Yet another new guy...

[MandoJoe]

Hey, yall. I'm Joe. New to the prop building community, sort of. I hang out over at TheDentedHelmet.com in their Mandalorian forum, but my best friend and I have just decided to build our own sabers.

We tried going with RandomSabers for colored acrylic blades, but were saddened to find that the actual product is nothing like what is advertised, so it looks like we're going to be doing all our business here.

Looking forward to talking to yall and absorbing whatever knowledge I can!

[jin starkiller]

welcome to the forum
you might want to start here to build basic led lightsaber..



http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com...ead.php?t=8537

[MandoJoe]

Yeah. That's sort of the plan. We're actually going to see if we can cheat the system for our first sabers. We're planning on using a pair of gutted 3W LED tactical flashlights that we own to see if that might simplify our build (not to mention our costs). Of course, the build has to wait until payday, so it'll be a week or so before we start making any progress.

[jin starkiller]

if you are looking for a cheap alternative try pvc for the hilt .....look at this tutorial that Darth Midian put up very insiteful


http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com...hp?albumid=201

[MandoJoe]

Yeah. We've already got our hilts planned out for doing them with PVC. We were waiting on the acrylic blades to come in from RandomSabers before we bought any hilt supplies, so that we were sure we had the right sizes, but with the blades being so wrong, I think we're just going to go with the 1" white poly carb blade here.

Thanks for the input, Jin. It's much appreciated.

[Jedi-Loreen]

Colored acrylic blades look pretty, but they aren't really duelable, acrylic is kind of brittle for that.

[MandoJoe]

That's the other thing we were worried about. We're going to be using dueling as part of an exercise program to try and get into shape as well, so heavy dueling will be taking place. We don't really wanna just go at it using something we've worked hard to build. We're figuring on using foam filled and wrapped PVC until we're good enough at it to do it with our LED blades without going crazy.

[RevengeoftheSeth]

That's the other thing we were worried about. We're going to be using dueling as part of an exercise program to try and get into shape as well, so heavy dueling will be taking place. We don't really wanna just go at it using something we've worked hard to build. We're figuring on using foam filled and wrapped PVC until we're good enough at it to do it with our LED blades without going crazy.

Nerf actually makes a similar length foam 'long sword' that comes to about 45" long if you want something to practice with. It has a plastic core for durability and is actually a really good practice tool. It has approximately the same dimensions (the blade isn't too bulky).

You can find it at Toys R Us for $15-$20 each.

Once you get good, you can move up to the more painful polycarb blades.

[MandoJoe]

We also looked at that. He's got a couple of the shorter N-Strike swords, and they're pretty decent (though he and his little bro have already pretty much killed the tips). The Marauder looks good, and is just a little cheaper, but I think we're going the PVC route so that we can balance them properly and get a nice tight round saber blade on it.

Of course, this is me thinking, so who knows? I could be wrong.

[MandoJoe]

Well, I think I've finally got a design I like. Basically I took Darth Midian's PVC tutorial and adjusted a few details. Here's what I'm sorta planning. Going to order my blade next Friday, I think, as soon as I get paid. Then we'll make a trip to the hardware store to get the PVC supplies.