Darth Maul Lightsaber: Scratch Build - COMPLETED

[PoopaPapaPalps]

I didn't think I'd work on another lightsaber scratch build so soon after my Scratch-built Count Dooku, but as it so happened, when I was looking at ways to display my current PT villain hilts together, my AS lineage Maul dropped and was damaged quite severely in the middle. While I liked the lineage aspect of that project, I was really dismayed by the execution, particularly with the one I recieved. My AS Maul was originally very unevenly matched and off center to each other. I know the real prop was like that but it was particularly bad on mine: it was nearly an 1/8th of an inch off center from either hilts. I had to perform major surgery on the casts I recieved to join them center but it made that joining point particularly weak. It was never meant to be taken apart after I originally modified it.

When it dropped, it cracked the cast in a way where putty and glue just wasn't cutting it for repairs and, in a fit of irrational rage, I smashed one half of cast hilt and threw it away and got to work scratch building my own from PVC and whatever else I had laying around. In total, I think I only worked on this for 5 hours in all. The most time spent on this was waiting for the real part for the round dial to arrive in the post, generously supplied by thd9791.

The measurements I based off of the surviving half of the AS Maul but scaled up a modicum to account for the shrinkage that will happen when I mold and cast this. The red button I machined in aluminium, the screw grub has since been replaced with a custom machined thing reminiscent of the real mystery item, the LED bezel is a leftover from my Palpy hilt builds (also on the to-do list), but all in all, this came together really fast. It's a PVC tube with some thin sheets of styrene wrapped around it for bulk with some putty to hide the seam. That's it. I've got material laying around and more than an idea on how to make the finned emitter/pommel piece, I just need to clear my plate of some projects first.

I want to get all the parts together first before I start molding everything. I want this strictly a Maul build, that's why I moved the ribbed section to where it is on the master, and am planning on casting four of these segments and two of the emitter to wrap around a threaded rod that I have. Molds for the hilt segment will be taken from this same piece for each of the two that comprises one half of the staff-saber. I take a mold of it whole once, and take another only going up to the ribbed section. From those two, I make the four segments I need to make the lightsaber. Cap the cast emitter pieces on either end and secure it with the steel and alu pucks and it'll be job done.

When I get around to it right now, I can't say, but it'll go fast for sure.

Watch this space.

 

[PropReplicator2]

After the way that the Dooku saber thread went, I can't wait to see what you cook up this time!

 

[Johannes]

Following! It's my wife's favourite saber so I'm gonna have to build one sooner or later

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

Had some time to work on the pommel recently and set about getting that prepped for molding. It was lathed from a solid bar of tin I cast and the absolute trickiest thing about it was getting the steep angle of it on my tiny bench lathe. Very cramped hands that day. Channels were cut on my bench mill. They're a little (a lot) sloppy but it really wouldn't be Star Wars if it wasn't.

I cut the preliminary fin out of a bit of steel bar I had, coincidentally, the perfect size for the channels I cut. Molded and readying to cast 10 of them to fit to the pommel before I mold the whole thing. A part of me is wondering if I hadn't cut the fin steep enough. It's a lot more steep on the AS half I have and I'm figuring if it's not more trouble to cut another one. It's parallel to the surface of the pommel and I wonder if that isn't the case on the real thing.

 

[Johannes]

Had some time to work on the pommel recently and set about getting that prepped for molding. It was lathed from a solid bar of tin I cast and the absolute trickiest thing about it was getting the steep angle of it on my tiny bench lathe. Very cramped hands that day. Channels were cut on my bench mill. They're a little (a lot) sloppy but it really wouldn't be Star Wars if it wasn't.

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I cut the preliminary fin out of a bit of steel bar I had, coincidentally, the perfect size for the channels I cut. Molded and readying to cast 10 of them to fit to the pommel before I mold the whole thing. A part of me is wondering if I hadn't cut the fin steep enough. It's a lot more steep on the AS half I have and I'm figuring if it's not more trouble to cut another one. It's parallel to the surface of the pommel and I wonder if that isn't the case on the real thing.

View attachment 1950213 View attachment 1950212

Very cool! Love seeing the progress!

May I ask why you are casting the pommels instead of machining them?

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

May I ask why you are casting the pommels instead of machining them?

In general: just to try and emulate the real prop as much as possible and the generations-removed casts that made the originals.

Specifically the fins: I'm much too lazy to cut 10 steel bars and machine them identically. Though the idea is tempting.

 

[thd9791]

Had some time to work on the pommel recently and set about getting that prepped for molding. It was lathed from a solid bar of tin I cast and the absolute trickiest thing about it was getting the steep angle of it on my tiny bench lathe. Very cramped hands that day. Channels were cut on my bench mill. They're a little (a lot) sloppy but it really wouldn't be Star Wars if it wasn't.

View attachment 1950215 View attachment 1950214

I cut the preliminary fin out of a bit of steel bar I had, coincidentally, the perfect size for the channels I cut. Molded and readying to cast 10 of them to fit to the pommel before I mold the whole thing. A part of me is wondering if I hadn't cut the fin steep enough. It's a lot more steep on the AS half I have and I'm figuring if it's not more trouble to cut another one. It's parallel to the surface of the pommel and I wonder if that isn't the case on the real thing.

View attachment 1950213 View attachment 1950212

sloppy maybe, but man these channels look wonderful to me. You had to map out the channels beforehand and separate the different parts of this pommel into operations. Thats impressive too.

I have machining questions for you.
1) How much does your benchtop mill remove at one time, just one of those half circle marks? To remove the thicker section at the base of the cone I'm imagining you had to make more passes.

2) How do you turn a bevel or cone on your bench lathe, from a solid bar stock? I have been making tiers or a staircase and then bringing a beveled tool up against the steps. (because we can see these rings still on the Han Solo ESB blaster flash hider)

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

1) How much does your benchtop mill remove at one time, just one of those half circle marks? To remove the thicker section at the base of the cone I'm imagining you had to make more passes.

It really depends on the material and end mill needed to make passes. This is tin, so it's very soft and didn't require much time to get cut. It's also very soft and required a lot of attention on keeping the channels clean after each pass to keep flakes from gumming up the end mill. It took two botched channels for me to figure how much and which order to cut the pommel: narrow end first, broader end second; cut the tallest points down before level single passes; less material, less chatter. Once I made my adjustments, it's just repeating it from there on in multiple incremental cuts.

2) How do you turn a bevel or cone on your bench lathe, from a solid bar stock? I have been making tiers or a staircase and then bringing a beveled tool up against the steps. (because we can see these rings still on the Han Solo ESB blaster flash hider)

I have a compound slide and depending on how large the piece is (in this instance, fairly for my bench lathe), I can adjust the slide to the angle I need to cut and just feed the cutting bit along the track at that angle. I made mods to my compound slide that give it more rigidity but limits its reach on the 'x' and 'y' axis, so the slide had to be clocked at a very odd and extreme angle in the available space to cut the cone shape. It cramped my hands terribly to feed it from the angle that it was. A lot of the shape actually came after the cutting when I cleaned the surface with sandpaper. The protrusion at the front was cut first, then the horizontal channels were preliminarily cut at half their depths with my parting tool, and later cut to their full depths after the cone was shaped. Once the channels were fully milled, the pommel went back into the lathe to remove the burrs stuck in the recesses.

I normally do your method when I cut radii, roughing the shape out with plunge cuts and then cutting away the peaks. I don't have any tools for that, I just have both hands on the feed wheel on the cradle and slide and operate them simultaneously.

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

May I ask why you are casting the pommels instead of machining them?

This innocent question caused, not a crisis, a philosophical debate with me last night: why wasn't I machining the fins? I thought it was me just trying to get this finished sooner and thinking about the quickest possible methods to get this project wrapped up. Now, I realize it was me avoiding making mistakes. I'm not a great machinist (hobbyist, at most) and I'm under no delusions of anything otherwise. I'm under no pressure, no deadline, and no competition to get this done as soon as possible; why was I bothering to rush through anything? What was I trying to prove? Do I need perfectly symmetrical parts just to show off that I achieved that arbitrary result? I was rushing through this to avoid making more mistakes, but that's kind of the whole point of growing from a bad to decent machinist: to make mistakes and learn. I chucked it to being lazy but the reality was just fear; an irrational fear of doing something 'wrong'. By avoiding that, I was robbing myself of an experience, a test of ability.

This realization ate at me so much that I decided to just machine the rest of the fins in steel and the solutions to do that effectively, if not pristinely, came quick. I already had made one, so I just needed nine more. I cut the nine from the remaining extruded steel flat bar I had used previously and machined them in batches of three after tracing the original fin pattern onto each bar.

It only took two, maybe two-and-a-half, hours to fully machine them, fit them into the pommel, and prep it for molding. They're uneven, ugly, but they're job done, and done right. I wasn't out to make this hyper-accurate to the real prop; I went out to make this for my own pleasure. It's sometimes easy to forget that while doing the work.

I was originally going to recycle the pommel material for other things but I think I'm going to keep it now, just as a reminder.

 

[Johannes]

I think you might be a bit too hard on yourself about your machinist skill, this looks great!

 

[thd9791]

great job! Yeah, Im realizing more and more the experience of making this stuff is way more valuable than "owning" things. I'm so happy you went back and made a whole metal master. You should make a little platform/dowel and pop the master on it for display in your shop! Its certainly worthy of a museum.

Also, compound slide made me hit my forehead, makes soooo much sense! I've got such a tiny x/y that it moves the length of my hand lol

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

Couldn't keep my hands off of it. Re-cut all the fins today just to get them a little tidier. They're not perfect but they look a little bit better after today. Also sanded the lower of the cone to add that odd soft face near the bottom of the pommel.

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

Had been working on this in the background among some other stuff, but as far as my normal builds go, this is going pretty quick building this from scratch. The component pieces were molded, cast, spot-filled, and assembled (the washers are ported over from my AS lineage hilt). The only things left to do is paint.

The emitter pucks took a longer time to make and proved a little more challenging than anticipated. Cutting steel with my equipment meant going slow and steady. There's some dings and nicks on the steel rings that cap either end but they add to the piece (and I daren't chance make another set). If I could do it again, I would cut segments out of an already fitted steel pipe and alu cylinder, but seeing as I couldn't do that originally, the idea of having to go through machining them individually again is a huge deterrent.

I'm humming and hawing over making little spacers for the washers on either end to symmetrically space the washers but I'm fairly certain the original props just had them pressure fitted against the emitter pucks. We'll see how I feel about it in the coming weeks.

 

[Johannes]

Thats awesome man!

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

I made the spacers. Primed it, too. Just need to paint it silver and that'd be it.

Also, I don't know how I forgot this lesson: Rust-o-Leum products suck. This primer took forever to cure and did a piss poor job at coverage. Upol is the brand I mostly use for primer, but my local auto shop was sold out so I grabbed Rust-o-leum as a substitute. Shoulda just bought packs of Upol when I had the chance.

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

(Duel of the Fates intensifies)

I told you this would go quick! I forgot to add the covertec wheel for the pics but immediately added it to the hilt after taking these. Painted in simple rattlecans after airbrushing proved to be a bust, archival matte clear coat, dark gray wash to pop the details, steel and alu endcaps to pressure fit it all together; very little hiccups in getting this put together (to my relief)! I'm very, very pleased with how this turned out.