That was a thought of mine. I have definitely blown past my original goal of only caring as much as the original prop makers. I can always offer the option to not pressure cast if someone wants. Plus I’m sure I’ll eventually have some bad luck and a casting will come out nasty. This way I can up-charge for it being “more accurate”.
I am using the straight emitter cap, I needed the threaded rod to be coming straight out of the saber otherwise the blades would be crooked when attached.
There’s three openings at the top of the mold. One for the threaded rod, one pour spout, and a small vent. They each intersect with the saber on the fender washer. The vent and the pour spout are 180° opposed, with the threaded rod hole dead center obviously.
I took great care to make sure the mold was made on a perfectly flat and level surface. I built a fixture and hung the saber down into the mold by the threaded rod. It was a loose connection so the whole saber could swing by the threaded rod. This ensured that the saber was perfectly vertical in the mold. The benefit of all these precautions is now I can install the threaded rod before closing the mold. As long as I pour and cure the mold on a flat and level surface, the threaded rod will be self centering (since gravity will pull it straight down) and aligned with the axis of the saber.
It'd be interesting if someone styled theirs like this saber from ATOC, it's essentially the Obi Wan lightsaber but painted a uniform silver and the pommel removed.