You are forgetting the knurling on the knobs. I'd hope Brian would chime in here, but I am sure some parts were machined for ANH. Grant you, the only thing that comes to mind right now would be the restraining bolts.

As you say,Qui Gonzalez, the only information I can give is the late Nick Harrison stating in 1999 in 'The Making of the Myth' that the 'knurling' was done on the tusks by his father's engineering company, Norank.

The way the film industry works it's quite possible that they were sourced from the local hardware store.

Brian

As far as I know after looking into the provenance and details on my unused tusks and talking with various people about them I believe they were custom machined parts.I could be wrong though.

no problem.
i got some more shots from vader and there are some on the archives. (follow the sign link)


personally i dont think the tusks are found parts. but perhapse in the future you will suprise me with a nice find.

You got me all worked up for........hinges?
j/k

Is it possible that they would go through the trouble of machining little ridges that nobody will see into found parts? I wouldn't think so.

can anyone point me to some cast iron
visual reference that shows the knurling / machining?

Who's to say there wasn't a hinge finial with a knurled base out there? I'm talking about the form.

Not a good picture, but man that right one is wonky. I found a finial that looks like the top part of it, but it had too much going on at the bottom. :(

Brian, did they ask you not to sculpt the tusks because they had planned on putting bits there? Or did you sculpt tusks that were cut off and replaced with the ones we see on the screen?

Clutch,

No they didn't ask me to sculpt tusks - I sculpted the tubes with a finished end - as far as I know the tusks were decided on later.

Brian

The thing is... even IF (likely) they were machined by the prop department, it could still very easily have been inspired by a found item. And with nearly millions of bits and pieces available from both US and UK... hell, we'll be lucky to find the very exact one.

Gotta say Hal... really hoped you'd found the real thing.

Thanks Brian. Going back to the bent one, do you think a steel or iron finial would bend like that? It would have to take a good lick, no? I'm also assuming that it got bent after it was installed. And if they are finials, they sure are ugly ones.

It's an interesting theory HAL, and definantly worth looking out for. The salt and pepper shakers have been my pet theory for a found object for a while but who knows?

Looks like you've been searching far and wide, Hal, nice work, but not quite the same. But yes there's definitely knurling on the base and it looks like one piece. The way it looks, it would have to be entirely machined....or cast? There's no a priori reason why they would take a found piece and spend the time to machine the knurling especially since it's such a small piece and that wouldn't be noticed on film, but if Norman really did that then it's still a matter of finding out what they started with and someone could ask Paul. The knurling itself suggests that it was something that would be rotated with fingers. If you look at very old desk lamps from the 1960's /70's they have pieces like that for the switch that you rotate. I'm remember seeing something like that on a lamp in Germany in the 1970's...about that size...but not the same type of shape. Might be something to look into further....

It's an interesting thought and close to the screen shot

Clutch, I don't think that is a warp as much as it is a trick of the light. There are missing spots of paint on the tusk. I've always been of the mind that they kept it symetrical like with the cheeks; One black, one grey, one silver tusk, one black.

Sorry Hal, I have to go with Occam on this. There are other machined pieces on the Vader costume, so it would be simpler to slap some more blank aluminum in the lathe and have at it than it would be to rummage around for a part to fit on the ends of Brian's sculpt.