A Storm has come...
This is a story about a very good friend of mine, who is about a close to being a geek as a blue whale is to being able to fly through outer space. When we met I was in the middle of building my very first lightsaber, which I call Obsession, and I was always talking about how close I was to completing it. She would look at me with the same look you'd associate with someone that was about to be picked up by men in lab coats and butterfly nets. "Sure you build lightsabers," she would say with that sceptical lilt to her voice. "What are these, toys?" I tried to explain that these were very high quality movie style props that did everything a real lightsaber would do short of actually being able to cut through matter. She would smile and nod, but never really got it. Until she came to visit and I powered up one of my sabers for her. She was completely mesmerized. She had seen the movies before and enjoyed them, but not like a rabid fan that wanted a lightsaber. But something about actually seeing how the blade ignited and the saber started to hum and make swinging and clashing sounds made the 10 year old in her want a lightsaber, bad.
So, I showed her all about building lightsabers and we came up with a design that fit her personality. Now she had never really been into geek type stuff, but now she's designing costumes for cosplay that match the character she came up with to match her saber. A saber we call...
The Storm Saber!
This saber is quite a departure from all my previous builds. She was very specific about the color scheme and it took me weeks of trial and error, mostly error, to get them right. This being the first time I ever powder coated anything probably had something to do with that, but the results speak for themselves. This saber also has my first ever attempt at salt water etching, with more trial and error ensuing. I would explain what I would be doing with her design as I was etching and powdercoating, and she would look at me with that sceptical eye and say "are you sure this is gonna work?" I'd just say "trust me, I know what I'm doing" in my best fake it til you make voice.
So here's the run down on the specs. It's all MHS parts with some custom machining on the pommel. Custom 'Madcow' style switches. There's a cartouche that's salt water etched with the word 'storm' in an aurebesh hand written style font. There's a lightning bolt engraved in the hilt that turns into a faux crystal chamber lit by a 5MM RGB LED.
Here's the rest of the specs:
Tri Cree R/G/rB blade LED
18650 3.7V battery
Prizm 3.5 sound card
Recharge port
2W Bass speaker
When I finished it all up and showed it to her for the first time she acted like a kid on Christmas morning. I loaded it with some fun fonts like Thrasher and Godzilla because I knew she'd get a kick out of them. The main font is Novastar's Storm Sizzle II because it fits with the theme of the saber, with its rain sizzle effects and thunderclaps.
Oh, by the way, my friend's name?
Stormy!
And now on to the glams!
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