Obi Wan's Lightsaber from A New Hope 26 August 2014
This is a project which I usually stay away from; building a prop using someone else's machined parts. In this case, the Obi Wan lightsaber is supposed to be exactly, as made for the movie, and this one is. The LS was originally constructed using a WW1 Mark III rifle-launched grenade, a Browning machine gun booster, a kitchen sink handle, a component from a Rolls Royce aircraft engine, the bubble strip atop a calculator, and a Graflex flash handle. Obtaining these components from original sources would take a person years and cost a bundle, so I turned to machinists around the world who have the component dimensions and can produce replicas at a reasonable cost. I only needed to build the coupling systems to make it a lightsaber. I do not have any progress pictures, so here it is...
Aside from the couplings, I had to finish the pineapple looking thing (which I bought from rbreplicas.com) which is the principle bad guy in the rifle propelled grenade. I chose to Parkerize the steel as I had no experience with this process and I wanted a dark grey color. Parkerizing is well documented on youtube, so I only needed to obtain some manganese dioxide and phosphoric acid. I did the parkerizing in my crockpot, and it took three hours.
The emitter, the business end of the lightsaber, was originally built from a Rolls Royce engine component, and mine was turned by Romanprops.com. The emitter is steel, so I polished it to keep it from rusting easily.
They say, that if you have to ask why, you would not understand the answer.
The emitter, the business end of the lightsaber, was originally built from a Rolls Royce engine component, and mine was turned by Romanprops.com. The emitter is steel, so I polished it to keep it from rusting easily.
They say, that if you have to ask why, you would not understand the answer.