drusselmeyer
Master Member
Hamill had the same problem.
Show your custom Lightsabers!
- Thread starter GreenCircleCube
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- custom highrepublic lightsaber
AnubisGuard
Master Member
The real reason he tossed it aside in TLJ.
GreyGuard38
Active Member
This is why people using this saber always wind up with a glove on their hand.I think all the OG trilogy lightsabers aren't very comfortable to hold just because of the control box
Well, except for Rey... so far. But she did drop it and throw it more than Luke or Anakin.
greatwazoo42
Master Member
That's my Luminara Unduli inspired build completed. Xeno3 pixel core and all.
I gotta hand it to Mark, he wasn’t able to turn or slide his clamp like Bob Andersons MPP and the Pipe Stunt. He still did the choreography with full force, and they wrapped up the clamps with gaff tape and cloth to help him through.. dedication.
I don’t think I’ve had a single custom saber with a bigger clamp
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Most excellent Amigos!
Did you machine these parts? Or are they "found parts"? Of course I recognize the Graflex clamp.
HEILANDER
New Member
All found/purchased parts. The closest thing to machining was getting someone to lathe a hole through the grip section (some kind of drive shaft) so I could put a bolt through the whole thing.
I was wondering what the grip was. I drive shaft. Must be heavy.
HEILANDER
New Member
It's got some heft to it. You just made me curious and I got out the kitchen scales. The whole thing is approximately 1.15kg.
I could have hollowed it out more than I did, but I was irrationally terrified of something going wrong, and destroying a part I've held onto for the best part of 2 decades. So it remains a heavy boi.
Logermeister
Well-Known Member
I've been attempting to build an Inquisitor lightsaber for what feels like 2 years now. Made some substantial progress last night!
Amazing
HEILANDER
New Member
For anyone interested, here's a breakdown of all the parts that went into this hilt. I'll start at the bottom:
First we have a battery cap from an unknown Heiland I got in a bundle of parts. I'm sure some of you here will know which specific flash it's from. Evidently, it had suffered from a leaky/exploded battery, and the acid had eaten away at the plating (you can see the exposed brass peeking out from underneath a stainless steel shim washer, which is purely there to hide it). It's a better match in real life, but the difference between metals really shows on camera.
Heiland flashes seem to use something close to an M6 thread, so an M6 allen bolt holds the whole saber together. I just had to drill through the cap so the bolt could go all the way through.
The D-ring is a completely inaccurate one from an old Parksabers Graflex, which I cut down from a rectangle to a square. The square nestles nicely within the ring itself and is a tight enough fit that it keeps the D-ring in place when it's not needed - a happy accident.
Now onto the grip section, which is a part I've held onto for almost 2 decades. It's off some kind of drive shaft which I rescued from a skip.
I only recently managed to get someone to cut and bore it out on a lathe.
It fits perfectly with the Heiland battery cap, very reminiscent of how the gear on Obi Wan's ANH saber fits the Armitage Shanks handwheel.
See also the rubber O-rings added to the groove on the cap, as well as on the driveshaft itself.
There's multiple washers and nuts (not pictured) within the replica Graflex clamp that keeps everything rigid. Getting the spacing correct on the whole assembly took a bit of trial and error,
The bubble strip has a piece of gold paper underneath it. I think it came from a Christmas gift tag or similar.
I've looked everywhere for an email receipt for these 3mm Led bezels I bought many years ago, with no luck. I can't find them anywhere online either, and all the ones I've found are more conical in shape. I still have a few somewhere, buried in years worth of junk.
They're installed on the Graflex clamp with some small washers.
On the other side we have a knurled dial that fits perfectly in the opening on the Graflex clamp.
This is actually from another Heiland part, which is one of these clamp thumbscrews. I just sawed it in half, and filed/sanded it flat.
It doesn't rotate, I'm afraid. It's completely static, and held in place via the stack of washers within the clamp I mentioned earlier.
Forming the top of the saber is a Heiland Extension, which again has something approximating an M6 thread, so attaches easily. These extensions all came in the same bundle of parts as the battery cap. The extension on the right is the type I used.
Anyone who's bought Heiland (or Heiland adjacent) flashes will be familiar with this part. I don't even know what it's called, but it's some kind of 'shoe' that grips onto certain types of reflectors.
I discovered that these things are sized perfectly for holding the cut-off 'wings' from champagne stoppers. Here's an example of a generic one cut down and installed.
But to mount them both, I still needed a second 'shoe' for the opposite side, which came courtesy of a King Sol flash I purchased. The sneaky seller had taken photos from every angle except one that would show this 'shoe' had become unwelded from its mount, and gone through a very crude repair.
I don't have a before photo of the detached 'shoe' itself, but this is the part that's left over.
Needless to say, my future King Sol build is going to have to account for the fact one section is full of holes. But on the plus side, it gave me exactly what I needed for this saber, without me having to butcher one of these parts myself.
As well as 2 holes being drilled for bolts, I had to hide the 4 others, so ended up going the route of aluminium tape (which I repeated on the other side for consistency). It looked too clean and shiny, so I scuffed it up a bit, and ended up painting it to suggest wear. It's a crappy job, but you can barely see it anyway with the champagne wings installed.
The final step was to create an emitter. I ended up buying a pack of 25mm aluminium washers meant for motorcycles. I combined this with another M6 knurled bolt, along with nylon and metal washers to create a 'plug'. I also drilled the head of the allen bolt, to make it a round hole rather than a hexagon.
On the saber end, wedged under the bolts, I created a female end for my 'plug', again from nylon and metal washers.
It feels very satisfying to push in and it's very secure. It can easily be pulled out again with enough force, and could potentially be swapped out for a rudimentary dueling blade - nothing fancy though, as I have no room for electronics without some major modification.
Thanks for reading. Whilst I haven't been a total purist in using exclusively vintage parts, I like to think I've created something in the spirit of the originals.
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greatwazoo42
Master Member
I spent a few hours yesterday afternoon in the shop grinding out some parts so I can fix threaded connectors to them and use them in upcoming builds. That includes turning a large emitter that had been cut in half into an emitter and a pommel. I've more work to do and am waiting on a few more parts to come in but I'm really happy with the results so far.
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