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Thread: JB's Pathfinder Scratchbuild

  1. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by CET View Post
    I always enjoy this level of creativity. By comparison I feel very much like a "paint by number" sabersmith.
    I may at some point make something more main stream, but I've had this idea for a while and there was really no chance my first saber was going to be anything but unique. Using 3D printed parts does really feel like cheating though. I feel like, at least for this one, as much as possible should be scavenged or fabricated by hand. I guess if the button surrounds are the one visible thing then I'm OK with that.

  2. #12

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    Here's a quick video showing the custom lighting for my button. The colors are a bit washed out in the video, but it looks great in person. I probably won't get to fabricate the brass insert until next week when I can get out to my folks place, and I'll hopefully mount the assembly in the hit then as well. That, of course, is the scary part!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljq6qKOehnU
    Last edited by jbkuma; 06-11-2016 at 12:05 PM.

  3. #13

  4. #14

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    Who's kidding who? I spent the day working on this with hand tools instead of waiting to do it on the drill press and grinder. More out of luck than planning, the button is at the limit of where I can install it without rigging something to get it in there.


    Not finalized yet, but it's really nice to see her with a heart beat! Still need to transfer the code to an appropriate board, order my LED/heatsink/blade.

    Right now the led triggers are set up so they could be activated by an NBv3, but I'm debating trying to just go for it and make my setup from scratch.

  5. #15

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    Its coming along rather well jbkuma.

  6. #16

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    Decided to go concept art style and tether my hilt to a belt pack... or I'm still prototyping and can't stick my guts in yet.

    I was originally going to brassify the the black part but I think I'm going to leave it black. I like the contrast. I did mess up on the OD of the deeper part of the insert, so I just sawed it off. The inset for the brass part, however, was spot on and it just snaps in.

    Apparently the Shapeway black "strong and flexible" plastic is really white with a black coating. Somewhat disappointing. I'll take that account for future parts for which I had planned some minor modification when I start fitting parts.
    Last edited by jbkuma; 06-12-2016 at 10:08 PM.

  7. #17

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    I've been working mostly on the guts. My prototype chassis works very well at keeping things where they belong and I've rewired things several times. Not much to show there right now, but I will hopefully order the rest of the parts for my build soon.

    With that, the exterior is not finalized, with having gotten the rest of the build to the point that everything is easier to put together without complete disassembly, I was able to put the copper conduits back on. I also added some pins to dress it up and keep it from turning since it matches the contour of the tubing. There is some asymmetry and blemishes so far as things have been modified several times during prototyping, but I might actually leave it like that instead of trying to "fix it." My goal was to make this look like a prototype anyway, so it may as well be authentic.

  8. #18

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    Wow, how did I miss this build log?! Nicely done, JB, I really enjoy the brass, leather, wrappings, and copper tubing this saber is sporting And that switch design you've come up with, very sweet. It looks great sitting flush against the main surface, low profile for dueling too. With the used yet cared-for quality of the original trilogy, your saber definitely fits the design aesthetic of our favorite galaxy far far away.

    You may have been covered somewhere else, but where did you find the small brass tubing you are using? Looks great. Can't wait to see this build continue to progress, and your chassis design + crystal chamber.
    BinarySunsetDesign.wordpress.com

    "Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life; bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky." -A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

  9. #19

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    Woahhhhh I love that switch and pommel! What did you use for the pommel btw?
    "Peace is a lie. Perhaps the greatest of them all. Peace, or a lack of change equals Death. If the waters of a pool cease to move, and become stagnant, the waters poison themselves, and kill all who drink from it. Chaos, on the other hand, brings great change. Should the pool be over taken by a river, life springs anew.
    -Lord Malyce, Exile of Sith, First Warrior of Sands

  10. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by .: SparrowHawk :. View Post
    Wow, how did I miss this build log?! Nicely done, JB, I really enjoy the brass, leather, wrappings, and copper tubing this saber is sporting And that switch design you've come up with, very sweet. It looks great sitting flush against the main surface, low profile for dueling too. With the used yet cared-for quality of the original trilogy, your saber definitely fits the design aesthetic of our favorite galaxy far far away.

    You may have been covered somewhere else, but where did you find the small brass tubing you are using? Looks great. Can't wait to see this build continue to progress, and your chassis design + crystal chamber.
    Thank you! High praise from someone who has crafted one of the great beauties of our day. The button design has had a lot of surprises for me, but it has worked out better than I'd hoped. The pins give a nice tactile feedback on an otherwise nearly flush button. I have gone back and forth on whether I wanted to do it from the beginning as the more simple, sleek design looked really nice. There really is not a lot of room for another method of keeping the brass insert from rotating, though. I wasn't as careful as I could have been in their alignment, but it works for now. Perhaps the asymmetry is part of the charm.

    The current surround material is a translucent glow in the dark that shifts my color mix toward white pink as it absorbs some blue and makes it green. The purple looks great for about 30 seconds before the shift. I was hoping it would be more insignificant, as leaving a glowing ring when it's shut down is also a pretty nice effect. I'm debating the appropriate material to redo it in as I start finalizing the build. I'm worried that a frosted clear material might not diffuse the lighting enough, but the current material mixes and diffuses (color shift aside) fairly well, it absorbs a great deal amount of light to do so. I may have my friend make it up using clear filament instead of shipping it off to shapeways since the rougher quality of the print should help. The design of the piece would necessarily be simpler, but the prototype works well enough, so I could just go back to that with some minor tweaks.

    The smaller tubing is from local art supplies thanks to a tip from DC. You can find it online, but it's always nice to be able to look at things. It's fairly inexpensive so I bought a few different sizes. The smaller size comes pretty close to fitting, but is a bit more malleable. I had to crimp the ends of the tubing to get it to fit right, but the larger diameter tubing is also more rigid and frankly just looks a lot more significant.

    Quote Originally Posted by TheSilverDark View Post
    Woahhhhh I love that switch and pommel! What did you use for the pommel btw?
    Thanks! The pommel a big brass sew-in snap inserted into a 3D printed insert I designed as part of a modular chassis I've been working on to suit the specific needs of this build. Since there isn't really an off the shelf item that would fit properly here, I spent a few weeks searching for 30-38mm brass things.. when I found something that looked workable I'd look for more things of that type. The brass button was really one of the first things I found, but it was pretty expensive for just being a set of a few buttons so I kept looking. I also went to a lot of stores with metal things (hardware, sewing, etc) and just test fit interesting things in a piece of the brass tubing to see if it fit and how it looked, and measure anything worth noting with a caliper for future reference. I was originally planning on finishing the black 3D part to make it appear brass, but I decided the black helps add texture and depth to the build.

    I should be able to put in my TCSS order for the blade, LED, etc in a month or so. Once I have that in hand I'll decide what I want to do for sound. I have about 8" of 1.2" diameter below the switch, and about 2" past it before the future home of the LED housing. That gives me a fair amount of room to work with. I will certainly be able to fit a Nano Biscotte along with the Arduino Pro Mini that's already in there. I've worked out how to get the NB and Arduino to dance, but part of me also wants to continue the hard road and figure out how to make sound work on my own. Others have already done it, but if I just wanted to copy their efforts I would just pick up the NB and move on with my life. This build has been a great platform to learn and refine a number of skills, and I may never stop fiddling with it even if I do pick up an NB as a more immediate solution.
    Last edited by jbkuma; 06-27-2016 at 08:00 AM.

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