Blade thickness and tolerances

Greets.

Ok, so I am a newb and still doing LOTS of forum reading, LOTS of youtube watching and LOTS of planning.

One thing I do know is that I want to use a photon blade, and I don't need to wait for the new batch of colours, since green is my thing (for this build, at least) and I have a supply of appropriate LEDs to make that thing pop.

These photons come only in 1inch thin blade format.

The inner diameter of 1inch thin is 7/8th, soooooooo I could in theory slip a 7/8th thin blade inside it and make myself a thick-walled blade (I was thinking trans-white would be a good idea)

Firstly.. thoughts on that?

Secondly, I might want to play around with also using blade diffuser too, and I suspect it would be MUCH better used further out towards the edge of the blade. That is to say, if I had my compound blade as described above, I'd prefer to try and squeeze a diffuser for 1inch thin between them, than have one for 1inch thick and then both the tubes.

In short, I'm proposing a sandwich of inch thin photon, 1inch thin diffuser, and then 7/8th thin something else.. clear or trans-white, to effect a well diffused, thick-walled photon blade.

Now, I am certainly willing to play around, do some sanding etc and experiment to try and make that work, but it sounds like a very tight squeeze..

Many of you are experience bladesmiths and intimately know the parts I'm talking about, whereas I am merely an idea-smith right now.
So if you are reading this and something like "BAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA OMG LOL good f-ing luck with THAT!" has come to mind, I'd rather know about it now than spend time, money and morale on it.

This will be a stringblade btw, so I am more concerned with diffusion than optical losses.

Thanks for any help.

J

That's gonna be a very heavy blade.

I'm not saying don't try it. You might get an interesting effect, or figure out something new along the way.

I'd be wary, just because thick-walls imply wanting to duel with the saber, but LED string blades aren't typically the most durable setup.

I also wouldn't expect two layers of thin-wall to have the strength of a single thick wall. Two pipes flexing independently - the inner tube might very well pop the blade tip right off on a good swing.

Finally, you wouldn't diffuse an LED string blade with the same diffuser film used on in-hilt-LED setups. I believe you'd be looking for some kind of foam to encase the string and filling up the rest of the space between LEDs and bladewall.

Photon blades are neat though. I tried with a few different LEDs. Blue/Cyan made sort of an aqua core with a lime-green aura. Royal Blue made an almost white core with the lime-green aura. Sanding down the blade diffuses things a bit, giving you a near-solid green somewhere in between Lime and standard Green. It also makes a nice Day Blade for Rebel Lime LEDs.

My recommendation would be to build a standard LED string with just the photon blade, filling in the gap between LED and blade wall with whatever diffuser foam string builders use.

A couple of things to know.

First, is that standard thick-wall blades are already dimmer than thin-wall blades, as it is. This would mean that having a standard (thin-wall) PC tube underneath the Photon tube may cause even less light to reach the Photon layer. Now, with an LED string this will likely not be nearly as obvious as it would be on a CREE or Luxeon setup, but it's still worth noting.

Second, as Kouri mentions above, string blades are not diffused the way in-emitter setups are. I've seen foam wraps around the LED string inside the PC tube. Knowing that...

Third, you wouldn't be able to fit even a single layer of diffusion wrap in between the two tubes (1" OD and 7/8" OD). The tolerances on the extrusion of the PC tubes are normally within a few thousandths of an inch, which means you'd have a hard enough time (and would likely need a rubber or nylon mallet) getting the 7/8" tube into the 1" tube in the first place.

Really, the ultimate question here is why you would want to sandwich PC tubes in the first place--I assume to create a blade stronger than your average thin-walled blade. They can take a decent beating on their own, I'd focus more on trying to find a new way to protect your LED string, as they tend to be relatively fragile things.

That does it, then... I'll stick with the thin photon. Thanks guys!

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Originally Posted by sgcdialler

Third, you wouldn't be able to fit even a single layer of diffusion wrap in between the two tubes (1" OD and 7/8" OD). The tolerances on the extrusion of the PC tubes are normally within a few thousandths of an inch, which means you'd have a hard enough time (and would likely need a rubber or nylon mallet) getting the 7/8" tube into the 1" tube in the first place.

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As for tolerances most extrusion manufactures will not quote anything tighter than +/- 0.007".

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FenixFire

As for tolerances most extrusion manufactures will not quote anything tighter than +/- 0.007".

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That sounds right. Given the non-uniformity of surface and thickness variations it would make it difficult to fit the rated PC tubes into each other.

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Originally Posted by Silver Serpent

That's gonna be a very heavy blade.

I'm not saying don't try it. You might get an interesting effect, or figure out something new along the way.

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That will be a very heavy blade if you choose that route.

I always viewed the photon tips as more of an display piece for a display blade. They're beautiful, they will look great, but If I'd like to spar, I'll use thick walled blades. Period, no questions asked.

Now, if your using a string.. Go for a thin walled perhaps, put the string in that, and maybe get an cree/lux LED saber going ;)

As others said, there is the inner-bending concern (if you have a blade on hand, bend it every so slightly and watch the film crinkle a bit). I'd be careful.