My Custom MHS Saber

[Silver Serpent]

Reinforced cutting wheels are what I typically use. http://www.dremel.com/en-us/Accessor...l.aspx?pid=426

The non-reinforced wheels have a tendency to break on me when I get in a hurry.

[JMurphy]

Yeah I'll try to pick some up, I'm also hearing that quick disconnect mandrels are super handy as well. I think I 'may' have something similar to the reinforced wheels, but they are quite large.

[Forgetful Jedi Knight]

Yeah I'll try to pick some up, I'm also hearing that quick disconnect mandrels are super handy as well. I think I 'may' have something similar to the reinforced wheels, but they are quite large.

Yes, they are, especially for the cutting wheels.

[JMurphy]

Something has happened today that I am quite happy to share, my flex shaft is working!! I took it in to the store from which I bought it and of course it was the easiest solution, but regardless of that I am very happy because it has meant I could try things again . So I just continued from where I stopped last but without graph paper, so that is why things are a bit wonky.

The results:







So anyone reading this that isn't sure about how handy a flex shaft would be GET IT!!! It has made things a million times easier, so much so that I don't think I need a vice or workbench now.

There is some bad news to go with this good news in that I had to stop because the shaft began to vibrate like crazy and started to become quite hot. Hopefully the issue is a one off, but I stopped just in case. Of course I'll try again tomorrow!

Thanks guys

[JMurphy]

Hi all,

So my shroud piece came in, but did it seem to fit… YES it did!

Now trying the fit came at a price, it seems that I didn't get all the burrs out and it scratched up my MHS parts something fierce:







-Now I have to decide, do I try sand it out?
-Or do I do some sort of weathering job?

I have a feeling that sanding the tube evenly would be harder than I am thinking, not really sure if I could do a good enough job. I don't even know where to begin thinking, if I were to go the weathering route either, lol.

Heres what the tube ends look like:





Any-who, tips or suggestions welcome, even just what you think would look better, sanding or weathering. Should be able to try cutting the shroud on Thursday. Prep until then. Oh yeah and any tips on being sure that burrs are out would be awesome, don't want to make things worse.

Thanks guys

[Silver Serpent]

The edges of the shroud should be sanded smooth before you slide them over MHS parts. Too little, too late, I know. I always run a piece of tissue paper over any edges to help feel for snags. I do the same on the threads, just to check for any burrs that might be leftover from the machining process.

Those scratches don't look too bad to sand out. If it were my piece, I'd probably start with some 200 grit sandpaper, wrap a bit of it around the MHS part, and twist the MHS inside the sandpaper. You'll get a decent sanding all around the part if you keep even pressure. After the marks are gone or mostly gone, you can move up to progressively finer grits of sandpaper. 400, 800, and then possibly 1000-2000 if you want mirror finish. It will take some time, but you can get those marks out.

[Gnar-Gnar Gin]

I did a similar thing last month on my first MHS saber and used a similar technique to what SS described with perfect results

[JMurphy]

Awesome, thanks a bunch guys

I did try to sand but clearly not enough, but all is good. I still may keep the scratches yet, just trying to think of what I could add to make them look good and not out of place. I guess I just wanted to know how I could remove them if I decided that there was nothing else I could do.

How do you decide when it is best to change between paper grits? (after the 200 mark). I had the suggestion on other boards that I could try just using a (1000) grit paper entirely, or even try some buffing with my rotary tool. I guess buffing could be good for dulling the scratches.

[GnarGnar]

you'll go through tones of 1000 grit, i step it up 120-200 at a time. personally when I went through this I started with 320 then 400 then 600 then 800 then 1000 then 1500. The key is to get rid of the big stuff, and then move on to the next biggest stuff and so forth. if you don't, it'll take 100 pieces of sand paper and 100 times more work vs. 5-10 pieces of sandpaper and 1 times work. also look up wet sanding

[JMurphy]

Thanks a bunch GnarGnar, I'll probably give buffing a go first, simply because I have pretty well everything I need on me now. There is also the fact that I will be powder coating black, so that should cover up whatever I don't get out, but we'll see, i'll probably need to use the sandpaper method down the line, so I appreciate the detailed response