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Thread: 1st Lightsaber Build! (with a partial wooden hilt)

  1. #1

    Default 1st Lightsaber Build! (with a partial wooden hilt)

    Hello Everyone,

    I'm starting work on my first lightsaber build, for which I'm going to try to use a custom made wooden body for the main part of the hilt . Here is a few images of what I hope to have the saber look like once it is finished.

    Custom_Lightsaber_With_Internals_2018-Jan-11_05-59-38PM-000_CustomizedView6865878198.jpg
    Custom_Lightsaber_With_Internals_2018-Jan-11_06-00-13PM-000_CustomizedView5773744759.jpg
    Custom_Lightsaber_With_Internals_2018-Jan-11_06-00-39PM-000_CustomizedView39889940064.jpg
    Custom_Lightsaber_With_Internals_2018-Jan-11_06-01-21PM-000_CustomizedView14897607798.jpg

    I intend to make the main body of the hilt out of a piece of walnut, which will then have 2 of the .75" male/female extensions glued into it for the pummel and blade holder to screw in to. I have yet to order the metal parts for my saber, as there is only 1 of those extensions, and none of the pummel inserts I would like to use available at the moment (does anyone know how long it usually takes for things like that to get back in stock?), but I have started to prototype the walnut section which will form the center of the hilt. Images of the prototype are below (the prototype is only made of pine)

    image4.jpg
    image3.jpg
    image2.jpg
    image1.jpg

    One end of the prototype became too thin while I was sanding it down to the correct diameter (a bit less than 1.5", as I am going to use the 18" sleeve piece to make a shroud for the saber), so I will have to be more careful on future attempts. I was only measuring one end of the piece while it was on my lathe being sanded, which is a somewhat stupid mistake to make, but I'm glad it was made on the prototype, not the final piece. I will update this thread as I make more progress on the saber.

  2. #2

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    I like your design! My first saber also incorporated wood. I went through several designs and ended up just using wooden rings and some wood shielded by steel to make a sort of control box. However my original design involved a 1-1/4" sink tube which acted like a metal barrel for the wood (cherry in my case). If you have ever turned a pen you get the idea. This worked really well because the sink tube gave the entire structure strength. Ultimately I wasn't able to make it look aesthetically pleasing enough. But the store does have sink tube to mhs converters. My main worry for your design is that an all wood main body would not be strong enough to be useful as anything other than a pure display device. That may be all you are going for though.

  3. #3

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    I’m not going for a pure display piece, however I don’t plan on doing any dueling with this saber (mainly because I don’t know anyone to duel with). Using a sink tube as a barrel would make it stronger, however, I am unsure how to incorporate that into the design without making the wood part so thin it would be impossible to make without cracking. How did you get around that?

  4. #4

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    I'm looking forward to seeing this build take shape!

    Depending on what needs to fit, you can probably find aluminum tubing that would work to support that section.

  5. #5

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    My plan is to use the MHS v1 chassis discs to create a chassis that will fit into the saber. This makes adding an aluminum piece as a barrel difficult, as the wood combined with the proposed aluminum piece would have to be no thicker than 1/8 of an inch to let it fit inside the MHS sleeve tubing. I am contemplating just using normal MHS chassis parts, and then putting a walnut veneer around it to give it the same look, but I have somewhat of a bias against using veneer to make things look like wood you could say, so I'm unsure whether I want to go that route

  6. #6

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    I basically made what amounted to a giant pen barrel. I started with a rectangular piece of cherry and using a 1.25" forstner bit drilled out the center. I had to do some sanding and filing in there to get it to fit but once done I had a rectangular piece of cherry that would accept as a tight fit the sink tube. I then epoxied the sink tube in place. Once dry I took the whole assembly to the lathe and turned it down. I got it so the wooden outside would slide perfectly into a 1.5" sink tube which I planned to use as a shroud. I abandoned this idea when it turned out that cutting good sized pieces out of my "shroud" caused it to deform and no longer remain tight against the wood. I have a thread from that first build with pictures and explanations. You can see the progression here: http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com...mall-progress)

  7. #7

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    Thank you for that link, from a first glance, it looks like you did roughly what I’m thinking of doing. I’ll spend some more time later going through that thread, to see what I can learn from it. In my current plan, I’m thinking of using the Mhs chassis parts to house the internals of my saber, which makes using a sinktube difficult, but maybe I can figure out another way to reinforce the walnut piece while turning it, or another way to hold the internals of my saber

  8. #8

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    You could use mhs parts as your tube instead of a sink tube. This may make using mhs sleeve material for your shroud difficult or impossible however. You would need another solution for that. Another option is make your own chassis discs out of wood. That way you can use any size you want. And finally since you seem able to 3d model you could make a 3d chassis and have it made somewhere like shapeways and sent to you.

    I admit to not understanding all of your parts in your model. Not sure if you are planning to go completely custom or not. If not you may want to revisit the design so you can use off the shelf parts. Having done one saber more or less custom or highly adapted, and a second saber almost complete the same way.. I have to say I am looking forward to my third saber being completely mhs.

  9. #9

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    Other than the walnut piece, and a few small 3d printed pieces, I am trying to make as much of the saber as I can out of MHS parts, so I would rather not use custom 3d printed chassis discs made by a place like shapeways (that would also likely increase the price, and I've created a budget for this saber that I would rather not go over). making wood ones is a possibility, but that would also add more complexity to the build, as getting all the pieces to line up correctly would be hard, and like you said, just having things go together the way they are supposed to is nice. another small thing I would like to do is have a crystal chamber inside the saber, and the smaller I make the interior space, the more difficult that gets. Because of these reasons, I think I will likely go with just a walnut piece as the main hilt, the pine prototypes I've made for that piece have been pretty strong, and since walnut is a much harder wood, it should be even stronger. The aluminum Shroud Piece also runs almost the whole length of the walnut, so hopefuly that will act as sort of an exoskeleton as well. To give you guys a better idea of what I hope to do with the internals of this saber, here is an animation I created of it being dissembled.

  10. #10

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    Damn, and I thought i was being ambitious with my planned first build just on the electronics side. I'm loving the look of your design and ambition on the fabrication.

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