Carillon - New custom saber from Vader's Vault For Jedimom

[FenderBender]

Hello Saberland!

Well as some of you may know, we are big fans of Randomsabers and they were and continue to be a big inspiration to us here at the Vault :D So when presented a chance to put our spin on a design they did, we jumped. The original design is a beautiful combination of machined copper and aluminum with wood grip accents, a dash of knurling and some milling to box in the switch. You can view it here:

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/clarion.jpg

We wanted to keep all the design elements that made the original great, but put our own spin on it so you can tell it came from us :D Since we're fresh out of soul to mortgage for real copper, we went with the next best thing: Translucent copper powdercoating over polished aluminum. This allowed us to retain the look without having the cost reach Negotiator level ;) For the wood grips, the original seemed to have a more "plain Jane" wood grain pattern, though the coloring went well with the copper. We chose a nice burled maple in a similar color to complement the copper. Doing the wooden grips was no picnic. Though it came out nice and was great to finally incorporate this medium into a build, it is a LOT of work to get them right. Hats off to Random' there!

On the rest of the hilt, we added back in the other features: small tasteful knurled band, milled area around the switch and a copper ring to help tie in the pommel with the emitter.

The pommel on the original was a 3 piece design, similar in construction to the Obi TPM pommel. To save time and cost we went with a single piece construction on the pommel and with some creative lathing, milling and powdercoating, it came out fantastic.

For the switch, we of course went with our signature flush mount anti-vandal with the lighthound PCB to activate the MR Jedi board. Since I didn't want to punch anymore holes than necessary in the hilt, we put the recharge port in the pommel ;) On to the specs and pics!

Quick Specs:

Full custom hilt
Trans copper powdercoating
Burled maple grip strips
MR Jedi board
Seoul P4 Blue LED
Flush mounted antivandal switch
4.8V NiMh battery pack

Pics:

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/th_025-17.jpg (http://s136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/?action=view&current=025-17.jpg)http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/th_042-13.jpg (http://s136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/?action=view&current=042-13.jpg)http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/th_044-8.jpg (http://s136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/?action=view&current=044-8.jpg)http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/th_045-9.jpg (http://s136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/?action=view&current=045-9.jpg)http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/th_039-13.jpg (http://s136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/?action=view&current=039-13.jpg)http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/th_037-10.jpg (http://s136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/?action=view&current=037-10.jpg)http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/th_036-9.jpg (http://s136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/?action=view&current=036-9.jpg)http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/th_029-21.jpg (http://s136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/?action=view&current=029-21.jpg)http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/th_046-13.jpg (http://s136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/?action=view&current=046-13.jpg)http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/th_047-12.jpg (http://s136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/AJFenderBender/?action=view&current=047-12.jpg)

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2gPHcRth2g

[Goltar Bias]

Wow, that is as good as it gets without being the original.

[Sunrider]

That's pretty sweet Fender. The wood really looks great.:cool:

[Skottsaber]

Nice Fender. Ryan actually machined this one for his Mom, so Jedimom got a bit of a shock when he went round there asking if somebody had one (Ryan only machines 1 of every design).

I think it came out good.

[Darth Kehel]

I like the Copper and shiny aluminium color and the wood grip section is a great put in it too and matches greatly with the copper color! Great work!

[Rafalema]

Awesome desing, the wood grips are spectacular!

(And you might want to edit the youtube link directly to the video, cause now when I click it I can edit annotations)

[Rhyen Skytracker]

Awesome saber. Those wood grips are great, I know they had to be a pain in the butt to do. Also, great job on the pommel. I know that took some time to make.

[cardcollector]

Beautiful Saber! I love to see new things incorperated into hilts, maple was the perfect choice.

I don't particularly like the blue blade with that hilt stlye. Green would have looked lots better. But I guess you have to give the customer what the customer wants...:rolleyes:

[Shadar Al'Niende]

FANTASTIC, as always ;) Love the work and care you put into each piece there at the vault. My brain is spinning trying to think of how you secured that wood into the hilt..... top work!

[Crystal Chambers]

Very Nice....that particular type of wood looks great. I like your interpretation. The switch, knurled grip and wood make more sense this way. Seems to me it would make for a more comfortable grip.

[Obi-Ben]

That copper looks fantastic! I love the wood too, but I wonder how much abuse that can stand up to?

[ARKM]

Awesome saber. A lot of detail and work went into that one. Very cool.

[FenderBender]

Thanks guys!

Obi-Ben, I don't know about abuse, but after they were secured on the hilt I put the hilt back on the lathe to sand and file the grips to "radius" them to the hand and then put them on the buffer. They didn't even budge. They should be fine:D

[Sairon]

Pretty :D. The combo of the copper and wood is rather intriguing, and looks pretty kick butt too. Nice job as usual Fender.