slothfurnace's ESB Graflex

[theJUDGE]

i have seen your other two build threads and they were absolutely great to follow and read about. Now you are doing an ESB luke as well and i am excited to see how it turns out, it is one of my favorite original trilogy sabers of all time . Cant wait to see the finished product

[Rhyen Skytracker]

I just got a Nikon S3000 Coolpix camera. My main issue now it lighting. I need to get me a floor lamp with a cool white bulb now. Or something like that.

[Ronan]

I just got a Nikon S3000 Coolpix camera. My main issue now it lighting. I need to get me a floor lamp with a cool white bulb now. Or something like that.

Table top light + one of those spiral bulbs that are energy efficient (they are cool in color and to the touch).

Don't forget to adjust your White Balance.

[slothfurnace]

Here we have the pieces together, sans D ring and grip screws. Along with it's older brother.



Speaking of grip screws, I believe I will add those now. First, I had to trim out some of the rubber around the holes drilled in the grips. They were not perfectly aligned left to right, so I had to widen them slightly. I also used my scribe to dot in where my centerpoint for the holes will be, it's that barely visible indentation on the metal under the rubber. This is where my screw hole will be drilled, and I made sure they were the correct distance to the back of the hilt with my micrometer.



Now comes a picky step, making sure the holes are drilled properly each time. I set my clamp to close up just outside a grip strip, and put some tape down to keep things from scratching. The metal tube sits on the vice claws, and that keeps it level, and aligned. On my tape, I marked the spot where I slide the grip back to with a pencil.



Once the holes are drilled, and all the shavings cleaned off, I tap them out with the 6-32 tap, making sure to keep it level and straight. One tip here is to not let it tap all the way, to let the screw work a little harder to get in there in the end, that is if you're doing what I am doing, and not using the nuts that came with the screws. The reason I am doing that is that my chassis from the ANH saber will fit in here, and I can't have all those nuts and screws taking up room, or else the battery can won't slide in. This also means I have to shorten my screws at some point, but that's not too hard.



Once I have the grip screws tapped and installed, I come to the replica Kobold Flash D ring assembly. This piece almost fits flush against the hilt, but I will have to file off the corners a bit to get it to fit better.



Taking a pic of this was hard, so parden the slight blurriness, but this is how I mark where the holes will be for the D ring mount. I press in with my scribe to get it "ballparked" then go in and measure and make corrections. Once I am satisfied with where my holes will go, I drill, tap and install the D ring mount.



I had a minor calamity when assembling this, but nothing a slight burr off with the dremel can't fix. But word to the wise, measure twice, cut once, MAKE SURE what you're about to do is lined up properly. I accidentally indexed my D ring incorrectly, but it was fixable without any exterior clue as to what happened.



Here is a shot of the hilt with most of the exterior pieces installed. I lack the PCB Card strip that goes in the clamp, and once I get a little further along, I'll order the blade adapter and machine it to fit my chassis, get a new pololu latching switch for this setup, and this little fellow will be done! (Until I decide to do more) Stay tuned, more to come!

[Ronan]

What a mistake... oh la la!!!!!!!!!!

[slothfurnace]

Well, the other day, I was digging through my junk bin and ran across this Sun microsystems PCboard from 1984. I had salvaged this and several other like it from an old auto diagnostic machine they threw out at the auto shop in high school. Meaning, I have been hanging on to this since 1993. Not sure why, but I am glad I did, because this particular PC board had the required wide connection strips that would put 13 evenly spaced in my graflex clamp. The original prop had a section of PC board from a Hewlett Packard I/O BUS card with these wide strips tapering to thin narrow traces. The original had them tapering straight. This card, unfortunately doesn't have straight traces coming off the connector points, but it will do untill I find another one, and best of all, it is free!



A quick visit to Dremel Land and I have the required 13 strips cut out. I know the original didn't have the green soldermask silkscreened onto it, but this will work for now, like I say.



And here it is installed, next to the licensed Master Replicas scaled version of this saber. I am pretty darned close...

[Ronan]

Hey bud, i have an extra card pins thingy coming in with my order.

Shoot me an e-mail if interested or grab me on MSN.

[RevengeoftheSeth]

The custom card is a nice touch and I think it adds unique character to say that it is yours. But I'm sure you are going for 100% accurate, though?

[Skottsaber]

I like both cards, actually. If you want supreme accuracy then go for the proper one, but I don't mind the look of the "custom" one.

[psab keel]

Hey Slothfurnace!

It's always a pleasure to follow your builds. I love the ingenuity and fantastic pictures!