Point of Origin's "Ambitious" - MHS/Sinktube

[Rafalema]

I, as well, cannot wait to see the finished product.

Out of curiosity, what did you use for the renders?

[pointoforigin]

Here's a laugh:
Sister 1: Are those parts for a lightsaber?
Me: Yep!
Sister 1: I can think of better ways to spend money...
Sister 2: Pretty sure I can't!

I love my folks :P

OK so I spent all day today in the shed, basically.

Would you believe I've never used a dremel before? I bought one this morning in great anticipation of things to come. It's not a brilliant one, but hey! It does the job.

I started last night actually with marking out on paper my templates for all my pieces, save one. I also borrowed a LOT of things from Jay-Gon on how to do this - namely the masking tape so you don't scratch the rest of the tube, soaking it in water after to get the paper off again etc etc.

Incedentally, it didn't take much to get the 1.5" st adapter to the right internal diameter. The left one is how I recieved it, the right one has been worked. Not a whole lot of difference, but enough to make it useable.

So the whole day was spent practicing my dremel-fu, of which I have none, on several different pieces. Anyone try to cut MHS parts with a dremel? Not easy. Fortunately the majority of the cuts I had to make were sink tube ones.

My dear father assured me yesterday that we did indeed have a metal cut off disc for the circular saw, but when I came to use it, it had turned invisible. A solution presented itself without me having to go buy more stuff (I had already got the dremel by this stage) Dad is an archery coach. He makes a lot of things, like strings, grips, arrows... He happened to have an arrow cut off saw, which is basically a tiny circular saw with a tiny disc attatched to a piece of right angle with a measuring tape. It worked brilliantly... but not very square lol.

I also had a lot of trouble lining up my drilling holes, as Crystal pointed out before. Still havn't got them perfect, but now that I have the basic shape, I can work on that more.

This will become the crystal chamber a la Slothfurnace, hopefully...

I really liked the starkiller look for a crystal chamber, but didn't like the idea of it being knock-able. The idea is that the outer shroud can rotate so as to access the crystals.

Here's the back of the assembled hilt with the grip shroud turned around - easy access to electronics, thankyou Obi-Dar...

Which takes the number of moveable pieces to two...

Aaaaand the last two pics, with grips showing - the shroud hides the access point on the back.

(I think I made the images the right size, I certainly hope so!)

So there's a lot of cleaning up to do, a lot of straight lines to be fixed, and a lot of prettiness to be added. I can't decide if I should start the chassis or clean up the parts first though...

*sigh* probably have to go and do life things like college and work in between though...

Oh and Rafalema? Sketchup is the starting point, and Indigo makes it all pretty. I actually found that from a link someone posted here.

[Crystal Chambers]

Nice..that's what I thought actually. Off to a great start. I see you cut into the grip so you could have a window to access electronics..nice touch. this will also reduce some weight from the layers.

[Invisas1979]

Yeah really good start.

Just like with a MSH saber I started, I think you need a contrast of color. The chrome over alumi doesn't really jump out at me, had you sanded the chrome off then pow that would have looked awesome from the off.

Nice idea to cut out easy access holes into the saber, not many new saber builders do that, looks like you mean business.

Looking forward to seeing your Crytal chamber interpretation.

[pointoforigin]

Thanks guys, I do like meaning buisness

I'm actually thinking of paint on the shrouds, probably a dark colour, and if I can pull it off weathering on the edges like Crystal's Mantis. Not entirely sure about that though, I don't really have any experience with weathering at all. Or painting metal come to that lol. The idea is there.

I'm drawing my ideas up for how exactly I'm going to do the crystal chamber and chassis - trying to think how I'm going to keep it strong enough to duel... but I have one or two ideas up my sleeves. Think I'm gonna go the pommel inserts trick with some custom lathe work... we shall see...

I gotta add some custom work in at some point, because so far everything is a mash up of everyone else's works! Does that qualify as plagiarism? Since it's to do with the Star Wars universe is that Darth Plageius-ism?

Or should I shut up now?

[Shadar Al'Niende]

....Since it's to do with the Star Wars universe is that Darth Plageius-ism?

Or should I shut up now?

Well played

[jin starkiller]

looking good so far ..can't wait to see it finished

[pointoforigin]

Got a couple of hours free today, so I did some lathe work.

I had some spare brass rod lying around (about 1.75" diameter) so I grabbed that and started turning. Turns out though, with my design, you aren't even going to see this lathe work in the finished product!

Bit o' rust on that chuck hey? That's what you get from a 20 year old lathe that's been through a flood... still works beautifully

Can you see where I'm going with this?

The fat bits hold my extra pommel inserts in place to make a basis for the crystal chamber. The thin bits fit inside the MHS ribbed section - they're going to be accent LED mounts. Yes, there's going to be shine through from the handle. Hopefully.

And a bit of a teaser. I decided that the crystal bag I got from TCSS wasn't exactly what I was after, and if I got a real crystal it would look better. But what are the chances of getting the "right" crystal? Instead I'm going to make some!

Yes, those are pen blanks. When made the right size and shape, they will show the light through them, and be much easier to mount.

Now I just gotta track down some thin brass rod, tubing, and sheet.

On a more inquisitive note, being entirely without electronics-fu, I wonder if someone can tell me if I have this right?
I'm just using resistors, no driver/buckpuck, and am going to wire up accent LED's and an AV switch.
So I think it should go something like this -

With the 3 different LED's running in parallell each with their own resistor, and the accent LED's running in parallell with each other. Should work right?

Tomorrow I should have another couple of hours free, so I'm thinking to crank out the dremel again... there's some specific fit things I want to do... stay tuned

[pointoforigin]

Started work on my crystal chamber today. I thought about getting sheet brass and cutting it to size, but my funding at the moment is a bit low for that. I got some big washers to be heatsink vanes. Couldn't find brass ones at my local hardware, so I got these ones instead. They'll do for a proof of concept.

They were slightly too big to fit inside the 1.25" sinktube, so I had to turn them down to a proper size. I then proceedeed to drill holes in them. I also took the angle grinder to them to get the shape right.

I looked and couldn't find the brass rod that I was sure I had lying around, but I did have some thicker which I turned into shape. Ever try turning something 5 inches long and 1/8" diameter? Not very easy. It likes to bend in the middle and be thicker there. Next time I'll just buy more...

And here we have my heatsink, basically done. I may find some brass washers and re-do this, or I may just find some appropriately coloured paint. We shall see.

There's my story for the day. And the moral of the story of the day (because it DID take all day) is: Always! Make sure you have the right things to fit properly.

It could also be said that the moral is Don't try and emulate Slothfurnace on your first ever build...

My next one will be a lot simpler lol!

[Crystal Chambers]

Wow..off to an ambitious start. I wouldn't recommend that anyone do anything too similar to Slothfurnace for several reasons, but the one I can stand behind more then any is originality. Maybe we've all learned a lot from seeing his build but we should be more inspired to bring it our own styles. The parts that look the least like his are the ones I like the most on this.