SuperTrooper Blaster Rifle - Found Part?

Syper

Active Hunter
SuperTrooper Blaster Rifle - Found Part?
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Recently I was lucky enough to be invited to join a great group of people for a private tour of Rancho Obi-Wan hosted by the man, the myth, Mr. Steve Sansweet. While on this epic tour Steve was talking about a poster for New Hope that was first purposed when I turned and saw it! In my mind, I got that tunnel vision that you always hear about as my brain registered and confirmed that I was face to face with our beloved Preproduction Supertrooper rifle that we have all studied for so long. I took a deep breath and slowly pulled my cell phone out and took as many pics as I could with only 3% battery life left. I will admit that I did get emotional while taking these pics and my mind was all over the place so they’re not the best photos sorry.

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Here’s what I got while trying to keep my hands from shaking to bad lol

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After viewing my pics from that visit I found myself gravitating right back to the three yellow control greeblies on the SuperTrooper rifle and after a few weeks of research I believe I can make a strong case for calling the three yellow/chrome pieces “Found” from a certain point of view as Obi-wan once said, Let me explain.

Summary: In the details I will do my best to explain the following
  1. I’ll explain how I found these parts.
  2. I’ll explain exactly what these parts are and what their used for!
  3. Out of hundreds of different types of these available today this one design is ultra-rare.
  4. Because of how small they are, these normally have no manufacture markings on them, so determining who made this one design from the 70’s / 80’s might be impossible.
  5. I have ten of these same units but in clear plastic and not the yellow we see on the rifle.
  6. I have found only one photo with the yellow plastic installed and in use.

    Details:

    I was viewing my 3D printed SuperTrooper rifle greeblie set again and that sparked a search on google for the “Glenross found part” and that lead me to these pics after a few more searches.


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    Years ago in what I called the “Christmas Miracle” as some of you might remember I found a real Glenross Dental expander from an ebay lot. Well that same lot had other stuff in it that I never paid much attention to until I found the above pics showing other dental equipment with a bent U-shape to it so I dug the rest of that ebay lot out and to my amazement I found these.

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    There they were! I never even gave these a first or a second look once I had my precious Glenross Expander in hand and I even thought about just throwing the rest of the dental lot out with the trash. These dental bits must not have stood out to me at all because mine have the “Clear” plastic spacers and not the yellow type used on the rifle. Finding those lead to countless hours of research.

    Ok so we know that the Glenross found part is a “dental expander” that’s actually laying on its side and is secured horizontally to Boba Fetts gauntlet and now we can also say without a doubt that the three yellow greeblies are also in fact a type of “Dental Expander” only we are seeing just the top half of the expander on the control board of the SuperTrooper rifle.

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Here are more photos to prove my claim and that last pic points out the only yellow colored spacer on this type of expander that I could find.

Side Note: the different color plastic could and sometimes indicates screw tension direction and could also be a visual indicator for the size.

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I added red arrows pointing to the yellow plastic spacer and again this is the only hard proof I have claiming that I have identified the three Supertrooper rifle greeblies as orthodontic expansion screws.

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And these are the ones I have

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Ok what are these used for: Expansion screws are used in retainers and you turn them to correct your bite overtime. In the Orthodontics world retainers are more commonly called an “Appliance”. Appliances have components to them and those parts are called “Attachments”. These attachments very depending on the corrections needed to the palate. Again, all the components of an “Appliance” including the expansion screws are known as Attachments”.

Here’s a few examples of an Appliance with their Attachments.

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And this one being used for single tooth correction. Notice the “Guide Pin” is U-shaped and bent so that the screw has clearance.

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Depending on the severity of the corrections needed different types of expansion screws can be used in many different combinations. These are just a hand full of expansion screws being used today.

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This next photo names each part of the Dental Expansion Screw and is helpful.

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Here are some additional photos of the ones I have. I believe my ten, are the same type of orthodontic expansion screw but were made possibly by a different manufacturer. There are two points that I could not overlook. The “curve” radiuses on the three yellow expansion screws we see on the Supertrooper rifle seem to be more rounded as where the ones i have seem to have less of a curve radius? Its possible I’ve been looking at these for too long.


The second point and this might have something to do with the photos themselves, not sure but the three yellow expansion screws we see on the Supertrooper rifle seem to be “chrome” plated whereas mine seem to be stainless steel.


Another thing worth mentioning is the plastic tabs you sometimes see on these expansion screws. These tabs are used to hold the expansion screw in place while the retainer is being made. These plastic tabs normally will have the brand name on them today but the ones I have do not and or maybe they didn’t think to label them in the 70’s not sure?


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Ok that's a lot of info and sadly some still unanswered questions but we are closer then we were before and I'm sure we can ID the manufacturer soon. I did search Patents for dental equipment and I started to go a bit crazy in that area...


Hope you found this information to be helpful


(=SYPER=)
 
Awesome! Excellent work on such a detailed write up. I had looked at tons of these and while some kinda sort of had a similar shape I never saw the ones you have. Yellow coloring aside they definitely it.
 
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