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 Post subject: Rubie's Fiberglass Limited Edition Vader sightings
PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 5:13 am 
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The Rubie's Fiberglass Limited Edition is an offering by the Rubie's Costume Company that is supposedly made from the same molds leased to the original Don Post Studios in the 90's.

There are some subtle but observable differences between the two, but it's generally safe to say they're related.


Educational reference shots

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And, yes, they even made a silver one. Why? No-one knows....

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Back of helmet showing the dome receiver (the copyright plate is on that).

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Inside the dome: the mounting ring:

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Original post:


http://cgi.ebay.com/Collectors-Darth-Va ... dZViewItem

Found this on eBay. Whoever buys it, please get in touch with me, as I'd love to coordinate with you on getting photos for educational reference for everyone!

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Last edited by CSMacLaren on Wed Jul 18, 2007 6:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 4:11 pm 
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Since this is not your auction I will move it to the Vader Props section. :cheers

What makes this one different than the regular Rubies helmet?

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 5:11 pm 
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I'm glad you asked!

Rubie's Supreme Vader (plastic costume helmet)

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Rubie's Fiberglass Limited Edition

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Difference: Almost like that of the Don Post Deluxe versus the Rubie's Supreme.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 7:04 pm 
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I've seen this helmet in person at a Sharper Image store. Awful paint job and some mouth droop too. Still, not bad from far away.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 7:37 pm 
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I too saw one of these in a local store last year and the guy was asking £900, i laughed all the way home and for about a week after.

I must say the one i saw looked ok from a distance but up close and personal i was rather disapointed.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 8:27 pm 
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CSMacLaren wrote:
I'm glad you asked!

Oh... wasn't asking about differences between the Supreme and the fiberglass helmet. I just thought that they had a regular fiberglass version and then this LE. Apparently they only have one fiberglass Vader helmet!?

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 8:47 pm 
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I guess. It's a limited edition of 5,000 with a retail price tag / street price of approx $900. So it's about the same price range as the MR regular edition.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 8:50 pm 
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Yeah... way too expensive for a piss poor slab of fiberglass and paint, imo. They should have complained about the mold instead of just willingly accepting to work with the DP leftovers.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 9:11 pm 
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IIRC Rubies bought the DP Deluxe Vader moulds off Don Post when they acquired the Helmet license a few years back.

They also used a number of the cheapo helmet moulds for the Biker Scout, Boba/Jango, Greedo etc. etc.

They also did a silver version which was bizarre. Rubies made some really dumb mistakes on the helmet line, making an art form on "what NOT to do" with a number of their production decisions (a woefully inaccurate Deluxe Fiberglass Clone and Jango etc. etc.)

There's a few pics on my site in the "Rubies" section

Cheers

Jez

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 4:55 pm 
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I wouldn't pay any more than $50 for that helmet. In fact, I think I'd rather own the Supreme just because it would be easier to mod.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 6:45 pm 
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Darth Kahnt wrote:
I wouldn't pay any more than $50 for that helmet. In fact, I think I'd rather own the Supreme just because it would be easier to mod.


That particular helmet happens to be based on the same mold that LFL leased to Don Post Studios. If one were to strip the paint, do any desired refinements and repaint it nicely, it should be comparable with a Don Post Deluxe provided there are few or no changes to the mold's condition since last used by Don Post Studios; I'd imagine DP made one positive out of that and gave it back to LFL, and used that positive as their master to make more molds.

Now regarding the Supreme being "easier to mod" I think that's very subjective based on how much effort you're going to put in, then you're absolutely right. Most tutorials seem to:

1. Rework the eyes a little to support rear-mounted lenses
2. Patch the forth rectangle in the nose to make it three (it doesn't make it screen accurate as the bridge of the nose is still the wrong shape)
3. Reducing the neck flare
4. Painting it gloss black.

That is probably a very bare minimum. They might swap the screens and tusks.

In my work on the Rubies, I've counted about 16-17 modifications to make it look properly screen accurate, and by the time I'm done, I think I may have covered 18-20 modifications.

The quantity and type of modifications means fussing with the plastic, and this plastic is hard to work with. It doesn't respond to filing and sanding as well as resin/fiberglass, and in certain forms of Dremel work it may have a tendency to melt and begin to gunk up the Dremel bits. Filing causes a lot of little fibers that even after sanding never seems to fully go away. And supposedly there is a release agent within the plastic that needs to be coaxed out with heat. I've found that certain epoxy putties will harden okay on it but won't truly make a bond, again possibly because of a mold release agent in the plastic (according to - LAN-ED-TUL, but I've not been able to verify this).

In short, I've had to contend with the plastic. Ironically can be a difficult material; in some cases fiberglass/resin will respond better to filing whereas the plastic will make a mess. FG/resin is easier to sand down to address imperfections you've made whereas this is much harder the Rubie's plastic; sanding will create more fuzzy plastic fibers.

I therefore do not want to over-generalize that the Rubie's is easy to modify because it's based on how much work.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Mar 30, 2007 6:46 am 
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I had one of these ... :pale ... what a piece of SH*T ... here is the link to
the pics I took of mine ...

http://www.jrxtoys.com/html/TOYS/STAR%20WARS/NEW%20STAR%20WARS%20PAGES/PROPS%20and%20HELMETS/DARTH%20VADER%20Rubies%20LE/JRX_toys_STARWARS_PropsHelmets_Rubies_DarthVader_LE.htm


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Mar 30, 2007 9:32 am 
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Yeah... the Rubies helmets are warped beyond repair, if you wanna go screen accurate. AFAIK, the latter DP DLX's got notably more and more wonky... and it seems that Rubies has just continued with that mold.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Mar 30, 2007 3:35 pm 
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WHOA, so THAT's where Homer1138 (an ebay seller) got his "Stunt" helmet!

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Mar 30, 2007 4:25 pm 
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