Apple Tabs for the top a Vader Mask , Where can they be found?

Ummmm, an Apple?

sorry, couldn't resist...weren't there some for sale here recently?

Yes but Greatly over priced
Best off scratch building I guess.

And they weren't the correct tabs either....

The reason they are expensive is that you can only get two tabs from each computer, and the computers themselves are collector's items.

Since it's a found part, has anyone offered good casts of them? With them being fairly rare, you would thing there would be a demand for them.

The problem with that is that they are made of plastic, not resin. If one were to use castings of them, the knobs would break off very easily (it seems they broke off the plastic as well with extended use). The best thing is to find real ones and then use them as they were intended. Otherwise they would just be for decoration, but not to actually fix the helmet to the mask...

I'm not 100% that the Apple tabs were the same design and color to the originals. But even having real tabs is one thing - if the fiberglass material cracks when you try to pull the dome off the mask, then it being "functional" would suck... unless you've reinforced everything. But even having resin ones will allow you to mimic the look of the 20th Century.

That's something that's been puzzling me about the tabs. I don't see how they could fix the dome to the mask using just tabs, since there's a lot of space between the top of the face mask and the top of the dome.

I have absolutely no experience with casting materials, but my thoughts would be not to use resin as the material, but some sort of urethane product. Again, I am far from having any absolute knowledge of materials, but I would think Smooth-on or some other materials manufacturer would make a pourable product that would ultimately have similar sheer/tensile/etc. strength as plastic.

The real problem I see molding these parts would be making a workable mold and procedure to keep the shape of each of those tiny knobs. Air bubbles are the devil, especially with such small parts. Just thinking out loud here......

At a guess I'd say the tabs in the dome would have been screwed to blocks of wood bonded to the dome maybe? or something along those lines..

Also I think they would be incredibly difficult to cast as functional pieces due to the tiny pegs on them. Not only would the pegs would have to survive intact when the cast is taken from the mould, but also be strong enough for use. About the only way would be to cast them in the original material, which is probably an industrial process you can't do at home..

Yep, I think that's correct. I've seen an ANH style dome in the archives which had a wooden block with a metal latch screwed to it. The ROTJ Vader funeral dome had a wooden block inside, too


I had an idea the other day to remove the "nonfunctional" parts from my cast tabs on the TM (or 20th Century or SPFX) and replace that area with functional 3M Dual Lock Material. This way the shape of the tab is identical to the original, and you can keep the end pieces with the screws.

Here's what I mean:

remove the blurred parts

and replace them with this:


just an idea...

Well they are the same tabs from the same company it is just that Apple used them on their computers. But yes they were not the same color as the Apple tabs, at least at one point....

Yes a spacer would have to have been used inside the helmet and I agree with Tom's suggestion of what it might have been.

Thanks guys!



A wooden block? That sounds rather heavy and very impractical.

Not if it's Balsa wood!

You can get four tabs off an old Apple computer ( there's one on ebay right now), but making something similar out of the currently available Dual-Lock would probably be a better option.

Tom please tell me you have a copy of the TM if you plan to make that modification!