First Saber Build - Or the continuous do-over

[hapki]

I have built around 11 sabers. I can only show four, because I keep tearing them apart, redoing them, and trying to get a more perfect final product. I also made a shock blaster but then tore it down to start over again. So, I know what you mean by the continuous do-over.

[minorhero]

And some more progress!

I spent most of yesterday and the first part of today trying to make wood rings to cap either end of the leather wrapped section. This turned out to be absurdely finicky. I do not have the appropriate sized drill bit to just bore out the size I need. Instead I am left with the following procedure. Bore out a 1-1/4 hole in a square piece of walnut. Take this to the lathe and turn it down so it is round and sand so it is smooth. Then mount this piece onto a previously made cylindrical holder. Tape in place, and then using a miter gauge cut a ring off on the bandsaw. Then take this ring and using the dremel with a sanding drum, increase the internal diameter until it perfectly fits over either the tube or the pommel (depending on which I am making) and then choosing one end of the ring and using the dremel, increase the inside diameter of a smaller section so that piece fits over the leather.

If this sounds like a lot of steps believe me it is. I ended up needing to make 3 tubes yesterday and about 6 or 7 rings before I had 2 usable pieces. And that said, the front ring is just a bit off. The front ring is one of the first I made and sloppy compared to my later work. So I will likely end up redoing that one.

But without further ado here is the effect:

Cg9vRdb.jpg

Despite likely needing to redo the front one (the one on the left) I am pretty happy with the effect these rings give off and also happy that they cover up my uneven leather ends.

With that chore out of the way or at least under control I have come up with one possible way to make my window but as with so many things I am not perfectly happy with it. My idea involves taking a clear 1-5/8 rubber/plastic tube and cutting a small piece out of it. Super gluing this piece inside of my tube over the hole I drill for the window. This gives me a hard and clear window but it also leaves a lip as deep as the tube wall is thick. So I then take a very small amount of epoxy and drip it on the outside. Then using a heatgun, very carefully spread it around so it covers only the holes up to the lip. I did this on my much abused original sink tube and it worked. The problem is two fold. The first is that the clear tubing is gosh darn THICK, probably 6 or 7 mm and that will all be space lost inside for my chasis and crystal which may be space needed. The second issue is that I really wanted to use the aerator micro mesh in the window and this method would complicate that, or make the whole thing even thicker. I will see about finding a smaller thinner walled bit of tubing.

In other news I have revisited my crystal chamber and begun making my chassis.

I decided my previous crystal chamber idea had several problems. The biggest being that I was not really happy with it and did not know how to attach it properly to my chassis and still allow wires to pass by it. I played around with a bunch of different options and then decided to try it from the reverse order. Rather then come up with a crystal chamber and then find out how to attach it to my chassis, how about I come up with the chassis and then figure out a crystal chamber. This made everything much easier.

For a while now I have known that my chassis will just be a piece of wood that everything will attach to. with that in mind I thought why not just glue a crystal to my stick of wood? And then I thought or I could use some of these bits and pieces of crystal I have and glue them all together to "make" a crystal. Then just have some random piece in the picture to make it look futuristicky. (yes that is definitely a word...)

Keep in mind my window into my crystal chamber is extremely limited. So not a lot will be visible at any point.

Here is my pile of crystal concept, not glued, just sitting there:

S7ntE49.jpg

Here is the same sitting on my chassis with a floral light trying to light this. This did not work well mostly because the floral light is a bump nothing wants to sit on gracefully. The final version wouldn't have these issues since the light would be coming from underneath and everything would be glued together.

igDLVUD.jpg

And here is the relatively successful window I made being held over the crystal pile. The view is all distorted because between the epoxy and the clear tubing there is a definite "fun house mirror" kind of effect going on. It means that to see very clearly you have to hold the window right up next to your eye. Outside of doing that it kind of looks like this picture. This is the reason why I am not particularly concerned about making a full blown crystal chamber.

URhGuVw.jpg

I also decided that since my chassis is now likely to be visible at least in part it couldn't just look like a stick of wood. So before I came in to post this I sprayed it with metallic gold paint. Hopefully that will give the crystal chamber something interesting in the background. Next up will be more chassis stuff plus I will need to figure out the final length of my saber. Currently the tube is 12.5" long but I suspect I will cut a bit off of that. I think I will be using 2 18650 batteries in this build since I am pretty sure I will have room for them. If I can put my sound card and the batteries on opposite sides of the chassis I am sure I can fit 2 batteries. But I am not sure if I need 2... I plan to run a rebel tri-star with the bass speaker and at least 1 additional accent led (for my crystal chamber) plus a lighted switch. How long will my saber run between recharges with just 1 battery? Will 2 batteries double the run time?

[Silver Serpent]

Simple answer: Your choice of batteries (1 or 2) will depend on the sound board you choose. For the NB or Prism, you use 1 battery. For the PC or CF, you use 2.

Complicated answer: You can use a single-cell solution with all four of the above boards, but the PC and CF require you to perform the single-cell hack (removing a component from the board). All the single-cell options can have their runtime doubled if you use 2 cells wired in PARALLEL. Don't accidentally connect two cells in SERIES for a single-cell setup, or you'll likely blow the board.

[rlobrecht]

Parallel = positive to positive and negative to negative - doubles the amps & amp hours
Series = positive to negative - doubles the voltage

Most AA holders and the like are wired in series.

[Rampant]

I have to say I am impressed with your perseverance and willingness to start over -- it is turning out great! Though, but different (and better IMHO) then you original design.

For the mesh in the tube, one idea I had -- which I have never tried BTW -- would be to put the mesh/tube inside, mask off the hilt and paint lots and lots of coats of clear paint (with something like this) to build up, giving the illusion of a clear window flush with the hilt. I am not sure how it would work with such a big window, or how many layers of clear it would take, but you should be able to sand it smooth with the hilt.

Just a thought.

I can't wait to see the finished product -- I love the idea of mixed materials on a saber.

[minorhero]

Thank you guys for the headsup regarding the battery. I am going to be using a Crystal Focus 8 as my soundboard so two batteries it is. By way of a micro update I have made my "chassis" thinner to accommodate the CF8 on one side of the chassis and my battery holders on the other side. I have made it so thin in fact that I may use a small piece of steel or aluminum to provide rigidity down the road. But shaving down the size did make it possible to fit the CF8 into my tube. I have also begun constructing my crystal. And yes it is kind of construction since my crystal will definitely be crystal fragments held together with tinted epoxy. More on that later on.

Thanks Rampant for the brainstorming. Unfortunately I do not think clear coats (be they lacquer, or other types) will provide enough strength to make the window solid. My current idea essentially involves "painting" the micromesh with epoxy while using the parchment paper as a backer so that I can build up a solid and impermiable layer then using using that impermeable layer as my plug to epoxy fill the hole. I think this will work. But the downside is that I only have one micromesh aerator and so the first time I test this theory will be the only time I have to make it work. Of course I could just go buy a new aerator, they are only like 3 dollars. But you know....... laziness..

[minorhero]

Ok got a chance to go back out to the shop tonight and once more some progress!

So I mentioned in my previous post that I have begun constructing my crystal. That is literally what I am doing. With my new chassis focused approached I have realized I have extremely limited space to put a crystal, in fact it is so limited that none of my crystals can fit. But that doesn't mean I can't use them, I just need to modify them a bit. And by modify I mean hit them with a hammer. I am using calcite as my crystal because it is cheap and vaguely green. Calcite has cleavage that makes it want to form rhombuses when given a chance. So when I hit my calcite with a hammer I tended to either get smaller rhombuses or flakes and dust. I ended up using these pieces to make 2 different types of crystal. The first is flakes and dust combined with tinted epoxy to form what I am calling the snot crystal. Basically once the epoxy stopped being sticky but remained pliable I scrunched it up with my hand and this is the result.

The other crystal was made up of small rhombuses and was more planned. This one I am calling the jagged crystal cause its ummm... jagged. Anyway I formed this one by laying the crystals out and then using epoxy to stick them together and lay some more on top. The epoxy was also tinted like the other crystal. Here is a picture of both. The snot crystal has some floral lights under it.

dWyxOjM.jpg

I haven't decided yet which one I like more. Or if I should try another method to make my crystal.

I also got a chance to cut my saber to length finally and put the shaping in for the "shroud" section. Here is what the cut looked like after some light deburring.

8CxaI9q.jpg

Here is what it looks like with the emitter put in:

11TRmZd.jpg

hy4ebRO.jpg

[minorhero]

More progress!

I have begun adding bits of metal to my saber to create some form of layering. I used a piece that I cut off from the tip and also used another piece I cut out from my steering tube to create something for where the switch is going to go. I also made version one of my button guard out of walnut. I showed the result to my wife and she soundly rejected it saying it looked stupid. Ahh my wife is not delicate in her comments ;P

I also remade the front ring for the leather and it fits considerably better then the old version and is a bit tougher as well so hopefully it will hold up.

Here is what version one of the button guard looked like:

eI0PDf0.jpg

Note nothing is glued down at this point its all just laying there.

Some more pictures of the button guard:

ueFMHyt.jpg

pMxf3Le.jpg

sCXy3C7.jpg

Version one had the hole for the button off center from the larger "guard" hole. Version 2 will hopefully have that corrected. Also version 1 follows the shape of the metal piece underneath it. Version 2 will not and will be a more simple geometric shape, a square or rectangle most likely. I may try to use a piece of sinktube (scrubbed of chrome so only bronze is visible) as a top layer over the wood. Or I might go steel.. or aluminum.. I haven't really made up my mind yet clearly.

In other news I will likely be using the snot crystal for this saber. The jagged crystal did not really fit (vertically) despite my attempts to keep it pretty flat. I may try to make another crystal now that I have a technique. I will have to see how it goes.

[minorhero]

Small Progress.

I have been trying to come up with a better activation box made of wood. So far this has not gone well for a few reasons. The first and foremost is that I am having trouble designing something that looks good. The second issue has to do with drilling my holes. My design calls for two drill bits overlapping. The first is a 1/2" forstner bit to provide a "guarded" area. The second drill bit is smaller and actually creates the hole for the switch to sit in. The problem is that getting these bits to perfectly overlap is a bit of a challenge and in 3 different attempts they tend to be off by a 1mm or so which unfortunately is quite noticeable.

While going back and forth with all of this I have also gone on and made a new crystal. This one will likely be the crystal in the finished saber and is of the "snot" crystal design I employed previously.

My third attempt at an activation box involved a very square looking box with a piece of bronze (cut and flattened from a sink tube) placed on top. This ended up looking positively horrible. Here it is with the new crystal on top of what will likely be the chassis (though currently unmodified):

Ncy4HpR.jpg

Close-up of this style of box:

b6TNSNg.jpg

With that failure firmly under my belt, I began poking around for other options. I went back to my first activiation box and significantly sanded down the sides making it about half the originally size. This is the result:

sf7JlRs.jpg

9fLQ9LE.jpg

I frankly was not happy with this look either.

I think my next attempt will be a small rounded rectangle which will not have metal on top as that did not seem to work out well. I tried to create something like this as my second box (not pictured) but frankly I messed it up so that it ended up sitting crooked on the tube. I think I will try that style again.

[PhoenixHawk]

Just a thought....why don't use both.... as in add a brass plate to the first activation box(3rd & 4th pic) and like it thinned down also. Also add some brass shrouds to the saber so the activation box is not the only thing with brass.

And i'm liking all the wood your adding to your saber...Master Craftsmen here.