Welp-- my box o' flashguns has arrived, and there was some magical stuff in it-- so I will very soon be contributing to this thread for reals!
As a bonus in the box-- my first two custom sabers. Be kind-- I made this literally over 20 years ago!
This was the first custom I made from flashgun.
Obviously this is a Heiland 3 cell build. I stripped every last attachment and greeblie to put on my Vader build, so when I went to do my own, it was pretty clean. From the top down—
The shorter Heiland shroud, it was scratched and beat when I got it.
The emitter is basically just the bulb socket raised up to be visible.
That drum is a Heiland clamp.
I used to have a second clamp as well-- one of the black boxy Heiland clamps that's a knockoff of the MPP clamp-- the kind with the giant knob on the side. I had ditched the knob and slid an edge card in. Well... sort of.
The card in the clamp— funny story there. At the time I was part of a lightsaber group on AOL. The idea was out there that the edge card in the ESB Graflex was some sort of circuit board. The first thing I did upon reading that was go to my junk drawer, grab an old TV remote, and curb stomped the **** out of it until I saw electronics. I cut a piece to fit and jammed it in there. Done! It was just green and copper lines.
I think I let a friend talk me out of that extra clamp. But it added character...
Next, the grip. Another funny story. This was the windshield wiper era. I actually tried it with my Graflex and knew there was no way. TOO SMALL I said. MAYBE IT WAS FROM A PLANE somebody on AOL said. Somebody else suggested “auto trim.” That’s the self-adhering moulding you could buy to put on your car door— because it was the 90s. It still exists these days, but for door edges and blinging your whip. Anyway, the stuff actually worked pretty well. It’s plastic based, but rubberized. It’s really stiff, but has just enough grip to give. I had tried rubber grips, plastic grips, and who knows what else, and nothing was ever comfortable, seemed to keep it’s shape, or didn’t shift or buckle under a rivet. This stuff worked great. The adhesive didn’t love the chrome plating, and after a few days it would start to peel back a little— so I popped some rivets on there and obviously it’s stayed in place for a couple decades.
Clearly AOL had informed me by then that Obi-Wan’s saber involved a sink knob— so you know the first thing I did was find a decent shape and bang it on there a mallet and a prayer. I knew it was a little iffy (and my anti-hardware stance now makes my eyes go right to it) but it just so happens the thread size was the same as a mounting bracket knob that came with one of these flashes, so I added that to the base.
I don’t think it’s half bad. I’d love it if all the metal tones matched— and to be honest I don’t love the chrome plating on Heilands… but those grips aren’t coming off so there’s no way I’m going to be able to refinish it.
I could change it up… or maybe I should just leave it as the memory of my first time going custom.
