Jay-gon's Brass Saber 3-7 (MR Sound/Lux III's)

[SpectreT65]

As to blade color - for some reason, Jay, your designs scream "Green" to me time and again. Probably because of the patina oxidized brass takes on. I've got a sinktube I was planning on sanding down to the brass, inspired by some of your designs and Corbin's "Killer Penny". Frankly, I've mainly been wating on better weather and better tools, and I've been worried about the tarnishing as well. "Weathered" isn't a look I'm going for. More like "well-oiled and cared-for favorite tool".

[Jay-gon Jinn]

I'm going to make one of them red, just to see how it looks. The other one will be green or cyan (bin 6, pastel green!). The chrome one is going to be blue. I should be able to finish these off later this week, The parts from the store have shipped, and I have a line on some soundboards as well. I'll be trying out some new speakers I found, hopefully, they'll work.

[Leigh]

Your sabers look the nutts, I really like lines with the pipe cutter & Brass is just lovely to look at & work with.
Have you tryed using Autoglym resin wax polish to reduce tarnishing? if you put a few coats of the polish on after youve used brasso it should build up a nice protective layer of wax, It works on freshly cut Alloy wheels, Just an idear

[Hasid Lafre]

I would so love to see one of these "electrom" sabers in a red blade.

That would be so sick looking.

[Jay-gon Jinn]

After receiving a couple of soundboards in the mail from Eastern57, I got to work on one of the sabers. One of the soundboards doesn't quite work (it's barely audible, and I'm working on that) but the other worked fine. I prepped both for installation, and I'll start with the Mace Windu board:

I had to replace a few wires on this one, as the stock ones didn't meet my wiring code colors. I replaced the purple switch wires with my standard blue wires, the speaker negative is now brown, the speaker positive is now yellow. I also soldered on the disconnect for the led. I hot glued the clash sensor to the board, and glued down the wires I replaced to prevent them from coming loose. Here's a few more shots of this board:


I made sure the board worked and shrink wrapped it:

I then did something I was going to do on the last two brass sabers....I wired in a recharge port:

I drilled a hole for the port (using a 5/16 drill bit in the drill press....sorry no pics of that, you've all seen me drilling holes before!) and began the installation:

This saber is intended to use either rechargeable NiMH or standard alkaline batteries(do not attempt to recharge alkaline batteries in this saber!!!!). The charger and the plug adaptor for this set-up can be found in the TCSS store. While attempting to install the switch after putting in the recharge port, I realized I needed to have the switch installed first, so I swapped them around and got it all in there:

I installed the ribbed extension and then the heatsink with the led, and fired it up:

This one is about as far as I can go now....I have to wait for the UPS truck to deliver th rest of the parts....that won't happen until Friday, though, according to their tracking data.

[Jay-gon Jinn]

I got to work on Brass Saber #6 today...it's sister #7 will be worked on next. Here's what I did:


I started by cutting the angle on the end of the tubes for the emitter shrouds. Next, I laid out all the locations for the holes by wrapping the hilt tube in graph paper. I then drilled the mounting holes wor the MHS adaptor, starting with just one, and then slid the adaptor into the tube and drilled through it to the other side of the brass tube. This ensured that the two holes would be directly opposite each other. After completing that, I noticed that the holes were not quite centerd on the hilt in respect to the grip window edges, and just adjusted the pattern to compensate. I then drilled for the switch hole with adaptor in place. (I hope all this lines up right, I don't have the rest of the parts yet!) I thought I'd take a couple of pics to illustrate what the finished saber will look like:



These next two will be kind of a mix between BS#1, shown below BS#6, and BS#2.

Next I started cutting the window for the ribbed extension to show (just like BS#2!):



After some filing and sanding with the rotary tool, I was done:


I threw the MHS adaptor in there, along with the switch:


I should be able to get a little further with this one on Friday after the rest of the parts get here!

[Jay-gon Jinn]

Well it's Friday, and the rest of the parts arrived! (Well almost....somehow, I ordered one less blade holder...so the chrome saber will have to wait).

Here's what I got:

All the parts for the chrome saber, except blade holder....


Parts for Brass Saber #5


The rest of Brass Saber #4



Brass saber#7, the sister saber to this one, Brass Saber #6:



Now I have some work to do.....

[Jay-gon Jinn]

Okay, this didn't take as long as I thought it would....
I got both Hilts #'s 4 & 5 drilled and tapped to mount the shrouds, and then set up the drill press to drill for the blade thumbscrews, and them tapped the holes by hand. (These will all use 10-32 screws):




Since I had the set-up in the press, I did hilt #6 as well:




I soldered up all the leds to the TCSS copper heatsinks (these things are heavy!):



I made sure to use a little CPU paste under wach led to help with heat transfer. The red one got a little extra, as the red leds have a history of grounding out on the star base to the heatsink, and shorting the led.

The last step was to hone the blade holders using my 1" cylinder hone from McMaster-Carr.com. This ensures that each saber will be able to use a variety of blades from different suppliers. I do this last as this removes the burrs from drilling through the blade holder into the blade socket. I'll hit the one for BS#7 again after I drill it for the blade thumbscrew.




And finally, since BS#4 is all wired for sound already, I popped in one of my sanded Dual-Core Diffusion blades and shot some pics:





These were taken using a bin 6 Cyan Lux III, which produces a nice, pastel green blade.

Now for those of you that prefer to walk the Dark Path.....



Same blade as before, but with a bin 2 red Lux III. All of these hilts feature the TCSS style quick-change led kits, making swapping leds fairly easy. (Hilts 6 & 7 will be a bit more difficult to swap leds in than 4 & 5.)

On to the machine work for the chrome saber in the bunch, then after that, I'll get started on BS#7.

[Hasid Lafre]

looks nice jay

[SpectreT65]

Bin 6 cyan, eh? Nice. And the red looks pretty slick with the brass, too...

heh. When I get married, I may just give my buddies some hardware stunt sabers. They'll all appreciate them, I know that.