Kenobi ANH Sabre Question and comment

[gavidoc]

For a couple of weeks now, there has been reports of high res pics that some members of this forum have seen.

In those photos, they have stated that the emitter was welded/soldered onto the grenade stem.

Now, my only question about this is as follows....

People are saying that the stem above the windvane is indeed shinier then the rest of the stem. Now, to solder something, it's obvious that one must heat the objects up.

You heat brass up and it patinas. Gives it a nice used look. It's obvious that the actual emitter was more then likely not aluminum since you can't solder aluminum. From the brightness of the mentioned area that people say is welded, it is a bright color which indicates solder.

Now, if the emitter was soldered onto the stem of the grenade, then how is it that the stem is so bright when compared to the rest?

Roman says the stem was covered by the grenade sleeve. I believe this. But, considering the budget that ANH was on, I don't see Bapty (or someone on the crew for that matter) taking the time to polish the area back to its original state.

NOt only would that be time consuming, but difficult since you would have to do it by hand.

Here is a picture of the area in question.

http://gavidoc1.virtualave.net/images/sabre/kenobianh/mechanemitter.jpg

I'm sitting here looking at my grenade stem and the emitter and was trying to figure out how to solder them together when the above revelation came to me.

It is my belief that the area in question is not solder but an adhesive of some type, perhaps JB WEld or even epoxy that has come out when they inserted the stem into the emitter.

[Darth Hez]

I'll check my pics, and see what can be seen...

[a302nsyd]

The handwheel, to me, appears to be epoxied on.....looks like the handwheel was filled with epoxy before being attached to the gear and the rest of the saber.

Roman was right....you should believe him ;) :lol:

Regarding the emitter, I'm guessing that the windvane and emitter are torn/banged up in that area due to the welding/soldering/epoxying or whatever.

Keep in mind that the emitter may be in 2 or more parts, and that the base part could've been attached to the stem via whatever method, and then the rest of the emitter installed and tightened down in some fashion.

I agree, I doubt they polished it back to its original luster, if in fact welding would cause the brass to patina heavily. But, it's not super shiney there in that area, but it's shinier than the rest of the stem....so I'm still thinking it was soldered/welded and that the patina effect just wasn't very bad.



Intriguing...
cdw

[ragacin]

Gav, who has seen/has the pics? Email me, I'd like to see them.

[Darth Hez]

Well, from what I can gather, there does appear to be a patina on the stem. Its nowhere near as dark as the part below the windvane, but it doesn't look bright and shiny.

I'm not sure about it having been welded now I look hard at it. Unfortunately, I'm not an expert on welding, so I'd be hard pushed to tell, but I'd guess at soldered. Pretty sloppily, but again, it looks pretty arkward.

[Romans Empire]

Now I'm not proposing a theory... BUT...

What if they actually did use a threaded rod (like we do), and there's just GUNK under the emitter?

FYI, the threaded rods I'm using on my MK1 sabers also fit through my #3 Grenade & stem.

Just a thought... :)

[Darth Hez]

I'm guessing a dirty gunk would be a much darker colour. Its looks much more like a light shade, such as excess solder might make. Could even be epoxy like Cliff suggested. It wasn't as if that saber had to hold a blade, so epoxy would have done a perfectly acceptable job of holding the emitter in place.

[hiyata99]

If indeed the piece was soldered they probably used some flux. Don't know about the rest of you but when I sweat 2 peices of pipe together you wind up with a bit of a mess with flux coating the area. What I usually do is take a cloth and wipe it off then take an abrasive like sandpaper or 3m cloth and go over it....then I wipe it with a cloth once again. Takes all of 30 seconds to do that. That could explain the bright brass. Not to mention you DON"T want to get gunk on Mr. Guiness's hands!

Now, if they epoxied it or used an adhesive you would want to clean off the area anyway and using an abrasive substance would be the fastest way. ....again left with shiny brass.

I have believed for some time now that the emitter is 2 or more pieces that are joined together....then somehow attached...either by welding / sweating or by adhesion. All parts of the emitter except the front flange area are made from a fairly thin metal or tubing. I think part of that piece are plumbing pieces though they may not be "common" stock.

[gavidoc]

I don't think it was welding. Two different metals are hard to weld together.

As to whether or not they soldered it. Yes you have to clean a part for it to be soldered together. YEs you get flux all over the place, but, why clean up the flux and not the extra solder?

During lunch I went to a welding shop and showed them the emitter shot above. I've got that at 300 dpi so the resolution was good.

The guy working there said that it didn't look like the thing was soldered. His comment, "Nah, the brass is too shiny."

I'm still thinking epoxy or something simple like that.

Again, the whole soldering idea doesn't fit in with how the ANH props were made.

Everything was thrown together with out the slightest thought to what they looked like.

ANH HEro blaster missing a disk, Vader sabre and Luke sabre being flashguns, the stunt Kenobi made out of wood. Everything was done in a hurry and using some glue to slap that sucker on the front is a lot quicker then soldering it.

Then you gotta clean the metal, position the solder, and as some of you are thinking, clean the freaking metal afterwards.

Story doesn't jive IMO. Just like the supposed custom made heatsink as the gear.

[hiyata99]

Personally I think adhesive is more likely, but I wouldn't count the solder out. There was a reason to clean it up. Flux is acidic and solder can be sharp if there is an excess and a piece breaks off. I am sure Guiness would have complained if he had a rash on his had or cut it. I think it is still possible but I still lean towards the adhesive theory.


BTW, what kind of adhesive was hanging around in 1974-75?

[lonepigeon]

On the emitter, I'm not too sure about the attachment method either. The piece does look pretty beat up like many of the parts on that saber (ie - top of windvane and top of clamp) like they took a strong clamp/vise or pliers/wrench to those sections. Just something to consider.

The "gear" custom heat sink theory- I didn't buy this one much either at first, but I did come to a satisfactory explanation. I believe that the heat sink was custom for it's real electronics application aka whatever they ripped it out of. The propbuilders didn't make it, some electronics technician did - they just scavenged it from something possibly what they pulled the transistors/capacitors/buttons from. I'm still not certain that it is a heat sink, but I think it's certainly plausible especially with all the other electronic parts used- LED bubble displays, Hengstler counters etc.
The gear is still possible- I haven't seen anything that convinces me either way for certain.

[obee1]

Hengstler counters..........??


where were those used?


I am in agreement on the clamp/vise theory, The base of the emitter has some dark areas where the materail appears to have been crimped and is not being hit by light. I am not ruling out solder or adhesive.....but i do think it was crimped

[obiwan shinobi]

Hengstler counters..........??


where were those used?

they were used on the Stormtrooper rifles

[Darth Hez]

The small slanted sections on the emitter were certainly crimped, and not very evenly at that. Again, looks just like a rush job.