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

[minorhero]

Well first of all... What a great animation! You have clearly put a LOT of work into the modeling aspect.

In the animation the parts that I am not sure about are the metal end caps to the Walnut cylinder and the black/dark grey ribs to the grip. The metal pieces are the same outer diameter as the Walnut but they go into the Walnut piece and are also what allows transition to a mhs emitter and pommel? Unless you are planning to make these metal end pieces, then whatever they are is going to determine what your chassis is. I honestly don't know what parts from the store though look quite like what you have there. If you do plan to make them, then again however big their inner diameter is your maximum size for your chassis.

When it comes to 3d printed chassis, discs is not the way to go. Search on shapeways for lightsaber chassis and you will see a bunch for around 20$. The discs in the store are a great way to go if you are using mhs parts because they are so customizable and fit into the existing bodies. For your saber you are already obviously familiar with 3d work it seems like it might be easier for you than most to custom make a chassis just for this saber.

As for wood discs. Making them line up will be easy. Turns a solid wood cylinder to the perfect diameter, then take it over to a drill press and drill your holes for threaded rods right away. Then take it to a bandsaw and slice it up like taking thick slices off of a salami. Then you can stack up any number of wood discs, tape them together, and drill whatever holes you need in them for things like batteries, sound cards, wire holes, etc. Mhs discs are simpler and easier but if have an inner diameter they won't fit into you have some great alternatives.

The pieces from the grip, I just don't know what it is but I am wary of them because they will have the most twisting and pressure put on them of any part so whatever they are they need to be very strong and very very well attached.

[Ethan]

For the end caps on the walnut, I was thinking of using the .75" male/female extensions. I had not thought of 3d printing a full chassis, as most of the modeling I do for 3d printing has to be done for FDM printers, but since shapeways uses more advanced printers, that would certainly be an option for the internals if I end up needing something different from MHS parts, and would also be easier than wood discs. For the grips on the rear end of the hilt, I was just thinking of using the left overs of the sleeve material I would have after cutting out the main shroud pieces. I can't think of where there would be a twisting force on them, could you clarify that more?

[minorhero]

If you are holding the saber and swinging it around your hands will compress, twist, pull, scrunch, and slide on those grip pieces. Obviously not like actually slide all over the place but just think of what the grip of a baseball bat needs to withstand and you have a good idea.

The good news about those MHS male/female adapters is that the inner diameter is mhs standard 1.25" so you should be able to use the chassis discs if your wooden cylinder is the same inner diameter after you get past the part where the MHS male/female adapter inserts in. It will be important that your wooden cylinder is setup in this way so that with the mhs parts on the end the inner diameter of your wooden tube remains a consistent 1.25" all the way through. If not you will have a hard time installing any chassis whatsoever.

The bad news is that the male/female coupler has an outer diameter like all mhs parts of just 1.45". That means the wall thickness of your wooden tube will need to be at most a bit under 1/8" at its thickest, and even thinner at the ends where the male/female couple will make contact in order for your wooden tube to remain flush with the mhs parts. That is a VERY thin piece of wood for a lightsaber.

[Ethan]

As I said earlier, I'm not going to be doing any dueling with this saber, so I'm not too worried about a lot of force being put on the grips, but if the Mhs parts are only 1.45 in", that is getting quite thin. I think I may have to use a sink tube on the interior and have a custom chassis made by shapways. Looking at the 1.25" sink tube on the store, it widens towards the end, does anyone know if that is included in the 12" length? also, will the MHSv1 to 1.25" sink tube adapter allow me to secure the LED unit between the adapter and the blade emitter? there aren't any images on the store that show the inside of the adapter, so I can't tell whether it has the recess behind the threads for the flange on the LED heat sink to slide into.

[minorhero]

The blade emitter itself has room for the heatsink and led, or at least the ones I have seen. The converters have a flange more narrow than a sink tube inner diameter which means you will likely want to attach your sink tube to mhs converters through some method that can be disassembled such as screws. If you glue them in place you will have a problem with your chassis either getting in or getting out.

[Ethan]

On one of the reviews for the sink tube to Mhs converter, it says that the inner diameter of the converter is 1”, so I was thinking I would just make a 1” chassis so that I could remove it without having to undo any screws, to make accessing the recharge port and Sd card easier. That doesn’t solve the issue of the speaker though, as 28mm is larger than 1”, so I’m still coming up with ideas on how to implement that. It would be nice if the speaker could fit inside the pummel, but the store doesn’t list the inner diameter of the pummels as far as I know, so I’m not sure if that will work.

[minorhero]

All mhs 1 parts have an inner diameter of 1.25" except for the ribbed section and possibly some of the fluted sections... Not sure on them. The smaller diameter of the ribbed sections is 1.15" if I remember right.

If you use a 1" diameter chassis to fit inside your wood cylinder which is reinforced with a sink tube your chassis will rattle around because the inner diameter of the sink tube is greater than 1". Hence why you would probably need screws to remove at least one side of the converters so your chassis could have the same diameter as the sink tube so it won't rattle.