Vadermania - your post #24 above is a scorcher ! Kurtyboy & I were pm'ing about sq blades a couple of days ago, he was trying to convince me the black stripe or edge of it was a the edge of the square, he sent a couple screen grab frames - what I saw was a round dark cored blade ( I thought unpainted graphite golf stick) with scotchlite material applied to leave a black stripe & that this peeling off during the fight. My theory was that the scoctchlite had been (roughly) cut as a constant width strip so that the stripe gets wider as the diam of the blade increases. Here's my attempt, which does that too well.
but now you have your friend John, who made them, giving a description that's almost an exact match of what I was thinking, just balsa & not golf stick. Is the bracketed word (balsa) the word he used?
Now I halliwax pointing to a picture I have puzzeled over myself. From this quote:
Two sides of the blade are coated with a highly reflective
material similar to the material used on motion picture
screens. One of those two sides is painted four inches
higher than the other side. When spinning, this gave the
blade its flashing effect.
from:
ANH Stunt Lightsaber "Blades"--Triangular??? Gil Taylor sez so...
post # 75
I had assumed that the two uncoated sides would be opposite each other but if they were adjacent then we could be looking at a square blade in H's ref picture. The tip looks quite like my experiment where the stripe closes, the blade gets very dark as you move towards the hilt but there is lighter wobbly line running down the middle, (which is the corner edge you're describing H ?) & we have both uncoated faces looking straight at us, If the wood has been painted black & this blade has seen dueling (or even kicking about in store) this light wobbly line would be damage/abrasion that has removed paint & exposed light wood. My only concern is the light stripe running down the top edge of the blade which would have to be scotchlite that's come round the top edge of the square, which doesn't sound quite right.
A long winded supposition sure but it's one that fits all the evidence we have bar my concern on the light top edge.
I have 6 peices of 16 x 900mm balsa dowel on order. This has to be tried out.
Oh yes something that hasn't been stressed enough about balsa is how easy it is to shape. I'm anticipating being bale to put a taper on with just 'sand' paper in my hand with the dowel in a lathe (or even electric drill) on lowish rev's & just as easy to sand on flats to to a tapered dowel. Should be quite quick. We'll see.