the mandrels on Roy's rivets ended up jamming in my pop rivet gun for some reason, and clearing them was a time-consuming pain. After the two in the D-ring, I really didn't relish the idea of having to go through that 4 more times... so I clipped the heads off of the rivets that go on the tube between the grips and stuck those on with a tiny bit of J-B Kwik epoxy.
This saber shares "favorite" status with the next one...
My real vintage parts Obi-Wan. I acquired it in its original form in 2009 from RPF member "Killdozer." He was the guy who identified the Browning ANM2 machine gun recoil booster piece. When I received it from him it was 99% complete - all I had to do was install the D-ring and the transistors.
Per my usual MO of upgrading... over the years I picked up a couple different machined plugs for mounting the balance pipe, a nicer Graflex clamp + Exactra bubble strip, a faucet knob that was in much better shape, and a couple different pairs of transistors and op amps with various different washers, ultimately acquiring a pair of Marconi ICs. I recently acquired yet another clamp (a Folmer) also with Marconi ICs, and I also recently swapped out the grenade (for the second time), before calling this one "done."
What became my ANH Vader was actually the second authentic MPP that I acquired (in 2012). I seem to recall that it was semi-complete when I received it, with D-ring installed and Gino grips cut and shaped, but not attached (or maybe partially attached... or perhaps poorly attached). I can't remember for sure, but I also believe that the clamp may have had a bubble strip that wasn't trimmed correctly.
I eventually swapped out the D-ring with a better-shaped WannaWanga ring, and replaced the bubble strip with an authentic Exactra 19 strip. The clamp sidebars were originally black, so I pulled them off, sandblasted them, and then buffed them with steel wool. I decided to forego the wonky nail repair to the clamp lever.
I just recently took another look at the grips, since the angles of the bevels never seemed exactly right to me. As I had suspected, they were a bit off (too acute). I had some extra WannaWanga Classic T-track on hand, so I cut some new grips from that. I know that if you look at the Chronicles pics, it would appear that no two angles on the grips are exactly alike. I knew that my OCD couldn't handle that, so I picked one grip to follow and made them all like that. I couldn't bring myself to make them all different lengths either, but I did follow the wonky, offset placement, as indicated in Roy's blueprint image.
Lastly, I decided to stick a piece of authentic Exactra circuit board under the bubble strip. Obviously there's no evidence that they may have done that, but I figured that it might be possible.
My ESB Graflex went through a couple metamorphoses over the years, with a few different parts swaps. It's a Graflex Inc. and it was previously my ANH Graflex. I know this prop had a couple different variants, so I guess I tried to emulate the Bespin version with my replica.
For its final upgrades a few years ago, I finally removed the beer tab and swapped out an old replica Kobold clamp with an authentic one (with a new D-ring from WannaWanga). Its previous Gino grips got replaced with a set of the pre-notched WannaWanga grips + screws. Roy provides both black and silver screws - I went with the black, but I sanded and buffed the finish down to bare metal and then dipped them into Birchwood Casey aluminum black. It's surprising how many different metals aluminum black will have some sort of an effect on. I then lightly buffed them again with steel wool.
Many years ago - in one of its previous iterations - it had the smaller secondary screws on the grips up at the clamp end. I left them off when I acquired the WannaWanga grips, and I've decided to stick with that.
Instead of using mylar tape on the clamp, I went with a strip of aluminum tape instead.
The final piece of the puzzle came in the form of a vintage C.P. Clare & Co. circuit board that I acquired from thd9791 a few years back - it was the closest to correct that I'd ever seen. I had collected a few different vintage boards over the years that would have been "close enough," but this was the best one yet. I feel confident in considering this one "done" as well.
My ESB/ROTJ Vader was the first authentic MPP that I acquired - I bought it from Neil Ellis in 2009 for 300 British Pounds. It wasn't exactly the best specimen - it had an odd clamp with no liner, a variant translucent white trigger button, and a variant endcap with the smooth-faced black plastic insert (same as my ANH Vader). It also had a hand-engraved part number from an RAF S92 ground camera kit hidden beneath the clamp:
At some point it had lost its bulb socket and "guts," so Neil had replaced them with those of a Heiland flash.
It did have a 1-step shroud though.
This has been the one saber that has gotten the most parts swaps over the longest period of time (just beating out my Obi-Wan).
I picked up one of the WannaWanga steel shroud replicas from Roy's first run, which came with a D-ring and thumbscrew. I swapped out the thumbscrew with his more accurate diamond knurl version later on. I ultimately ended up selling the original shroud to Nick Cline.
A few years later, someone offered me an authentic MPP clamp, which I gladly bought. It had black rectangular sidebars though, so I eventually ended up buying one of Roman's replica clamps with the correct trapezoidal bars and swapped them out.
Another piece that fell into place a bit later on was an authentic endcap with the correct 3-ring black plastic insert, which ironically came from Nick Cline. I think I paid about as much as I received from him for the shroud (he got the better deal).
The final pieces of the puzzle were an authentic bulb socket and bulb release assembly - with the correct black trigger button - which I acquired recently.
I used a WannaWanga wire set, but I switched out the blue and white wires for skinnier ones. The bubble strip is authentic TI-2000 and the blue Exactra circuit board is from Slothfurnace. The grips are WannaWanga's Classic T-track.
I decided to lean more towards idealized with this one, so no screws in the grips, and I went ahead and used VHT wrinkle paint on the shroud, which worked surprisingly well - I didn't even have to bake it to get nice tight wrinkles.
I think I probably bought just about every one of the early V2 kits - I actually finished the first one, but the others have gone untouched. When PoopaPapaPalps offered his sand-cast 4145/A alloy V2s last year, I knew that would be the end of the line for me - to have an example that was created using the same methods and out of the same material as the original prop was the ultimate in my mind... so of course I had to have one.
I opted for a fully finished one, and while I commend Brian for the effort that he put into it, I was honestly a bit underwhelmed by the finish work. I guess since no one had developed a set of paint stencils for these, he had chosen to do the paintwork by hand, with a brush. The results looked like... it had been done by hand... with a brush.
I immediately made plans to re-paint it, but before I did that I also wanted to get some different tones on the metal - for that, I did some experimentation with soaking individual parts in bleach + water solutions. I had paint stencils from both Trooper_trent and DaveP - I decided to go with Dave's, as they appeared to be a bit more comprehensive. As I had anticipated, I ran into a couple of issues with dimensional discrepancies, but I did workarounds with pieces of Frog tape when there happened to be gaps in the stencils. While I may not have gotten all of the stencils clocked 100% accurately, it all worked out, and I was much happier with the results.
It's got a vintage Graflex clamp with the original version of WannaWanga's clamp lever, a vintage finish Slothfurnace clamp card, an authentic Michell cone knob, a genuine NOS boot stud that I soaked in vinegar to age down, and a WannaWanga D-ring.
OK, you might be wondering what this one is doing in my collection, since there's already a V2 present (and this one isn't really a belt hanger).
Yeah, this one IS a bit of an outlier... and it's from a deleted scene for god's sake! But I wanted one of these mainly for nostalgic reasons. This is one of the sabers that appeared in the book From Star Wars to Indiana Jones: The Best of the Lucasfilm Archives, which was something of a revelation at the time that it came out (along with Star Wars Chronicles). I look back on those mid-1990s early internet days fondly, and this saber reminds me of that time.
Much like the V2, I've had a couple previous kits of this saber - I finished the first, but never got around to the other. This is the DaveP kit, and I knew that this would be the final one for me, much like Brian's V2. I had been waiting for the day that the circuit board "guts" inside the control box would finally be identified, and the remarkable detective work on that did not disappoint. Dave's design work and replication of those components (and the saber) also did not disappoint, and I was eager to tackle this one - not only would it make a nice replica, but it would also mean that I could finally complete my collection.
This one was a pretty straight-forward build, but I did swap out the brass angle pieces with some old, sharp-cornered K&S stock that I discovered at work. I also dug out the "old stock" vintage blue substrate circuit board that I had acquired from BRRogers a few years ago and used that. I ammonia fumed the brass rails and the copper on the board to age them down, and I used Ace Hardware 'Antique Gold' paint on the neck.
I had also picked up a WannaWanga Energy Matrix Dampener tool replica to go along with this saber - although it's a beautiful piece, the fact that every part of it is perfectly pristine and shiny kinda' bugged me. When I saw a vintage correct model DeVilbiss atomizer that had already been trimmed down in the Junkyard, I figured "ah, what the heck..." and snagged that, and then acquired a modern dental matrix retainer. Much better!
I cobbled together a simple "bracket" out of some scrap acrylic and a piece of acrylic rod, and attached it to the saber stand - the tool mounts to that for display alongside the saber.
If I remember correctly, I acquired my first Graflex in 1998. So it's been 26 years now... and I'm finally calling my saber collection "complete."
