Lessons learned the hard way.

[Obi-Dar Ke-Gnomie]

My first saber is pretty much finished. It turned out pretty good, but there are a couple of things that I learned that I wanted to pass on to any other beginners out there.

First, I had ordered an MHS hilt and blade holder, but didn't order a pommel because I had found an Armitage Shanks hand wheel on Ebay, and I thought I could make it work and be authentic too.

I made it work, but it was a bit of a PITA. I had to make a sleeve to glue into the pommel, and then secure it into the hilt with a thumbscrew. It would have been so much easier just to screw in a pommel from the store. Now that Tim offers the pommel #3, I'm going to order one on payday.

Second lesson concerned the thumbscrews. Again, I didn't order from here because I had some thumbscrews in my jars of nuts and bolts in the shed. I had bought a tap and die set cheap at a garage sale, and although it was missing a couple of taps, I thought I had all I needed and tried to save a few bucks.

Well, guess what? All my thumbscrews were 8-32 thread. Guess which tap was missing from my kit? Yup, 8-32.

8-32 tap and drill kit from Tim = $3.75. 8-32 tap and drills, (sold separately of course,) from Canadian Tire = $9.88.

I looked on the package for the tap and it said that I needed a 9/64" drill for an 8-32 tap. This is wrong. 9/64" was too big. I was still able to cut the threads, but the screws are sloppy in their holes.

Now I'm going to have to drill them out and put in 10-32 thumbscrews. (From Tim of course.)

The moral of the story is this: Just buy everything from TCSS and don't try to cut corners. Everything has been thoughtfully designed to work together, and you'll save yourself a lot of hassles.

[GFORCE13]

Unfortunately this is an important lesson learned, that is why I buy it here Tim's supplies are the best.

[Enolmano]

Hey, why don't we start this club: We-who-have-learned-the-lesson-of-buying-everything-from-TCSS-club?

[GFORCE13]

I'm in where do I sign.

[goldsaberwarrior]

I'm in.

[Obi-Dar Ke-Gnomie]

Reviving this old thread with an update.

My new parts arrived today. (I had to wait until last week to order them.)

The bigger #10 thumbscrew works great. Tim's tap & die set worked well, and I had no problems making the new threads. There is no more sloppiness in the hole, and the thumbscrew gets a good bite on the blade. It has a bigger head too, so it's so much easier to turn.

I replaced my Armitage Shanks pommel with the MPS #3. It's a little smaller, so it will take some getting used to, but I think I'm going to like it. The old one was secured well enough not to fall out, but it was a little wobbly, and rattled around a bit when I was handling the saber.

The new pommel fits like a glove, (of course) and is a lot easier to take off and put on.

I definitely should have done it this way in the first place.

One other thing I did was to replace the 10 degree lens with a 5 degree. As far as I can tell, there's no discernible difference. Maybe with a different setup, it might be more noticeable.

[Novastar]

Obi-Dar... Corbin posted a pretty darn extensive sticky thread on the entire why use 5 deg, why use 10 deg lens thing somewhere. Forgive me, I don't know where it is at the moment.

You are right that there is not much distinction to be made... unless you begin using blade lengths that are pretty significant (say 36" + ).

As to learning what parts you should get on your own and what should be bought from TCSS... well... in the words of the old Bard himself, "Suit the action to the word, word to the action". Each project is different from the next, and some people prefer all TCSS parts... some all "specially customized" for them alone... some a hybrid... and some simply require wacky parts because the electronics prohibit other setups.

[vortextwist]

You just gotta use what works for you and your project. As long as it looks great, It' don't matter.

[Obi-Dar Ke-Gnomie]

Obi-Dar... Corbin posted a pretty darn extensive sticky thread on the entire why use 5 deg, why use 10 deg lens thing somewhere. Forgive me, I don't know where it is at the moment.

I've been spending the last two months here trying to read as much as I can. It's pretty overwhelming. Somehow, I missed that thread, but I'll go looking for it.

As to learning what parts you should get on your own and what should be bought from TCSS... well... in the words of the old Bard himself, "Suit the action to the word, word to the action". Each project is different from the next, and some people prefer all TCSS parts... some all "specially customized" for them alone... some a hybrid... and some simply require wacky parts because the electronics prohibit other setups.

I've learned a lot, making my first saber here. More than I learned making any of my hardware sabers. I'm drawing up plans for a second saber which will be more of a custom design. I'm going to use some TCSS parts for the base, but it will have a lot more custom parts. Should be fun!

As long as it looks great, It' don't matter.

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out in the end. My nephew went nuts over it and wants one with a green blade for Christmas. His mother and I need to talk.