Custom Light Saber Show Off Thread

[Boba Debt]

I often see new members post threads asking for advice on custom sabers, so I thought it would be a good idea to create a thread for everyone to show off their custom designs.

I hope it will inspire new builder to think outside of the box and if you post below it would be most beneficial to include a brief description of the parts and construction process.

I'll go first:



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This is my 1st custom Light Saber, it is a Jedi design




I decided to use a combination of found parts and my machining skills to make this saber. I stumbled across a gear shift knob and knew it could be made into nice saber. The end product is far from what I first envisioned.

I used aluminum for most of the body and bronze for the vented emitter sleeve. The lathe work is simple, I wanted the focus on the found details.

The grips were Gillette Sensor Razors. I cut them in half and filled them with resin. If you look at the area where the logo was held in place you will see the clear amber color of the resin. I consider these to be activation sensors. They are mounted to a machined aluminum core.

Just in front of the grips you can see a disc which is from the Visible V-8 model. If the wrong person attempts to active my saber this will ensure that it is the last thing they pick up with that hand.

The next section is the gear shift knob. The bumpy foregrip can be rotated to adjust blade strength.

The emitter is 100% machined. I did not use blueprints or a drawing I just went at it.

The emitter disc is a Lamborghini wheel, I got the idea from Yoda.

It's all held together with a threaded rod and was a pretty easy saber to make




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This is my 2nd Saber, it is a Sith Design.






Once again I used a combination of found parts and my machining skills to make this saber, only this time I had a plan and stuck to it.

Most of the body is machined Delrin. I used a wood lather instead of a metal lathe to give it an organic feel.

Then I added various size o-rings, a Covertec knob and 2 Radio Shack Buttons to the body.

I used 1/4" diameter copper tubing for the emitter power feeds a combination of washers for the emitter.

A flared copper fitting aligns and secures them to a delrin stem.

I sold it to a fellow RPFer and I hope they still enjoy it as much as I did.



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This is what I consider to be my final custom Saber. It is my favorite saber and I doubt I will ever top it.











It is an ancient Sith Saber and is meant to be wielded with one hand. IMO the design is very menacing and even if the owner forgot to install the batteries he could still beat his opponent to death in no time at all and it wouldn't be pretty.

I entered it in one of Luukes Annual Saber Contests and I think I placed first that year.

It was a complicated and expensive saber to build so I will explain the construction in phases.


The handle is made from a Gil Hibben "Scorpio Knife" Knuckle Guard and 5 Toothbrush Handles. Everything it mounted to a piece of weather brass hex stock.

The pointed "Tail" of the Knuckle Guard is threaded into the hex stock and it is what secures it to the back of the handle. I had to hand file the hex stock to match the curvature of the Knuckle Guard, it was very labor intensive.

I used CA glue to mount the cut down toothbrush handles, which are rubber so it has a very heavy but comfortable feel.

The mid section is made from a machined brass Ribbed Section, a Gas Powered RC Differential Pulley and 2 Gas Powered RC Engine Heatsinks.
I heavily weathered all of the parts and used a file to gently radius the back heat sink. it's all held in place with a threaded rod.

The Emitter Power feeds are Aluminum Shrimp Deveiners. I had 3 grooves machined in the Brass Ribbed Section and attached the deveiners with brass screws. I removed the heads so they look like pins.

The Emitter is made from a Gas Powered RC Tire Rim and a machined aluminum Housing, it threads into the rod to hold the entire saber together.

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Building a custom saber can be very rewarding but if you lack the skills or tools there is nothing wrong wit commissioning an artist to build one for you


If you have a custom design please take a few minutes to post a picture and brief description below.

 

[defyitall]

Wow, those are truly awesome. I really like the use of the scale size rims for the emitters.

 

[Rabittooth]

 

[Goldenrod]

WOW these are really amazing custom sabers. Wish i had the skill to make these. fantastic work.
-Goldenrod

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

Showoff. :lol

This is the only one of mine that didn't use an existing flash. The main body was made out of the good old 1 1/2" dia. sink tube. The black rods that make up part of the inset grip are guide rails from an old printer which I cut up into equal sized pieces for the grip.

To center everything in the tube I used a combination of plastic tubing and Plastruct parts. The pommel is a sink faucet I gutted, and which you can still find at Lowe's or Home Depot. I filled the bottom of it with a styrene disk and on the top I glued an ABS ring (also Plastruct). The gold and black part that attaches to the pommel was made by stacking Plastruct flat caps like this:

The flat cap that attaches to the pommel is glued into the ring on the top. Between them I just used some rubber O-rings.

I connected the sections of sink pipe using a similar method. Each segment of pipe has ABS rings glued in each opening. A plastic tube that has the same dia. as the inside dia. of the rings goes through keeping each sink tube segment together.

The emitter is made up of parts I salvaged from an old (maybe early-mid 80's) VCR camcorder combo; the type that had a camera and a VCR that you slung over your shoulder and attached the camera to. I think the aluminum pieces might be the writing head or something. Below the aluminum peices is another VCR piece decked out with more O-rings and various greeblies.

Everything else is just various thumb screws and other lightsaber looking junk I had in my parts box.

 

[Boba Frett]

Nice looking sabers guys.




Rabittooth , I love that design

 

[p0sitr0nic]

Im reserving this space for when i can get good pics in a couple days xD

 

[Soundwave]

Awesome stuff guys, gotta love really top notch (and well made) custom sabers.

 

[Sporak]

Here are a few of mine, some made from Flashguns, some not...
I've tried to make each one different.

 

[Darth Lars]

All of these were made by hand around aluminum tubes in sizes that slid into eachother and then friction-fitted/glued together. None of these look too good in close-up. :lol

From the left:

1. I engraved the writing and lines around the "petals" with my dremel. The black grip is a rubber mat. The "jewels" in the emitter are green LEDs. The gold "neck" is sculpey. The prongs were just cut from the tube and bent inwards. The pommel is a piece of tube with notches cut in them using a dremel router bit lying down and then finished with a needle file. The bottom is a steel washer and sculpey with a key ring baked inside it. You press down on the "button" to release the ring. Then it looks just like the pommel of Vader's lighsaber from the bottom.

2. The clamp is a piece of tube with two aluminum bars glued on top. The "bulb release" is sculpey. The "ears" and lever were made from sheet al. and took a little bit of time to get right.
I made grips from sculpey first (seen in picture) but then replaced them with grips from Blast-Tech.

3. The handgrip and pommel were made from stacks of washers glued together, with sculpey in-between. The emitter are a few pieces of tube and a loudspeaker at the top.

4. The body is just aluminum tubes that were cut in this way and slid into eachother. The edges were rounded off with a file. The grip is overlapping leather strips that were soaked in water and then glued on. The "control box" are thin pieces of metal wrapped onto a shape I made from sculpey.

5. Black parts and emitter shroud are plastic tube. Control box is a 9V battery. The pommel is sculpey.

 

[Phayze]

awesome thread. These are some really inspiring sabers here, folks, and I am humbled.

I've made a few sabers for my little fan film, but they're primarily stunt props and very amaturishly constructed so they aren't very much to look at. :\

I'm feeling pretty inspired to start working on a little saber idea that I've been kicking around for a while . . . maybe I'll find my way to the hardware store in the next week or two to pick up some supplies.

 

[lesternessman]

great thread indeed. Sorry I don't have anything to contribute but my comments.

 

[MegaPrime33]

Awesome sabers guys. Once I get mine finished I'll post pics of it.

 

[dropshipbob]

Built entirely from items I had around the house.

The metal part is an old flashlight. Used it mainly because it had a built in loop from which to hang from a belt.

The black parts on either end are from a Dremel drill. The emitter is from the packaging of a toy.
The activation buttons along the spine are various computer chips. The silver "nub" that's between them is a grease fitting...whatever the hell that is.

The black rings around the bottom are rubber o-rings. The silver rods cropping out of the upper body are old Allen/hex wrenches. The brass knob that's right next to the emitter is just something I picked up at the hardware store...in fact, a lot of the smaller parts are just odds and ends I picked up at the store. I bought random things I thought would look cool to dress it up with.

The whole thing measures about 10 and 1/2 inches long.

Got started on this one right after I finished the other one above. This one, same as last one, was made from various items found around the house and the hardware store. Some of the parts I used were even cast in black resin by our own Matsuo.

[image]http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/5751/saber26og.jpg[/image]

[image]http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/3089/saber43tf.jpg[/image]

Standard sink tube body cut down to size, metal cap added to the end, a resin greeblie attached to that. Threaded rod inserted down the inside and cemented into place with got glue. The discs are drawer handles with holes drilled through the middle and threaded onto the rod. A nut was then placed at the end and tightened down to keep the discs in place. To hide the nut, I took another black resin greeblie, dremeled out a shallow hole, placed it over the nut and epoxied into place. This part became the emitter, so I drilled a small hole into the very end. Various LED's and knobs were added for controls. The grip is part of a hair brush. I cut the handle off and removed the bristles. This left me with a shiney, perforated cylinder. I then gave it a few coats of black plasti-dip spray. On the inside, between the cylinder and the saber body, I inserted a flat piece of craft foam on both ends. That's all that holds the grip in place. For the cover tech knob I used part of a cell phone attachment made by 3M. I made a few changes since these photos were taken, most notably, adding another disc to the end of the emitter. I had to do this after one to many people mentioned it looked like a vibrator. But don't most of the sabers look like vibrators?.

 

[Phayze]

Originally posted by dropshipbob@Feb 8 2006, 01:25 PM
I had to do this after one to many people mentioned it looked like a vibrator.  But don't most of the sabers look like vibrators?.

[snapback]1178982[/snapback]​

True, but you have to admit that thing is pretty phallic. I love the stacked disks on the emitter end, though.

 

[dropshipbob]

Yeah, I noticed it before anyone said a word, I just kept quiet and hoped I was the only one who would notice.

Hopefully the recent changes I did to it will fix that.

 

[franz bolo]

Originally posted by Boba Debt@Feb 7 2006, 06:44 PM
[image]http://home.ec.rr.com/bobadebt/SVS_Custom.jpg[/image]

[snapback]1178508[/snapback]​

SWEET... Really nice design. Don't run in the halls with that saber...

FB

 

[SethB6025]

Here is a padawan saber I made for my son. It used a vintage "mini-cam" flash handle, a found part emitter, a bit of metal laminate for the activation matrix, and some wire detail pieces. The crystal is quartz, and sits atop a part from a faucet supply line connector, and a aluminum disk (like the one that comes with a box of snaps).

 

[p0sitr0nic]

Well, since I cant see the place to edit my earlier post, ill post two of mine here.

THis has a new emitter on it, but the rest is the same. THis is my Son's Saber.


This one was made by a non member friend, and its too big to show as an image.

The Rose Saber

I still dont have pics of my personal one...

 

[vader1974]

Here are a couple of my custom sabers. I use Aluminum, Stainless, Brass, Wood or anything I can put in a lathe or mill.

Group of Customs Counter Clockwise from top (Attempt at ATOC Anakin, mix of Luke ROTJ and ANH, Wood Grip, DFW Prop Party Saber, PT Jedi Saber)[attachmentid=6463]

Custom for Nephew
[attachmentid=6462]

Set of Dueling Sabers for Nephews
[attachmentid=6461]

Custom for RPF Member (His design)
[attachmentid=6464]

Dueling sabers for my boys
[attachmentid=6465]

Thanks for looking
Brian