Ord Mantell's ESB build

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The new ESB flamethrower is phenomenal. Without a doubt, one of the finest reproduction Fett piece ever produced. It certainly makes every attempt at the flamethrower that came before look like a toy. There was a terrific team of talented people who made this possible: ConvergenceProp, Keegan, MinuteFett, Jurassic_Fett, Deancfh, boba87fett.

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I think the first conversation I ever had with Dana was about the flamethrower :lol:. He's been thinking about it for decades. And it shows in the final piece. He'll post a full write-up on this new flamethrower with lots of great info soon.

It's funny -- by itself it looks so small, and it is MUCH smaller than any other version ever made, but when on the gauntlet, especially the photogrammetry gauntlet above, it all just works beautifully. All so incredibly accurate.

Here are some comparisons with my old modified Fettpride flamethrower:

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Just like with the FP armor, I can't look at the FP flamethrower anymore without projectile vomiting.

Thrilled to finally be able to move forward with the complete re-do of my ESB gauntlets, which has been in the planning for the past year now. Been worth the wait.

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Update on the Cod/Kidney hook & eye attachments​


As I mentioned yesterday in my PP2 build, a newly discovered photograph of the hardware used to connect the cod thong to the kidney plate helped me feel more confident about my choice of hardware, the Newey's hook & eye set.

a close-up from the new photo:

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the Newey's vintage hook & eyes:

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Just an hour ago, Cantina Dude informed me other OT costumes used this brand and size as well as other sizes, so it seems incredibly likely these were what was put on the Fett costumes as well. This size matches well with what I see in the new photo:

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So I installed my ESB hook and eye as they appear on the PP1, with the 'eye' on the end of the elastic thong and the hook attached to the kidney plate.

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Happy to report a discovery of sorts as a result of the research led by Deancfh on the chest lights. The correct vintage 7-segment display I sent him had some unique properties which very neatly explain all the remaining unexplained weirdness we see of the chest lights in the film and production photos -- mainly regarding the range of brightnesses of the display segments.

Below you can see how the displays are not lit the same brightness. We know now thanks to Dean's research, the 88888 freeze is likely the result of the battery running low. But that didn't really explain the different brightnesses, especially the large differences between the second and fourth digits.

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We can now safely say the reason is the design of the displays themselves. They are quite different than anything available today or even shortly after the late 70's. To put it bluntly, they're a pretty crappy design.

Below is a typical 7 segment display and how they look when lit:

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This is the correct vintage type:

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Look how uneven the bars are lit. Right away we can see why these displays look uneven on the originals. Each segment has only one tiny bulb which isn't diffused enough to light the whole segment properly.

Then something really cool happened. Not only were they looking dim and uneven, the effect can be compounded when multiple displays are added. In the pic below, the 'U' is the vintage display. Notice how the bottom of the U is so much dimmer here after another display is added:

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Look familiar?
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These displays are terrible. But from day one I wanted my display to look like scene 371, as in the first pic with the frozen 88888 and a terribly unevenly lit display. I had a plan all along to get that look with tricks, but we don't need tricks anymore. We know how it was done, thanks to Dean. However, right now we are speculating maybe for the ESB, that fourth bright digit was maybe another manufacturer version thrown in by happenstance. We don't know for sure. The answer may come from getting a complete set of the those rare vintage 7 segment displays and wiring them up.

And also... this...

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What are those you ask? Correct vintage bar displays that go above the digits. This is what the correct ones look like. Will be interesting to see how these things look when lit up.
 
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Happy to report a discovery of sorts as a result of the research led by Deancfh on the chest lights. The correct vintage 7-segment display I sent him had some unique properties which very neatly explain all the remaining unexplained weirdness we see of the chest lights in the film and production photos -- mainly regarding the range of brightnesses of the display segments.

Below you can see how the displays are not lit the same brightness. We know now thanks to Dean's research, the 88888 freeze is likely the result of the battery running low. But that didn't really explain the different brightnesses, especially the large differences between the second and fourth digits.

View attachment 237888

We can now safely say the reason is the design of the displays themselves. They are quite different than anything available today or even shortly after the late 70's. To put it bluntly, they're a pretty crappy design.

Below is a typical 7 segment display and how they look when lit:

View attachment 237889

This is the correct vintage type:

View attachment 237890

Look how uneven the bars are lit. Right away we can see why these displays look uneven on the originals. Each segment has only one tiny bulb which isn't diffused enough to light the whole segment properly.

Then something really cool happened. Not only were they looking dim and uneven, the effect can be compounded when multiple displays are added. In the pic below, the 'U' is the vintage display. Notice how the bottom of the U is so much dimmer here after another display is added:

View attachment 237891

Look familiar?

View attachment 237892

These displays are terrible. But from day one I wanted my display to look like scene 371, as in the first pic with the frozen 88888 and a terribly unevenly lit display. I had a plan all along to get that look with tricks, but we don't need tricks anymore. We know how it was done, thanks to Dean. However, right now we are speculating maybe for the ESB, that fourth bright digit was maybe another manufacturer version thrown in by happenstance. We don't know for sure. The answer may come from getting a complete set of the those rare vintage 7 segment displays and wiring them up.

And also... this...

View attachment 237893

What are those you ask? Correct vintage bar displays that go above the digits. This is what the correct ones look like. Will be interesting to see how these things look when lit up.
My dear Ord Mantell ... You are a treasure trove of archeology. This was a fascinating read! Wow! Thank you! :)
 
Awesome research on the displays! Thanks for sharing :D

What chips were you planning to use to drive the chest display lights? I have a circuit working on my breadboard with period accurate Fairchild chips. If anyone’s interested, I can dig it out and take pictures, give it a write up.

 
My dear Ord Mantell ... You are a treasure trove of archeology. This was a fascinating read! Wow! Thank you! :)
This is really Dean doing the hard work on this one and finding this out for us.

Awesome research on the displays! Thanks for sharing :D

What chips were you planning to use to drive the chest display lights? I have a circuit working on my breadboard with period accurate Fairchild chips. If anyone’s interested, I can dig it out and take pictures, give it a write up.
I missed your chest display thread from back in February. Thanks for sharing. Good stuff. Since you know Deancfh, you must already know this discovery is all from his work. I hope to show the board build soon. ATM, I'm waiting on some pink wire to arrive. You can see the vintage chips I'm using in this post here: Ord Mantell's ESB build. Please post and share your work and do a write up. We are all interested. Fairchild was no longer the dominant chip maker by the late 70's but it's still possible those could end up on something like this. But I suspect they were mostly TI chips rebranded as RS or a combo with NS chips like on the helmet electronics.
 

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