Drilling an Av switch hole

[whitmers]

I am putting the av switch holes in my hilt. Last time I used a dremmel and I figure that I do not want to do that again. I looked on the common taps and drill and it says that it takes a 16mm bit for the hole, I was wondering how tight that tolerance is if I was using an activation switch box. Should I *actually* order a 17 mm bit for it or a 16mm ?

Thanks!

[Forgetful Jedi Knight]

Which activation box are you planning on using? And if you are going to use a box, why not just have Tim make the hole(s), and do the screw hole(s) at the same time?

[Silver Serpent]

The switch is 16mm. The drill bit you use is 15mm, plus a M16x1 tap to thread the hole.

Now since you're using an activation box, you can actually skip the threading process on your hilt holes. Drill the hole out to 16mm or 17mm, depending on how accurate you are at drilling. Any sloppiness or mistakes will be covered by the activation box.

I love activation boxes for just that reason. :)

[whitmers]

I figure that if I am going to keep doing this as a hobby it will quickly behoove me to get my own set of bits for the task.

I have the tap for when I thought I was going to tap and drill things that way but it turns out that I really do like the activation boxes because you can go back inside easily if you want to change things around. much harder if you drill and tap the hole itself.

Out of curiosity serpent, what material did you use for the black parts in your sig pic?

[Silver Serpent]

It's a hardware saber, no electronics. It's my first though, and I still love it. The emitter end is PVC, painted with black Plasti-dip. The grips are windshield wiper blades, held in place with rivets. Google for "Big Yellow Box" and you can find the plans I used for it, as well as a number of other hardware sabers.

[whitmers]

pvc with black plastic dip... It looks very nice. I was thinking about trying to use kydex to get that really firm grip on an emitter region.