Metal grip strips

[Spaznick]

Does anyone know where I can come by some aluminum strips that can be used as grips (similar to the starkiller ones)? Thanks

[$tarkiller]

to my knowlege, Starkiller didnt have aluminum strips. You could just use some wiper blades, and trim down the sides of the to make them more narrow.

[Spaznick]

I really want to go with metal..

[Sairon]

Go to home depot or a scraper and get a chunk of metal, that easy...

[Jay-gon Jinn]

I remember seeing metal strips at a hobby shop I was at back in May....might try looking at one near you.

[Zook]

hobby lobby has them. I used some on my first US 2.1 saber. They have different sizes

[cardcollector]

You can get some lead Weights usually used for pinewood derby cars and JB weld them on...

[Spaznick]

All good sugestions, I will check it out.

[Jedi-Loreen]

Um.

Are you talking pure lead? Or some kind of alloy? I wasn't a Boy Scout, so I don't know what that's made up of.

Isn't it soft? Won't it be constantly getting nicked, dinged, losing chunks of itself?

And lead is poisonous, you don't want to be handling that unless it's painted or coated with something.

All-in-all, that sounds like a bad idea.

He should be able to find smaller strips of metal at hobby shops as suggested. I've seen aluminum and brass strips at mine.

[Kal El Rah]

J-Lo is very correct , lead can kill you , even if coated, it leaches out of anything.:mad:

[cardcollector]

oh, woopths... never mind what I said.

I wonder why they still sell that stuff to boys???

[Jonitus]

Any "decent" hobby shop, and many hardware stores (like Ace Hardware) have sections where you can buy brass and aluminum shapes, strips, tubes, sheets. These little "kiosks" are by K&S Engineering. You should be able to find 1/4" wide brass strips very easily at these kiosks.

FYI - the weights on pinecar derby cars is a lead mixed with pewter. The actual content of lead is pretty small, but I could go on a diatribe about the hazards of lead and other associated heavy metals, but I won't.

[Onli-Won Kanomi]

Yeah its ironic that in most applications where lead would be useful for its weight, malleability, radiation resistance etc there is another metal that can serve most of the same uses with great functional efficiency but which unlike lead is completely non-toxic...

...unfortunately it's gold...lol

Brass strips from the hobby shop are thus more practical for most of us ;-)

[Spaznick]

I couldn't find any Aluminum that was the right size, but I did find some Stainless Steel. I cut em, used a belt sander to get the shape I wanted and weathered em. Attached them with JB and now it looks great, feels heavier and overall I like it much more.;-)

[theJUDGE]

cool! maybe you could show some pics of how it turned out? :cool:

[Spaznick]

Here are the pics, last one shows what was on the saber before I swapped it out. I also did more weathering to the hilt itself (looked pretty Janky before). I couldn't get the pictures taken without the flash so it kinda muted some of the color. The pictures really don't do it justice, overall I think the grips turned out awesome! (Yes this is a Starkiller that I finally received from Machinedfx (1year 6 mnths later) and now I'm re-doing it).

http://s545.photobucket.com/albums/hh395/spaznick/StarKiller/?action=view&current=DSC06159.jpg

[Jedi-Loreen]

At least you actually got your "Machined Defects" Starkiller. :rolleyes:

[Spaznick]

Yeah, was right out of the blue. Came home to an package with no return address on.... I was Like WTH!? I had all but forgot about it...

[Sairon]

The strips look great, now finish modding that saber and post pics!

[Darth Mortis]

The pic of you work looks great. I will add, if I may, that just earlier today i went to home depot and baught a sheet of aluminum from the dryer vent area for around $3.50. its VERY maleable, and as stated earlier in this thread, very easy to cut and drill (using my dremmel) i wanted to make part of the hilt t look similar to the pic of your saber in your signature block. but in the future i may also try your method of what you went with (i.e. what was in the pic you linked) :mrgreen: