PSA - mounting blades (OT On Set blades)

[thd9791]

This is a public service announcement

I do have a little rambling video on my YouTube channel, pianos and lightsabers, but here is the gist.

Right now, I’ve been very proud to be able to make original trilogy lightsaber blades using found parts the same way they did on set. I’m in the US and the tang holes I have been making are 5/16”, 7.89 mm

If you get a saber hilt from Europe, the tang might be 8mm. In fact, if it’s raw mild steel it may be more because rolled rods are usually a little thicker in spots.

It is ALWAYS a better idea to remove solid material rather than mess with glued and press fit bushings. Mine are hammered in, with whatever JB weld can squeeze in the gaps, with set screws so they’re pretty rock solid, and over engineered, I don’t make them to be machined again once installed.

Please, for the love of god, just turn your motorized saber on and hold sandpaper against it until you remove .2mm - just use a rougher grit and it won’t take forever. Or put your tang in a hand drill and do the same thing. If you’re really upset just mail me the tang and I’ll do it for you.

There needs to be a small amount of rattle, aka they shouldn’t be a suction or vacuum fit.

I’m not affiliated with any makers in Europe or the UK, this is just a machining and hardware difference, all my steel tangs are 5/16” too.

I do apologize for the inconvenience, and this is a tip from me to help you mate products from the US and the EU

 

[eethan]

Hey Tom,
I appreciate the PSA, however, please do not advice my customers to turn their motorized lightsaber on to sand their stainless steel tang! this is going to fry the motor for sure and is also most probably not going to do much, stainless steel is tough.

 

[thd9791]

I didn’t realize you were making stainless tangs! Yikes, yes in that case you’ll want to separate the rod.

I’ve done it on other sabers without stressing the motor but those were cold rolled steel

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend anyone doing this with their prop motors if it's rigged up like the original props either, for eethan reasons. Unless the motor in question is high torque, it can fry the internals. It's so much easier to just sand it by hand or putting it into a drill.

 

[thd9791]

Drill for the win, I use my dewalt brushless and it works like a charm

 

[eethan]

if it comes to disassembling my sabers to fit your blades, my customers will be better off turning the rod around as I already turned down the rods a bit on half the length for an easy slide on the very adjusted ball bearing. that could help. it's not perfect as I progressively changed the radius at the end, so you can see the turning down in diameter is not going to be exactly up to half the length, if that makes sense.
In any case, this is me trying to figure out a solution, but I'm still surprised by this problem as I assumed the sabers rods were always 8mm and the ball bearing 8mm ID too, so I didn't expect this to be an issue.
Tom, if you need me to machine nice and concentric blade cores with 8mm holes in them, I can obviously help if needed.
I'm sorry this came to this as I publicly advertised your blades and said I didn't want to take your market as you were already doing those. If this caused issues, it was obviously not my intention, on the contrary.