Limited Run Vader stunt sabers kits! Barbican, Severed hand and ANH square shroud version

[eethan]

Project status update:

I'm sorry again for the delay for the Barbican and Severed hand version!
Finishing the square shroud first was a good and a bad idea, I am pretty tired after this long complex project and having to finish those sabers and paint them was both tiring and felt like a sort of ending in itself even though the whole project wasn't finished! Cumulated with the fact I had to do the Ahsoka ball 3D model for my wife while already trying to finish a big project, was a LOT.

Working on a big project like this means I had accumulated a good list of smaller projects and requests from other people, so I took the opportunity to tend to those as much as possible.

So, here comes the real project status update,

- I am basically done with the Ahsoka ball, it was a crazy thing, I'm very happy with the result and i'm glad this is finally done for me! This is the main big chunk out of my plate.
- I have restocked the RO-72 end caps and Kobold replacement tops on my website.
- I am very close to finishing my helmet and DL44 steel stands!

So, this means from this week end I am finally back full time on this project and finaly finishing it, hopefully soon!
I have started back this week working on a simpler part, the Severed hand D ring holders, this is simpler but it had to be done at some point and it is now done

There are a few scratches on the flat parts as those are from raw 4mm plates. i have tested to sand a few of those and still prefer the raw look. That means people can choose to give those a quick sand with 400 grit, keep them as is or paint them silver like I did on my prototype to get closer to the painted look of the original cast (main scratches are hidden by the turned part when installed)

 

[eethan]

Hi there,

big chunck finished today, all the body tubes are finished!
I'm very happy with the result, I measured preciselly each countersunk hole on my 3D model and matched the position and size exactly for each hole. It is slightly improved compared to my Barbican proto as I was given a better ref for the less visible front hole after my prototype was finished. The holes are very much spot on now!
(this is just a part of the Barbican ones below)

I have started drilling the long cores for the severed hand version, cleaning up the holes on the body so they fit nicelly and attaching them as well, looking nice

cheers all

 

[eethan]

Hey there,
small update tonight, the Barbican D ring holder parts.
For the prototype, I just milled this out of scrap I had, but the original is made from a 1/2"x1/4" extruded rectangle aluminium. This is hard to find in Europe, so I was initialy planning to do like my prototype. In the end, I found the proper size in the UK and received it a few days ago. It costed me more than normal aluminium, but this will be faster to produce and perfectly accurate to the original.

so, those just need to be cut to length, the top and sides will stay raw exactly like they came, exactly like the original. Then, I put them 15 at a time on the milling machine vice, surface the front:

then cut the front rounded corners:

then sand them still attached together on the vice to get a smoother transition like on the original:

and here we go, first step is finished:

after this, the front top edge will have to be rounded individually, then the 2 screw holes, then the D ring slot, then rounding the bottoms, still a bit of work!

cheers

 

[eethan]

Hi there,
update on progress

Barbican D ring holders are finished, forgot to take a pic! But they look cool and accurate to the prop with the 1/2"x1/4" rectangle stock bars

I have enlarged very slightly the inside of all the Barbican and Severed hand shrouds as I realized while assembling the square shrouds sabers that those were very adjusted to the body tubes. So I decided to give slightly more room for the following sabers

Severed hand long cores are finished and installed on all sabers/kits. And I have just finished to glue all the back plugs on the tubes tonight

there is still work to be done, especially on the shrouds, but items on my to do list are being checked nicelly
cheers all

 

[eethan]

Hello there,

more progress today, spent the morning cleaning up eventual glue spill outs at the bottom end caps, this takes forever!
then I installed all the Barbican cores exept for the weathered commisions. For the kits, those can be removed easily to be weathered as you like, I just prefered to install them and make sure each core fits nicelly and pack it as one object.
And tonight I also attached the second end cap onto the finished commisions. Those will not be attached for the kits so you can do what you want yourself. They are very easy to glue though, unlike the previous end caps I installed for you guys

you can see my to do list for the run at the bottom left here, (yes, I always write stuff to myself in English, it's just more convenient ahah) This is everything that is left to do for the run except the finished commisions. I have written the assembly to do list today, which is much longer, and started with the glued end caps

you can also see the Barbican numbers above, 27 kits, 5 accurate but pristine commisions and 8 accurate weathered commisions, 40 in total.

and, since I forgot to take pics of the D ring holders yesterday, here they are

 

[StarDoctor]

Hello there,

more progress today, spent the morning cleaning up eventual glue spill outs at the bottom end caps, this takes forever!
then I installed all the Barbican cores exept for the weathered commisions. For the kits, those can be removed easily to be weathered as you like, I just prefered to install them and make sure each core fits nicelly and pack it as one object.
And tonight I also attached the second end cap onto the finished commisions. Those will not be attached for the kits so you can do what you want yourself. They are very easy to glue though, unlike the previous end caps I installed for you guys

View attachment 1765560
you can see my to do list for the run at the bottom left here, (yes, I always write stuff to myself in English, it's just more convenient ahah) This is everything that is left to do for the run except the finished commisions. I have written the assembly to do list today, which is much longer, and started with the glued end caps

you can also see the Barbican numbers above, 27 kits, 5 accurate but pristine commisions and 8 accurate weathered commisions, 40 in total.

and, since I forgot to take pics of the D ring holders yesterday, here they are
View attachment 1765561
View attachment 1765562
View attachment 1765563

These look excellent! Will you be offering these as individual items or only with the kits?

 

[eethan]

These look excellent! Will you be offering these as individual items or only with the kits?

thank you, I have 4 extras D ring holders for now that I can put on the website when I release everything
I should have also a few extra end caps, severed hand D ring holders and my accurate resin printed activation boxes as well.

 

[StarDoctor]

thank you, I have 4 extras D ring holders for now that I can put on the website when I release everything
I should have also a few extra end caps, severed hand D ring holders and my accurate resin printed activation boxes as well.

Thank you!! I will keep my eyes peeled then

 

[Halliwax]

The craftsmanship is like nothing I’ve seen… you are an artist sir

 

[eethan]

The craftsmanship is like nothing I’ve seen… you are an artist sir

Thank you Halliwax, that is very kind

alright, today, I worked on the Severed hand knurled thumbscrews!
Knurling is always hell for me. I managed as best I could when doing the prototype, I did 3 of those and chose the best one, knowing it would be hell for the run!
I spent the morning testing again as it wasn't working well again, I tried with normal aluminium, brass, aviation aluminium, always crap result!

so, got tired of failing with the lathe and decided to go ahead and mill the knurling instead. it took me forever but at least the result looks "industrial" which is what I want for that part!
Once again, I took too much time but the result is worth it. I hope you guys will like all the parts, i'm really trying my best even though I know I am crazy delayed and I am so sorry for this!

Before/after

prototype saber/production saber

(damn, can you believe those set screws look cast? never thought this was done like this! crazy macro photo!)

cheers all

 

[OlivierC]

wait, you milled each line, one at time ?

 

[eethan]

wait, you milled each line, one at time ?

yes ahah! 45 lines. I'll have to do a second rod tomorrow as this one was only long enough for 11 knurled thumbscrews.
this is starting to be a habbit for me though. when I did the Relby K23 run, the gear parts were much much worse! and I did so many of those!

and also those! that people need more of and i'm too scared to start doing again!

cheers Oliver

 

[eethan]

Drilling them crooked holes for the Dring holders

all those holes on the sabers are so out of alignement, it's scary
Same for the Barbicans tomorrow!

 

[Boba Flint]

Love seeing your WIP pics.

 

[eethan]

Hello there,

well, it looks like I have 19 photos to show today! (after choosing from 32, went a bit crazy today!)
I have started working weathering parts for the assembled and weathered Barbican commissions.
There will be 40 Barbicans in total on this run. 27 kits, 8 assembled/weathered sabers, 5 assembled/pristine sabers.

I am working hard to offer something really exceptional for the weathered commisions for people that will get those trying to be as close to the original with as much as a natural weathering as possible.

I started with the cores this morning, did 5 different passes of chemicals to get to a result I was really happy with:

I then applied diluted aluminium black to the bottom of the sabers, to reproduce the look of the Barbican today, add dirtiness and contrast into the details of the parts.
(first set of photos are extreme close ups in a particular light setup, the next set of photos shows a little less extreme weathering that is more accurate to what your eye will see in reality.)

this shows the difference between a pristine and weathered bottom:

pristine and weathered core:

additionaly, the pristine sabers have a nicelly cleaned up countersunk holes whereas the weathered have a prop-accurate unclean holes:

after this, I spent a good amount of time applying several passes of weathering to the body tubes to get as close as possible to what can be seen on the prop, some wire wool swirling. a pass of diluted aluminium black applied with the wire wool, some drying on the chemney, some cleanup. the result is a slightly less shiny aluminium with swirl marks and some "water spots" and dull areas created with the aluminium black. I'm really happy with the realistic result

I hope you guys like it, I'm working hard to get as accurate as possible

I have decided i'll go all the way for the weathered commisions and will be painting the clamps with a weathered satin black as can be seen on the prop:

cheers all!

 

[cdyoung]

Wow, eethan! Both the pristine and weathered parts look amazing. Again, wonderful work. Thanks for keeping the excitement for this run alive with your progress photos and updates.

 

[thd9791]

Wow! Matthieu you are such a talented prop weather-er on top of a machinist! How did you get those thumbscrews to looks cast?

The brass cores look EXACTLY like the prop too, my gosh

 

[eethan]

Wow! Matthieu you are such a talented prop weather-er on top of a machinist! How did you get those thumbscrews to looks cast?

The brass cores look EXACTLY like the prop too, my gosh

thank you Tom!
ahah, no sorry, this was a mis-communication on the set screws, they are set screws that I bought and threaded into my own machined knurled cylinders. I was just communicating my own surprise seing that industrial set screws were actually cast and not machined. I was realising this thanks to the macro photo, you can't tell with bare eyes.
in short, i did the machined knurled parts but I bought the screws ahah
cheers

 

[eethan]

Quick update + Timing update at the end.

I have finally started one of the last steps on the shrouds, those damn round corners!
this is using the two jigs I did 4 times while prototyping, they each hold the shrouds at a very precise position to cut each round corner on both sides.
I have started with the first corner and am about half way done with those. Then i need to do the other side, the side where the round corner ends slightly angled. Believe me, those are a pain.

At this point, i should stop trying to estimate when i'll be finished as I have made so many wrong estimates already, i'm so sorry for all the delays! Life is crazy and such a big project turned out to be impossible to finish on time for me in the end! It will be a huge lesson for me and I hope I can start future big runs with more experience and be more predictable for you guys! It has been a very stressfull past few months for me knowing you guys were waiting on me and I sincerely can't appologize enough.

Still, I think I'll be finished with all the kits around the 15th of December, but there will still be work to be done for the finished sabers.
The month of December is obviously not ideal to be releasing a big run, but at the same time, it won't be ideal for me either that basically half of my year income has to be postponed to next year... So we will see what we can do... I'll try my best to finish the kits for the 15th and will probably get in touch with people from there to see if they want kits, finished sabers, if they can pay right away or not... We will figure it out when the time comes and see how much we can fit into the last days of 2023 or not!

This is mainly to let people know that despite the crazy delays, we are finaly closing in on the release and since this run is very demanded, I will work with you all, but it would be good if you could start planning moneywise to be ready when the sabers are released. I repeat, I will work with you and understand I am delayed and it is my fault, no worries

Regarding costs, like I said from the start, I will only know how much the finished sabers actually cost when they are actually finished.
but, here is what we know already:
- Square shroud kit: 139€
- Severed hand kit: 199€
- Barbican kit: 199€
- Finished Square shroud saber: 345€
It would be safe to assume the finished Severed hand/Barbican sabers will be between 400-500€
shipping costs are additional.

Thank you all for your patience and for staying with me, we are close!

 

[3251bimmer]

Delays happen… thank you eethan for your continued updates and based on the quality of the first 4 hilts I received, I can’t imagine everyone on the run will be anything but pleased