Ideas for "Cheap" blade holders?

I made four Lux III sabers for my kids this X-mas. They love them. But I was on a tight budget and had to realy strain my brain to come up with a cheap blade holder that would work with the sink tubes I got at Home Depot. I couldn't find any normal pipe or fitting that would couple the sink tube and have a 1" diameter opening for the blade. I ended up rolling the portion of the blade that enters the sink tube in rubber tape untill it just fit. Then I used thumb screws in the end of the sink tube. So far they have held up, which for my kids is amazing. For future blades I was wondering what other have done. I could always buy the holders from here (they look great) but I can never make just one and the dollars add up.

Also, what about cheap led holders/heatsinks. I ended up using a copper end cap but they do not fit the exact inside dimension of the sink tube so I ended up having to roll it in polymer clay then I mounted it on my drill press and sanded it, with sandpaper mounted to a block at 90 degrees, untill it just fit inside the tube and held it in place with a thumb screw. I had to drill holes in the endcap for the wires as well. All said and done the sabers work great, just a little laborious.

Using polymer clay around the heat sink is kind of defeating the purpose a bit.

The beauty of the MHS system is that is uses the whole hilt as a giant heat sink. It pulls the heat from the LED heat sink because it is in direct contact with the hilt.

The sabers you described would work better in Electrical conduit PVC. See Jay Gonn's thread on that and you'll be all set:)

You do know that The Custom Saber Shop sells blade holders and adaptors to use in sink tubes, tight? That makes it a lot easier to make a light up saber if you use parts designed for this purpose.

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Originally Posted by Jay-gon Jinn

You do know that The Custom Saber Shop sells blade holders and adaptors to use in sink tubes, tight? That makes it a lot easier to make a light up saber if you use parts designed for this purpose.

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he was saying he was on a tight budget and couldnt really afford buying a bunch of them at a time and wanted a more affordable alternative

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Originally Posted by Ideal

he was saying he was on a tight budget and couldnt really afford buying a bunch of them at a time and wanted a more affordable alternative

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Then why not buy them one at a time like some of us do?

;)

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Originally Posted by Darth Morbius

Then why not buy them one at a time like some of us do?

;)

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his exact words were "but I can never make just one and the dollars add up"

i guess its the way you cant bring a present for one child witout bringing for the others, it just doesnt feel right

i personally can only afford to do one at a time, regardless of how much/little the parts cost.

I had the same issue and solved it with 1" PEP. It stands for Polyethylene Pipe, but no one calls it that. If you're lucky, Lowe's people will call it PEP and know what you are looking for. It is exactly the right size to hold a 1" polycarbonate tube and then slide into a 1.25" sink tube with just enough give to slide in and stay. I do mean stay. I had to take a sledgehammer and a custom wooden jig to mine to get the PEP pipe out.

There are bad pictures of a WIP here.
http://picasaweb.google.com/robsspam...y=btz0xOrWhyY#

The pipe I got was used and it was badly scratched with dirt and stuff inside it, but it was free. A 100' roll of the pipe costs around $35, which enough to make.... let's see.... 400 sabers or so.

I have not tested this extensively with "real" LEDs because the 9LED flashlight light it up plenty enough for my kids. For my own, I'm not using the PEP (hence the sledgehammer and jig.)

Thanks for the input. The 1" PEP sounds like what I was looking for. Hope I can find it for the next round. I think they also come in different thicknesses. As I said, I would love to use the customsaber "made for the job" saberholder/heatsink combos but as I have three kids (now four) and a nephew, That adds up to more than I could afford for X-mas this year. But I agree about the comment on the polymer clay defeating the heat dissipation capacity of the copper heatsink. I was just pressed for time and short on options. I will probably go with the machined pieces from the customsabershop for "my" saber (jealous of my kids sabers and now need my own). Now I just need to decide what color to go with.