My Graflex ANH Luke saber with metal T-track and my $1.80 crystal chassis! Pic heavy

Wonderful!

Are the brass rods found parts as well or machined by you?

Markus

Great work!
I would love to have one like that
The crystal chassis looks awesome!

Beautiful Saber man. I'm amazed at how complex and simple it is at the same time. Any plans to light up the crystal or the saber itself. I know it probably has zero space left inside, but just lighting up that crystal on a display would be awesome!

bjall4jc said:

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Beautiful Saber man. I'm amazed at how complex and simple it is at the same time. Any plans to light up the crystal or the saber itself. I know it probably has zero space left inside, but just lighting up that crystal on a display would be awesome!

No plans at this stage but the simplicity of the design means it could be adapted later on, which is always on the cards. The "power cell" part is made from bearing races which are hollow (as well as being almost indestructable, a fitting characteristic for a lightsaber I thought, if you ever tried cutting one with a saw you just shave all the teeth off and don't even scratch the surface). They are held together by the centre spindles of hard drives to keep the races lined up but this could be substituted for tube so a battery could be fitted.

As the first brass base of the crystal chassis simply screws onto the thread that holds these together, a simple led with AA battery could be fitted and via the "charge port" as you could call it in the base, a NC contact switch could be fitted so that when the chassis is in the graflex body, the light is off, but when you open it the led comes on, about 5 minutes of wiring and one of those intense blue leds. As the brass has a 6mm threaded hole already, the light would pass through easilly into the quartz.

Hmmm, now you have me thinking about going this way.....

Thanks for the comments, this was kind of a "make it up as you go along" project, no plans or designing done, just do one section at a time. Since it is all modular it can be customised to a degree as well. I just have to decide if I use the rest of my graflex spares to start another one or offload them and build something different.

Thats a really awesome looking crystal chassis!

WOW beautiful saber! Where did you find the T track?

On a 1960's cupboard. According to a few posts I've read, metal track was the type used on the original prop (quoted as coming directly from Mr Skywalker himself) and that it was quite hard and uncomfortable to hold, which I can vouch for now that I have experienced that first hand. Plus the length of the track is exactly enough to make 7 grips and miss all the nail holes in the track.

The thing I love about my chassis is that it can be completely removed, swapped from one graflex to another etc, no electronics or additional mods to the graflex (except a spacer in the bottom of the tube to cover the underside of the rivet so the chassis sits level, but this is just glued there so removable).

thd9791 said:

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WOW beautiful saber! Where did you find the T track?

*facepalm, good job! I always see modern Cupboard track which is shaped like a blocky "C" and never believed track was like this until I saw it, and thus dont quite believe right away. Congrats, and thank you for sharing, it keeps me inspired

http://www.therpf.com/f9/lukes-anh-r...needed-142737/

Check out post 18 in this thread to see pics of the track before it was cut, prepped, shaped and painted.

It sure was an experience making this. I'm just glad the circumstances were in my favour, work was moving, last day at old premises and the cupboard was being left behind, I saw it had t-track, removed it with a butter knife (only tool close by) and set the doors back, so old cupboard still sitting there but I score the t-track for nix! Good deal all round. Interesting that the bottom track is steel but the top track is wood.

Now to decide - accumulate more extra bita and make an ESB or sell/swap the spare graflex stuff I've collected and make something else. Always thought I'd like an OWK but parts cost is quite high even for the replicas.

Awesome chassis dude! I just got my first set of hard drives and took them apart. My company has a garbage can full of them for recycle. Unlimited supply. Can be a pain to get some of them apart though! The caps and hubs are great pieces!

Fantastic outcome. I've been waiting to see the result of your build. Those t-tracks definitely look like they could have been the real parts used on the saber. What did you use to attach them to the tube? Also the crystal chassis looks like it belongs in the SW universe. Kind of reminds me of the internals in Rylo's "reveal" Luke ROTJ saber.

Robiwon said:

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Awesome chassis dude! I just got my first set of hard drives and took them apart. My company has a garbage can full of them for recycle. Unlimited supply. Can be a pain to get some of them apart though! The caps and hubs are great pieces!

Yes I was given about 25 of them which I stripped. They are a fantastic source for bits, even the motor stators are good. I found that a bit of gentle heat makes the magnets fall from the motor hubs.

I had it down to a fine art by the last few, easiest way to get the motor hubs out was to drift them out and then drill the centre out of the spindle with a conical drill.

Jerome said:

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Fantastic outcome. I've been waiting to see the result of your build. Those t-tracks definitely look like they could have been the real parts used on the saber. What did you use to attach them to the tube? Also the crystal chassis looks like it belongs in the SW universe. Kind of reminds me of the internals in Rylo's "reveal" Luke ROTJ saber.

I thank you for your thoughts. I'm really happy with it. I ended up using a superglue gel to stick them, removable with acetone if needed. There is a thread on here which quotes Mark Hammil as saying that the prop from ANH had metal tracks which hurt his hand when he held it.

I looked at lots of reference pics but I wanted to make my chamber unique and stay away from the idea of "earth electronics" which is all too common, especially with led and sound setups. I wanted something antiquated (it was a long time ago after all) with nothing that looked like it resembled anything else, it had to be elegant yet refined and simple, I like the thought that maybe the energy put out by the power cell, focussed by the perfectly aligned crystals would be all the saber needs to run. That was my take on it anyway.

Looks pretty awesome!

I'll be glad to send you another 1.80 if you can make another one of them

Very cool design, and even better, it fits the look of the saber. I dig the utilitarian design you went with.

Chris

hydin said:

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Looks pretty awesome!

I'll be glad to send you another 1.80 if you can make another one of them

Very cool design, and even better, it fits the look of the saber. I dig the utilitarian design you went with.

Chris

Thankfully apart from the graflex itself and the bubble strip, everything else was from my junk box, gathered for the project or, in the case of the 2 quartz crystal points, minimal cost. Which is good because I like to try and keep the costs down. And now that I have measurements, I could make different designs or mods to suit different needs. Next maybe an ESB version.

I am becoming more addicted to this site everyday. Nice work

Aha, I remember that thread, didn't connect the two until you said, thank you! I agree, it's great to see the result

I looked at some options to light the crystal up and all are too big and bulky to fit inside the power cell I've built (a blue LED needs 3 volts to work and it is too short and too narrow for 2 x AAA cells to fit, unless I go lithium in which case mounting is the trick). I either need to find a 1.5v blue lighting solution or a compact enough 3v battery, or rework my entire bottom end which is the "not likely to happen" option.

Hi Paul,

Excellent lightsaber project. Perhaps Slothfurnace immaculate lightsaber builts might have some suggestions about lighting that crystal with leds and have the appropriate batteries inside a cramped space?

-Chaim

Sym-Cha said:

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Hi Paul,

Excellent lightsaber project. Perhaps Slothfurnace immaculate lightsaber builts might have some suggestions about lighting that crystal with leds and have the appropriate batteries inside a cramped space?

-Chaim

Unfortunately I have room for 1 x AA or AAA (even 2 x AAA will not fit side by side in there) or some small button cells but that is the limit. An LED especially a blue or clear needs 3v to run or a booster circuit. Option one is find a couple of flat 1.5v rechargeables from a cellphone, ipod or similar to get my 3 volts, option 2 is a compact camera battery or computer backup battery, option 3 is one of those cheap AAA led keyring size torches and swap the led over or use a blue filter under the crystal. I have a NC switch so when the chamber is inside the graflex it is off, as soon as it is removed it turns on. Pretty basic stuff but it was never intended to be electonic.

pfillery,

This is very impressive. I am getting the parts together to build my own Lightsaber; also with a crystal chamber. This just lit a fire under me to finish getting those parts.

this is brilliant work