FOUND PART ? Gauntlet missile

I don't know. I wish I knew what the actual material was... all I know is that it is some type of semi flexible (and obviously moldable) plastic. So far we know the rotJ stunt cod, the stunt helmet and the leia bikini were made from it. Now I believe the rocket tip on the AoSW/C4 rocket was also made from it. That is all I have on it. :(
 
Knowing that touring suits for displays are often interchanged, the rocket pic from C4 could be an ESB production rocket? Or is that a Captain Obvious statement?
 
I am not sure I completely follow you. From what I have seen, we never see the red plastic before RotJ, so IF that is red plastic, then I would think it would be RotJ era, probably made specifically for the stunt scenes.

As far as ESB "production" for the most part, all of the Fett costumes were made at roughly the same time, and have just been reused and refitted. My thought would be that the rocket from MoM (which to me appears to be all metal) is more likely a candidate for the ESB rocket than the C4/AoSW rocket. That is just my thoughts though, not fact.
 
Count Dookie,

To what do you attribute the red base color that appears to be UNDER the copper color in the circled areas? I am saying the red plastic because I don't know what else it would be, but I am totally open to other theories!

Good thread so far... lots of cool info being shared.(y)

and Art after speaking with my machinest, Both of them, I got the opinion from them that what you are seeing (the discoloration) is simply the Lacquer chipping off...which would make sense as a finishing technique and would explain the non-corrosion IF indeed it is copper.

And I have to agree with Dookie, Machined.(y)
 
I'm not of the opinion that the missile is at all plastic, nor do I subscribe to the theory that the front is copper. It may be that the original design was made with a plastic part or two (or the entire thing) and it did indeed keep breaking; it's probably a worthwhile exercise to see if anyone can find anything definitive. Regardless, since Art has seen the machinist drawing, I would speculate that the missile is entirely metal (aluminum)now.

I don't know if it's already been discussed, but is it possible the red we are seeing is just a primer that was used before the actual paint was applied?? In my dealings with paints, primers tend to 'stay' on material much longer than the paints that are applied over them. I'm not sure how involved the wardrobe and special effects personnel would be with proper painting techniques (production processes tend to be sloppy), but I haven't seen any resin or vac formed production pieces made with red material. Usually it's cheap milky-offwhite resin and white/black for the vac formed pieces...again to reduce costs.
 
Count Dookie,

To what do you attribute the red base color that appears to be UNDER the copper color in the circled areas? I am saying the red plastic because I don't know what else it would be, but I am totally open to other theories!

Sorry, it still looks like tarnished copper to me. Given the relatively similar color temperature and flash on the two pics you provided, I'd really expect those peeling areas to look much darker. The resin on the Leia bikini looks light to me maybe because most of the surfaces are facing the flash and the object is thin. Quick sketch attached:

resin-vs-copper.jpg
 
I am not sure I completely follow you. From what I have seen, we never see the red plastic before RotJ, so IF that is red plastic, then I would think it would be RotJ era, probably made specifically for the stunt scenes.

As far as ESB "production" for the most part, all of the Fett costumes were made at roughly the same time, and have just been reused and refitted. My thought would be that the rocket from MoM (which to me appears to be all metal) is more likely a candidate for the ESB rocket than the C4/AoSW rocket. That is just my thoughts though, not fact.

I made an error in my post. I was wondernig if the missle with the possible red plastic/etc was screen used or a tour model only.
 
I'm not of the opinion that the missile is at all plastic, nor do I subscribe to the theory that the front is copper. It may be that the original design was made with a plastic part or two (or the entire thing) and it did indeed keep breaking; it's probably a worthwhile exercise to see if anyone can find anything definitive. Regardless, since Art has seen the machinist drawing, I would speculate that the missile is entirely metal (aluminum)now.

I don't know if it's already been discussed, but is it possible the red we are seeing is just a primer that was used before the actual paint was applied?? In my dealings with paints, primers tend to 'stay' on material much longer than the paints that are applied over them. I'm not sure how involved the wardrobe and special effects personnel would be with proper painting techniques (production processes tend to be sloppy), but I haven't seen any resin or vac formed production pieces made with red material. Usually it's cheap milky-offwhite resin and white/black for the vac formed pieces...again to reduce costs.

Some really good thoughts and coming from someone with your experience, greatly appreciated. I am going to try to do some comparisons of the MoM rocket to the AoSW/CIV rocket a little later because in my opinion, they are totally different. Different material, different paint, different weathering.

You also may have a good point about a primer... Maybe it is primer. I certainly can't be sure.

However, in regard to there being no production used pieces made of the red material... there are. I don't know how else to say it. I will be glad to post pics if needed. The stunt helmets are red. There is even someone in the SU community who owns an unfinished one, and it is red too. The leia bikini is red. And thanks to recent photos, we see that the cod from Boba's stunt scene is also red. So while I would agree that usually, red wouldn't be used... for whatever reason, in RotJ, they seemed to have a lot of it to throw around.
 
As far as the photo distortion in color. Its true that the CCD is the "retina" of the camera, like the film in a traditional camera. However that's not where the "guessing" or distortion happens. The distortion happens in the conversion to digital format. Like as N-E-Fett said, if the file goes to JPEG, you will get "guessing" as that is the very nature of JPEG compression. it averages all the surrounding pixel colors, and drops out the ones within a certain tolerance. That how it gets the file size reduction-by throwing out information. However, if your photos are shot in RAW mode, your file will include ALL the information the CCD sees. the conversion process to TIFF is a lossless format. I know this is a bit off topic, but relavent to the discussion at large. :D
 
Sorry, it still looks like tarnished copper to me. Given the relatively similar color temperature and flash on the two pics you provided, I'd really expect those peeling areas to look much darker. The resin on the Leia bikini looks light to me maybe because most of the surfaces are facing the flash and the object is thin. Quick sketch attached:

Not sure I quite follow you on the Leia Bikini, but I will concede that it is possible you are right on the rocket. I still think it is possibly the red plastic, but you are wearing me down. :lol:
 
I'm not of the opinion that the missile is at all plastic, nor do I subscribe to the theory that the front is copper. It may be that the original design was made with a plastic part or two (or the entire thing) and it did indeed keep breaking; it's probably a worthwhile exercise to see if anyone can find anything definitive. Regardless, since Art has seen the machinist drawing, I would speculate that the missile is entirely metal (aluminum)now.

I don't know if it's already been discussed, but is it possible the red we are seeing is just a primer that was used before the actual paint was applied?? In my dealings with paints, primers tend to 'stay' on material much longer than the paints that are applied over them. I'm not sure how involved the wardrobe and special effects personnel would be with proper painting techniques (production processes tend to be sloppy), but I haven't seen any resin or vac formed production pieces made with red material. Usually it's cheap milky-offwhite resin and white/black for the vac formed pieces...again to reduce costs.

I guess my next Question would be, to all that don't think the tip is copper..... "Then what is it??":confused
To me it's easy to say what it's Not, but to say it's not copper and then not show rash or reason is kinda like me saying "it is copper without a doubt".... did that make sense? :lol:

Personally after revisiting a ton of ref photos with my machinest, I'm starting to lean toward copper plating... either way the finish is copper, no doubt there.(y)
 
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The way a CCD is configured, and I've been out of the camera retail biz for about 3 years so I'm sure technology has changed but anyways, a CCD is a giant grid of pixels and each pixel can only see 1 color, and there is empty space between pixels so there is some interpretation going on even in a raw file.


Spidey brings up a good point about the discoloration being the clear coat chipping off. The question is chipping off of what, metal? plastic?

There's discussion about what the red plastic is going on in at least 1 other thread, it's in the thread in the announcements section about behind the scenes pictures. It's definately used in several pieces, mostly stunt pieces or items that needed to be hard but still flexable such as the metal bikini. I think someone even had a good suggestion as to what the material is...
 
I guess my next Question would be, to all the don't think the tip is copper..... "Then what is it??":confused

Keep in mind, I am only saying this about the AoSW/C4 rocket... and I am slowly being dissuaded. The MoM rocket seems to be straight up metal to me. Maybe this one is too and I am just not seeing it.
 
If you look at the black tip area in front of the copper part, there appears to be some small red areas visible too.
 
The way a CCD is configured, and I've been out of the camera retail biz for about 3 years so I'm sure technology has changed but anyways, a CCD is a giant grid of pixels and each pixel can only see 1 color, and there is empty space between pixels so there is some interpretation going on even in a raw file.


Spidey brings up a good point about the discoloration being the clear coat chipping off. The question is chipping off of what, metal? plastic?

There's discussion about what the red plastic is going on in at least 1 other thread, it's in the thread in the announcements section about behind the scenes pictures. It's definately used in several pieces, mostly stunt pieces or items that needed to be hard but still flexable such as the metal bikini. I think someone even had a good suggestion as to what the material is...

Good point... I build models of tanks and aicraft and I can tell you from experience plastic since it has alot of micro scopic holes tends to retain paint as dose Resin, thus paint will normally scratch off then chip off. Metal on the other hand is smooth and retains less holes, and in the binding process of paint it can cause chips thus exposing the metal below. The question is what was this perticular part made of if this is found it might help fill the gaps to this question..
 
Here is a similar effect happening on Leia's bikini.

After staring at the pic of the Bikini where the paint came off, I honestly do not think this is the same color we are looking at of those guantlet spots. I am to believe that paint does not stick great to the red plastic compound, because there are alot of pics where you can see the paint just disappeared. I would say that atleast the back of the AOSW rocket is machined, from the pic in post #26.

If this is indeed a custom machined piece, I have a hard time believing that they machined it, then molded it, made a plastic copy and kept using plastic ones even though they would break frequently. It would make more sense to me if they had found a model piece, they would have used that and made machined copys due to the plastic ones breaking. Or they costume machined a rocket and made plastics copys, along with machined ones and switched back and forth. People were crazy back in the 70's :wacko
 
My only thought on that would lie in one of two directions... machine a master and then cast it because it is cheaper... or IF there are plastic ones, they were made for the stunt scenes where the metal rockets might hurt the actors... the fact of the matter is, I am REALLY reaching into speculation here and don't have much proof. Maybe, as has been said, the reddish color isn't the same as the leia bikini and maybe it isn't plastic at all. Sure looks that way to me, but I have been wrong before and may be wrong here.
 
wait... wait... I think I am on to something.... In the initial post, Simon Fett said Jeremy stated that the rocket kept breaking... and we know that is true, because we SEE a broken rocket in the stunt scenes! The body is there but the head is gone! So, while I stand by the info I posted above in regard to the piece being machined, I didn't want to be dismissive of Simon's work or Jeremy's word... so I went back and looked and check out what I found thanks to a super clear image the Got Maul took at CIV.

Check the photo below and then read on...

So... is anyone else seeing the RED PLASTIC that is seen on the Fett stunt cod, the Fett stunt helmets and Leia's bikini?!? I would argue that at least THIS rocket tip is not metal at all (I do think the back part and the aluminum tip are metal). Maybe only one or a few masters were made and they were too heavy so they went to a plastic casting. Either way, I am pretty convinced this one is the same red plastic we see elsewhere.

Sounds right to me...but what about them breaking then???
 
If this was indeed the inspiration for the Boba rocket, then perhaps the whole thing was never intended to be a rocket, but a mini rocket bay just like the real deal. Of course that has nothing to do with the discussion at hand, but forever there has been the debate of calling it a laser or rocket or missle or something else. Maybe in the SW universe it was supposed to fire mini rockets or projectiles.

I like this theory as well. Would make the hose connected to the back of the "rocket" in certain costume versions, make a little more sense(y)
 
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