Hi everyone,
I've been a no named lurker on the site for a long time and finally came around to joining the forum about a year ago when I got more into prop building. Since then I've stayed lurking, but now I have a few builds that I'd like to share so this is my first post and my introduction to everyone. I've posted some of these builds over on fx-sabers as well so a few of you might recognize these, but my son's interests are starting to branch out past lightsabers and into blasters and costumes so I want to start sharing what I'm working on with you guys as well!
A little background first, my son is 3 years old and is of course a huge Star Wars fan. He wanted his own lightsabers, so over the past year or so he's worked little by little as his attention would hold on these couple of builds. They were slow going since he'd only want to be out in the garage for like half hour stretches, so if my updates come slow please forgive me.
First up, our Luke ROTJ V2-
The first one we tried was a custom machined V2. It was one of my favorites as a kid so I was happy when my son wanted to build this one first. We started with a piece of 1 1/2" OD aluminum tube, and some 2" solid round bar and after a little time on the lathe here's how it came out:
The plan was to go with basically a two piece design with a stainless chassis that held both halves together so I could slide the saber open for recharging. It worked out pretty good and gave us a solid frame to hold everything together:
Next up was a weathering, I used a combination of aluminum black and satin black paint to weather it. I went much more weathered than the actual prop, as much as I love the V2 I think with all the beating it looks like it's had it should be a little more blackened and scratched so I went heavy on the aluminum black and sanding. After it was weathered and it looked like we wanted it to, we started the wiring. I used a NBv3 board with a recharge port, bass speaker from TCSS and a Tri-Cree G/G/W wired in parallel.
I also cut some windows through the chassis as well as the body to shine through the graflex clamp. Not a real crystal chamber, but when it's on you can see the green accent LED lighting up with wiring and board inside, it's kind of a cool effect:
He loves it!
I've been a no named lurker on the site for a long time and finally came around to joining the forum about a year ago when I got more into prop building. Since then I've stayed lurking, but now I have a few builds that I'd like to share so this is my first post and my introduction to everyone. I've posted some of these builds over on fx-sabers as well so a few of you might recognize these, but my son's interests are starting to branch out past lightsabers and into blasters and costumes so I want to start sharing what I'm working on with you guys as well!
A little background first, my son is 3 years old and is of course a huge Star Wars fan. He wanted his own lightsabers, so over the past year or so he's worked little by little as his attention would hold on these couple of builds. They were slow going since he'd only want to be out in the garage for like half hour stretches, so if my updates come slow please forgive me.
First up, our Luke ROTJ V2-
The first one we tried was a custom machined V2. It was one of my favorites as a kid so I was happy when my son wanted to build this one first. We started with a piece of 1 1/2" OD aluminum tube, and some 2" solid round bar and after a little time on the lathe here's how it came out:
The plan was to go with basically a two piece design with a stainless chassis that held both halves together so I could slide the saber open for recharging. It worked out pretty good and gave us a solid frame to hold everything together:
Next up was a weathering, I used a combination of aluminum black and satin black paint to weather it. I went much more weathered than the actual prop, as much as I love the V2 I think with all the beating it looks like it's had it should be a little more blackened and scratched so I went heavy on the aluminum black and sanding. After it was weathered and it looked like we wanted it to, we started the wiring. I used a NBv3 board with a recharge port, bass speaker from TCSS and a Tri-Cree G/G/W wired in parallel.
I also cut some windows through the chassis as well as the body to shine through the graflex clamp. Not a real crystal chamber, but when it's on you can see the green accent LED lighting up with wiring and board inside, it's kind of a cool effect:
He loves it!