Personal Lightsaber

[ScoobiJohn]

i recently added a mini engineering lathe to my workshop so obviously.....LIGHTSABER TIME!!! its a fairly simple design as i tend to think a lot of the canon designs looks horribly uncomfortable to hold

so i started with steel for the emitter section and the heat shield - i dont have a sheet metal roller thing (technical terms here) so for the guard i simply heated up metal and then whacked it with a hammer over the steel stock i used for the emitter to round it to the right shape - cut the shape with demel and then polished it up to a nice shine - i turned the emitter head on the lathe and drilled and tapped the holes - i wrapped the emitter with copper wire and a dab of superglue to hold it in place temporarily while i attacked it with the blow torch to give it that nice steel exposed to high temps look, superglue failed not surprisingly but only one or two loops came loose then after quenching the head in water soldered it in place, i also applied some heat to the guard and got that lovely transition of colours, not sure if its because i polished it to a high shine first or simply because it was thinner metal or even a slightly different alloy but it went much brighter colours lovely blue red and gold (photos dont do it justice!!!)

the handle was done from delrin (think thats a brand name but cant remember the real name of the stuff acetal or something like that) and knocked that out on the lathe too and drilled out a hole and put a switch in - the pommel which i did in aluminium was also lathed out and polished it up and the slotted in - both it and the emitter section are friction fitted to the handle

now i'm basically done - just wondering about some belt clip/strap to finishing it off but with it made of steel its quite heavy so not sure what would be best

any suggestion for the clip would be welcome but otherwise i think i'm done and pretty happy for my first metal engineering lathe project

 

[thd9791]

Boy, that's a compact lightsaber! I would vote for a covert knob or a hook behind the emitter, ala MPP style

 

[Halliwax]

Really cool!!

 

[Blue Leader]

That came out great! And I love the heat warping effect.

 

[ScoobiJohn]

its maybe a little short but not vastly so compared to lukes anh saber - i suppose i could easily enough add another segment to give it some extra length

i'm not sure what you mean by a covert knob - but if i ever get a knurling thingymabob for my lathe i might add a knob somewhere

and the heat coloured steel well i whenever possible i prefer real effects over paint so yeah being able to get the genuine effect by pointing a blow torch at it for a few mins........well it was faster, easier and better holy trinity the photos really dont do it justice, in person under sunlight you can see it go from dark bluey grey to blue to purple to red and then gold

 

[thd9791]

Gosh I meant covertec knob, both my phone and computer hate that word and correct it if I'm not careful

Edit: spelling

 

[Kovnyn]

Probably means a covertec knob.

 

[thd9791]

Yea, I'm so, so sorry

 

[ScoobiJohn]

had a look at those covertec knobs but i think i will go a d-loop after all - i'm not going to wear it much so should be a big issue with it banging into my legs - i am going to add an "adjustment knob" to the left of the main switch sadly they must be coming from china direct as going to take a couple of weeks to arrive and d-loops aren't next day delivery either

i have addressed the compactness issue though and your right it does look better now - heres the updated version

on another note while i dont want a blade permentantly attached it might be fun to have one - whats the best option? it would take a lot of work to place the power source in the handle so really need to squeeze any batteries into the blade itself

 

[Kovnyn]

I dont see much room in your emitter to attach a blade. I'm a fan of Ultrasaber and The Custom Saber Shop (the parts and accessories are interchangeable, for the most part). See if one of their blade holders might work with your saber hilt.