My crazy Christmas project

[ekalbtwin]

This story is a little lengthy so if you don't feel like reading much just skip to the pictures. I have a rather competitive side when it comes to getting gifts. On my B Day last year my best friend made me a gift that just crushed what I had given to him, so the game was on! Around last August my darling wife showed me a post that someone had put up about how he made lightsabers out of pvc. I thought it was pretty cool and being an artist and sculptor I started to get my mental gears turning. With the new movie hitting around Christmas I thought the making him one and giving it to him when we all got together to see the movie opening weekend would be sweet sweet revenge!

As I started on my little quest to build a few sabers I then had the idea to just build my whole family sabers for presents as we are all geeks. And then the saber building turned into a cancer that just kept growing. From my original plan to build maybe five (I knew that I would need to do more than just his as I would have to learn how to make them and experiment a bit) it turned into plan to build over twenty! Now I have made almost 50 as more and more people ask me to make them for their families.

DISCLAIMER: the sabers I have built are no where near as bright as most people's on here as I have never actually wired anything in my life and did not have time to learn while making these so I just stuffed flashlights in the hilts. I put a high powered light in mine, my friend's, and both our wives. The rest are just cheapo lights. But they did the job for what I needed.

I hope you like em (as not flashy as they are).13759

[ekalbtwin]

Here are some more picks of sabers during various stages of their construction137771377813779

[Mineral]

You have an eye for this stuff! Nice work. Got any bigger pics?

[ekalbtwin]

Thanks. Sorry for the small pics, I will try to get some bigger ones posted later this weekend when I get a chance to relax and not spend all day working.

[ekalbtwin]

Here are a few wips of sabers in the early stages before they get all prettied up.
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Once I get them cut with a mitter saw I use electric tap to tighten them up and see if I like the say they are coming together. When I first started I was just using a miter box and saw, and it was taking forever. Lucky for me I found a power miter saw to borrow. My forearms are very happy about this.

[ekalbtwin]

As I use the miter saw to cut the vents or spaces that will have light come through I then use my dremel to cut the openings in the inner core of the saber. I also paint it separate from the shroud and emitter cover if I am making a colored saber hilt. If I am making a flat colored hilt I screw all the parts together and then spray it.

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[ekalbtwin]

Most of the hilts were painted a single color and then lightly sanded so they looked old and used. There were a few I did where I let my wilder side out and I painted them up with multi colors. The Blue one started out as nothing more than an experiment and it turned out looking like a storm so I detailed it with a bolt of lightning.

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[ekalbtwin]

Here is a bigger pic of the first pic i posted. Its not all of the sabers I made, but is the majority of them.

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[ekalbtwin]

These are not actually from my holiday project, they are more like carry overs as I can't seem to stop making hilts for people in my neck of the woods (each time I think I am finally done for a while someone else asks for one for a son, daughter, nice or nephew).
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[ekalbtwin]

This is the last Saber I built for the Christmas Project. As I knew that I would get better as I made more and more, I made my wife's hilt last and spent more time on it than the others I sort of went overboard on the trim details and stuff. I didn't get a blade put in it for quite a while and was surprised at how good purple went with all the light greens and yellows, which happen to be her favorite colors.

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[Cire Yeldarb]

wow, love your designs!

[Kreyhn]

This looks like so much fun to be able to put together so many different designs. The yellow, green, and purple one for your wife looks absolutely stunning; I'm a big fan of all the detailing!

[ekalbtwin]

wow, love your designs!

Thankyou very much!

[ekalbtwin]

This looks like so much fun to be able to put together so many different designs. The yellow, green, and purple one for your wife looks absolutely stunning; I'm a big fan of all the detailing!

I am glad you like it! It is a ton of fun to get to work on so many designs. It is a ton of fun to make a bunch of different hilt prototypes and see people faces when they get them.

[k6gad]

Wow! That looks like a lot of work. Very nicely done. Very creative as well.

[ekalbtwin]

Wow! That looks like a lot of work. Very nicely done. Very creative as well.

It was a lot of work when I first started as I had never built any before and was cutting everything by hand. As I got better and amassed more tools (a miter saw being the most important. I hope I spelled that correctly). Once I had a bunch under my belt they became much easier and better looking as well. You just cannot put a price value on practice.