MAKE YOUR OWN STAR WARS ELECTROBINOCULARS

In the original Star Wars trilogy, there were electrobinoculars and macrobinoculars. The ones I'm gonna show you how to build were referred to as electrobinoculars, but the names are sometimes interchangeable with the fans. These are the white binocs used by Luke on Hoth, by the rebel troops on Hoth, and by the Sandtroopers on Tatooine in the acursed "Special Edition" of A New Hope.

The screen-used prop started out life as a Simrad Laser Rangefinder. The original props person added a few odds and ends, painted it white, weathered it and slapped it into Mark Hamill's hands. Ours will take a little longer to build, and won't be perfectly accurate, but, hey, it'll cost you less than twenty bucks and will end up looking something like this, minus the helmet:

This one has desert weathering, but I'll show you how to weather yours however you'd like.

A word to the anal: if you're gonna write and tell me how inaccurate these are, I'll save you the time and admit it openly now. My goal in making these was to find a way to approximate the look of the original props using household items or things readily available at Target. Many in the sandtrooper community have accepted binocs made from old Radica handheld Tank and Sub Assault games. These conversions actually look great, but bear little resemblance to the original props. This project represents a sort of in-between step.

A word to the impatient: don't be. If you wanna build this prop, take your time and enjoy the process. You'll get less stressed out, and enjoy it more. I can be somewhat verbose in my descriptions of the steps involved. This is not intended to slow you down, but to help you succeed by telling you about the mistakes I made when building this prop. Skip around if you want, and email me if you have big problems, but please read the descriptive text before hitting "send".

Anyway, I'm glad you're here, and I hope you'll send me pics if you choose to build one of these. Also send ideas if you come up with better ways to do something. This tutorial is a starting point. I encourage you to think for yourself and use the things you happen to have on hand.

 

::::: On to Page 2 :::::