Tom’s shiny custom saber

[thd9791]

Hi everyone

Recently I found a hefty King Sol flash at an antique mall. This was slightly shorter than an MPP and… it was old. The dish was closer to hardware than camera equipment, the logo on the endcap was tiny and the socket was ceramic … I’ve never see that before.

Anyway, I nabbed it just in case I got creative and while wishing I could make a beveled shroud.. realized it had one of those tubes with screws in it to attach to a camera. I sliced a section of that, and hammered in some aluminum tubing! Next I cut and carved a “shoulder” and used a single thumb screw and some glue to hold it in place.

For good measure I also ground up a Roman MPP chrome emitter socket sleeve and stuck that in there with a grub screw from the front. That slides right down into the flash above its own socket.

After this I found a leftover clamp and Wannawanga lever in my stores, and made a piece of brass sheet hand fitted for the clamp…. And a D ring block up top with model airplane 4-40 screws.

Oh, did I mention, I took apart an aircraft breaker in my hunt for the DV6 black box. That was a bust but a piece from the inside served for a GREAT looking “bulb release”

 

[Tan Djarka]

In the tradition of the OT builders: a flash gun+a pile of random crap=lightsaber! Well done.

 

[Treadwell]

This is the sort of thing they should have done for the prequels. Nice!

 

[thd9791]

Thank you!!! I was thinking this looks like an Anakin AotC saber as I was putting the emitter together.

Geometry wise, I didn’t understand this early on making sabers. The whole trick of these shrouds is the shoulder. The upper is the same diameter of the main body, and if you affix the “band” to the upper, inside there is a step, and the shoulder band bridges the gap. Sometimes it’s small… the energizer and barbican have a rather small lip for the tube.

Anyway, I took the brass plate and divided it up into 25 lines with a thin sharpie and a machinist square. Then I colored in every other section, making our 13 lines on our 22/44 edge connector sections. I opted for just a hacksaw thickness since I’m better with that than a rotary tool for straight lines..

I have a new can of acrylic lacquer for another project, so I cracked it open and painted the whole damn thing.

Laid it against a belt sander and then clear coated the exposed brass! It’s not bad for being hand done. I’m realizing hacksaws have a wavy cutting edge now that my eye is finer, and when they dig the line is the full width of the wave.

 

[thd9791]

I suppose I could sand it more. It looks terrible in that photo. It’s not that bad lol

I did mess up one width and then had to balance out the rest and compromise because I wanted two full sized edge bands

 

[Benjo]

There you have an interesting interation of luke/Anakin lightsaber (way cooler than the EPIII hilt and Holliday spécial hilts in my opinion), another Vader alternative hilt and a kind of AOTC Anakin hilt made the OT way.
I love them, they're so cool. They look real and old school.

 

[thd9791]

There you have an interesting interation of luke/Anakin lightsaber (way cooler than the EPIII hilt and Holliday spécial hilts in my opinion), another Vader alternative hilt and a kind of AOTC Anakin hilt made the OT way.
I love them, they're so cool. They look real and old school.

Yessss that would explain why it looks like a chrome OT hilt!
The card, these are my hacksaw lines

I did the thing where you mill some of the T track off so you can get the endcap to unscrew. I went a little overboard but I used the clear mounting tape.. so I can always go back and change it

And so….

 

[thd9791]

Okay… the last thing this seems to need is an emitter. I’m looking around for an interesting part and I notice my bins of resin parts that I sell.

I ground down a Relby K23 endcap and glued a pocketwatch gear into the center. Silver and black acrylic lacquer to finish it…

I glued it inside the Roman MPP chrome emitter sleeve and used a spring to take up the extra space.

Funnily enough, I kept trimming a graflex spring only to realize it was the lowest swirl that was keeping the emitter from going on.. not the top… swapped out a longer spring instead

And here we are..

 

[3251bimmer]

This is awesome thd9791! I saw it on FB and spent forever staring at it thinking you’d discovered some new stunt I wasn’t aware of

So clearly had me fooled that it was a real prop

 

[thd9791]

This is awesome thd9791! I saw it on FB and spent forever staring at it thinking you’d discovered some new stunt I wasn’t aware of

So clearly had me fooled that it was a real prop

Hah! thank you VERY MUCH what a compliment.

It's in the queue to be polished a little more, I have this feeling its not done and I don't know why

cleaning my basement first, which has taken ddaayyyssss

 

[Halliwax]

This is awesome thd9791! I saw it on FB and spent forever staring at it thinking you’d discovered some new stunt I wasn’t aware of

So clearly had me fooled that it was a real prop

I completely agree, Tom’s creation could be passed off for a OT prop