Now to the holy grail. So far so good, over time I was able and lucky enough to find some of the sought after parts to complete an ESB Boba Fett costume with lots of found parts and some of the best parts available from some of the best propmakers. However, having come this far one essential piece was missing. Correct, you guessed it, Fetts trademark his Blaster! Well mostly everybody would settle for a resin copy or whatever they can find. At this stage having come so far I needed to find the real deal. And the real deal was a original 1916 Webley Flare gun! Crazy? You're right. That idea was totally nuts but somehow it had to be achieved. Now with the laws surrounding carrying a real "gun", a flare gun is not really a gun i thought, the whole deal had to be fully legal and in compliance with the law. Which means in order to be legal a real gun would had to be fully deactivated and checked by authorities with the legal paperwork. Nuts? Not possible? Well so I thought as well. But guess again. Mission accomplished. Not even was it very difficult to first of all find the real deal, but then to jump through the hoops and get it legal. I searched the net high and low for months when all of a sudden the real deal popped up.
Holy cow, there it was in all it's beauty. A real Webley and in beat up condition perfect for the costume/replica. Now all that needed to be done was buy it,...yeah right. It took weeks of convincing that I was serious in buying and getting it deactivated. Now for those collectors that wanted something like this untouched it's blasphemy. To me, the necessary evil not to run into legal issues. So long story short, the thing got welded shut, and every piece of it worked to a point that it is never possible to get the intended use out of it anymore. It's now a heavy piece of metal fully legal for my purpose including the necessary official documents. So the nearly impossible thing was achieved. Couldn't believe it when i finally had it in my hands. Not only does the costume now consist of a copy of a real helmet that started it all, the real speargun, amongst other hard to find original parts, no, also the holy grail that every Fett collector is after. The guys overseas have it much simpler getting their hands on one than we do that's for sure. So now the modifications were ready to start.
I had to get a leather sling for it as used on the ESB blaster. One end was knotted to the rings, so I copied the knot. What I didn't want was a brand new leather sling as it wouldn't blend in with the age and used look of the webley. So i once again searched high and low on the net to find a 50+ year old sling used on old weapons, another real deal old beat up piece. This one came out of the U.K. with the help of a friend, and when it arrived the odor was terrible, had to spent some time outdoors to pick up a better smell.
The wooden stock needed some greeblies to add on. I found some of the original greeblies used. The am/fm plugs from the U.K. Two of them go on the right side of the stock and only one goes on the left side. Some think that both sides get two of them, but only the right side comes with two.
As far as the other parts go on the blaster. The scope is a 4x20 Webley scope, matching the manufacturer of the Flare gun. It is claimed that a 4x20 A.S.I. scope was used on the screen used blaster. However, in the days they didn't have many different manufacturers making those scopes. So one manufacturer would make them and then brand them for different companies like Webley, A.S.I., Sussex and so on. So look, style and features are correct, the stamped name maybe not, but I like that it says Webley on it. The clamps to hold the scope were made by myself, copying the style and look found on images of the movie and from stills. The center stock greeblie, the square part is not yet identified so it's a copy from a prop maker. The V8 model kit part found on the side of the barrel is a found part again. The molex connectors are found parts as well.
And because craziness just wouldn't stop at this point yet, I went a step further and installed a red laser pointer inside the barrel which could be activated via a push button from the trigger. Keep in mind the trigger won't move, so all it takes is a little pressure to light up the barrel. And because I don't like to have someone complain at all, a lens was installed to diffuse the light so that it wouldn't be concentrated anymore. That way I got a nice bright red light but nobody would be hurt accidentally looking into the light. It was a weak laser to begin with.
As far as the tube is concerned at the end of the barrel, I had used a Heiland flash tube in the images above, but later on I found an MPP flash tube which is the correct found part for the blaster. Darth Vaders lightsaber was also made from an MPP flash tube. So the Heiland got replaced with the real deal.
For the final touch I had once again Jeremy Bulloch sign a piece of the costume. Here the piece of the blaster that would it still be functional push out the bullet shell once the gun opens up. This piece slides in and out upon opening and closing. So as a little gimmick once the gun opens up Jeremy Bullochs signature becomes visible.
Edit January 2019: Boba Fett Fans never sleep thriving to find parts used for the costume in the movies. After quite some years of searching a member of the TDH came through and found the missing center greeblie for the wooden stock. Turns out it was a used failsafe switch. The good news, the item is still produced and used for new switches so it was fairly easy to obtain. Once they arrived I had to drill to remove the top cover, remove all the contacts inside, cause only the housing was used. You can see in the pics that the fan made part was already close to original, but nothing beats the original.
So that pretty much sums it up for now. The topic is shorter than the original lost topic as some trial and error pieces didn't have to go into this topic. The build info consists of the essential info needed to do a Fett build. It doesn't claim to be the ultimate topic with all info Fett, but given at the time of the build some years ago, it had all the essential info. As time went by more info surfaced about more found parts. So if interested do a research on sites like the TDH or RPF to inform you more in case you are into this.
I had some fun building my Fett as well as lots of grief which I don't want to go into detail about now.
One highlight though was entering the costume at Celebration Europe in Essen in their costume contest years ago making first place in the section for that particular costume, the only time I ever entered it in a contest and the second time I wore it. The judges, Dave Filoni (Star Wars: The Clone Wars), Ashley Eckstein (Star Wars: The Clone Wars), Leland Chee (Keeper of the Holocron at Lucasfilm), and Randy Stradley (Dark Horse Comics)
Edit: Created a short video from found footage.
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"This Bounty Hunter is my kind of scum."
Edited by - volkerc on 11/16/2021 07:40:06 AM
titusillu
Zopfloser Padawan m. sehr grossem Schwert
Germany
2142 Posts
Posted - 01/18/2019 : 2:34:38 PM
Dein Boba Fett Kostüm ist einfach nur beeindruckend, Volker! Danke dass Du den Bericht wiederbelebt hast ;-)
My new project
Posted - 12/24/2016 : 2:53:09 PM
