My old pike was built in 2015 based on the references I could find at the time. It was 3d printed parts sticked to a pool queue. Looked ok at the time, but especially the tip was brittle and broke off more than once. Eventually, I couldn't find it any more. Most likely I forgot it at some troop. In the meantime, I came across more references. So, I decided to make lemonade... ehm, make a new, better pike.
This was my old forcepike:
The references:
The 2016 book Star Wars Blueprints contained a drawing of the forcepike. I apparently is quite close to the production used props. (You can find this picture also in an older thread here.)
On the RPF I discovered two very interesting threads about the forcepike:
Force Pike Build/Questions/One part identified This one is even from 2011. I don't know how I missed it back then.
RotJ Force Pike Accurate Build/Research, this was also partially cross posted here on this board.
Based on these threads, I collected a lot of interesting info: Some parts of the grip are round, some are facetted, the tip is a gear hob, the pommel apparently is a lamp, and most of the pike is not metal, but covered in aluminum tape. Furthermore, the many reference pictures are a great resource.
Concept phase:
Matching fishing rods are hard to come by, metal is not accurate, heavy and not easy to work with for me, and a full 3d print is to brittle in my experience. So I decided to go with a pool queue again. At that big online marketplace I found a childrens pool queue that has almost the perfect length as recommended in the CRL and matching my height. The queue is two part and can be unscrewed in the middle. So the pike fits into my costume box which might help me not losing it again.
My previous pike was easily damaged, because the tip was fully printed. I learned from this, so the new pike has the wooden queue as core all the way from top to bottom. All "design elements" are ring shaped and fitted onto the queue.
Using exact measurements of my pool queue, I created a 3d model.
The build:
First, I printed all the parts and test fitted them. In the background you can spot further test prints. It isn't so easy to get a precise fit and the diameter of the pool queue is not perfectly even.
Next, as I am too lazy to fill and sand, I reprinted the black parts in resin. Most parts are painted, except the main shaft and a few grip parts that are wrapped in aluminum tape.
Even when you try to be perfect, there is always room for improvement. The production used pikes are a lot shinier. Maybe I should use shinier tape next time. However, I'm unsure if this holds up in reality or if it just looks crappy and cheap. It's always this fine line between accurate reproduction and something that looks good. You remember that I wrote that the pommel is most likely a lamp? Yeah, I painted that part black too. Maybe I'll replace it with a clear resin part to get a bit closer to the real thing.
Trooping time!
Last year, the pike got used the first time.
For personal use, here are the print files: Forcepike.zip (Only for personal use! No resale, not even selling prints at cost without asking me first.) Some files exist in two variants. The variant with "_R" in the filename are better suited when resin printing.
