Personal Obi-Wan "Tribute" Saber (Image Intensive!)

[gundamaniac]

A while ago for C4 (phew, over a year now?), I planned to make three sabers (a jedi hilt, a pocket hilt, and a sith hilt). I never finished the sith hilt, and that was the hilt I had planned to be my own personal saber (the other two would be for friends to play with, or for me to mess with if I felt like it). Well...as time passed the jedi hilt really grew on me, and now that's my personal saber. But it's getting oooold and dinged up...and the construction quality was never quite to my liking. I've never been really satisfied with the way it turned out. Here it is-

The hilt ended up being very heavily influenced by Obi-Wan, with a domed pommel, a ring around it, a "gear" looking thing, a "clamp" looking thing, a black grip section kind of like the "grenade", and an "s" shroud over the grip sorta reminiscent of his padawan saber. The emitter was smooth and meant to be a mix of his PT and OT emitters. I added a little "s" shroud at the bottom, near the pommel, as a bit of my own flair.

Then I saw Jay-Gonn's awesome personal machined custom; I loved the TPM-styled cutout and the angled shroud jutting into the wind-vane neck. So his saber ended up influencing me a bit when I decided to get around to re-making my original "Tribute" Jedi saber a year later (ie, now)...

The original I made used TCSS parts, which I then covered with Apoxie Sculpt (all the black bits) and sinktube cutouts to try and disguise the fact it was TCSS (because I felt, at the time, that there were not enough TCSS options and most TCSS sabers ended up looking very very similar, and I wanted to set mine apart). But I always felt like I was cheating at "building my own lightsaber" because...the parts were essentially already made for me! So this time around, I decided to use a 1.25" sinktube base and a slew of aluminum tubes that I got from a local Metal Supermarkets:


Here I am, getting ready to get down to business. My goggle straps had just broken and I misplaced my spare elastic...so I...improvised...with tape...needless to say taking off the goggles afterwards hurt...:


Metal Supermarkets didn't have tubes in all the right diameters for me, so I planned to "cheat" to achieve a layered look...my plan didn't work...so I went back to the drawing board. My new plan to "cheat" to achieve a layered look involved some leftover craft sheet aluminum that I had:

I cut that out roughly to get this:

Then I sanded it down to get this:



That's the general idea of how I "cheated" to get my layered look. It's taken me the better part of a week to get this far, what with shooting a CF wiring video with Novastar (http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...2E3130FA1EA411) and doing whatever college kids do on summer break. Anyhow...here is what I have so far! The hilt on the left is the original jedi hilt that I had made for C4 (it looks different from what's pictured above because it's gone through some mods...better thumbscrew, a lip to cover the switch [done before Tim got his switch bezels in], and holes for a speaker), and the hilt on the right is what I have done so far of the new version:

(crappy pic because I just took it tonight...no good lighting, so the flash went off...I'll take better pics later)

As you can see...the redesign is influenced by Jaygonn, and therefore features more Obi-Wan TPM influence that my original saber (ie, the grip section being a shortened version of the TPM grip). I had always intended for the saber to be a sort of a cross between the OT and PT, with some of the OT's functionality and some of the PT's elegance. I think I've got the balance this time. The saber is turning out the way I intend it, which is sort of a cross between Obi's TPM saber and his classic saber (sort of an in-between saber? like a what-if that bridges the gap between his TPM design and his classic ANH design), with a bit of my own flair thrown in.

Construction-wise, this time I'm minimizing the use of Apoxie. The hemi-sphere pommel will have to be molded Apoxie though, and it will be black instead of silver in the new version (it's not in the photo because...I haven't molded it yet!). To disguise that this is, in fact, a sinktube saber, I'm going to apoxie over the endcap of the sinktube, and disguise it as the ring around the pommel of my original saber. The overall effect of the saber, when I'm done, will be that of a machined hilt rather than a home-made sinktube or TCSS hilt (I hope). This is my new baby...and I've spent the past semester dreaming about building it. All that's left is a couple more small cutouts, painting some parts black (to mimic the original's color scheme), drilling switch and screw holes, then assembly with the electronics from the wiring video! It should be done by next week, in time for the Clone Wars premier =D

Soo....uh....lemme know what you think so far!

And sorry for the looooooooooooooooong post guys. Thanks for bearing with me haha.

[swear000]

looks good. Is Apoxie how you glue the pieces together? Do you just glue or weld the peices on?

[gundamaniac]

Apoxie is short for Apoxie Sculpt. It's like a non-toxic epoxy clay that comes in different colors. You have about 3 hours to work with it while it's pliable, then you have to wait another 21 hours (total of 24) for it to set. When I Apoxied my old saber, it was mainly for decoration (as an alternative for paint in the grip section, and for molding near the pommel), but it could concievably be used as a way to bond things, similar to normal epoxy.

[gundamaniac]

Alrighty...I've finally made a bit more progress! I've finished Apoxie Sculpting the pommel of my saber. I cut some notches to try and simulate a Graflex clamp a bit (minus the boxy part) and all the parts that require painting are currently sitting in my garage drying. Tomorrow I should be able to drill the last screw holes and begin the finally assembly =).

Here's pictures! I didn't want to try and mold a hemisphere without a base (ugh...) so I kept looking around trying to find a base to mold off of...And I found one. Of all things, it was the cap from a tube of candy called Fruitips (found in asian markets, it's like a fruity gummy distributed by Nestle):


It didn't quite fit in the sinktube's endcap, so I Dremeled the opening a bit to make it a little wider. And voila! the base for my pommel! I also cut a bit of aluminum to try and imitate the pommel from my old lightsaber (probably don't have to say it...but...old saber [TCSS parts] on the left, new saber [whatever parts I can get my hands on!] on the right):


Here's all the parts slid over each other to see what it looks like before painting. I covered part of the endcap pictured above with Apoxie Sculpt to bulk up the hemisphere, and I made a ring around the sinktube endcap to try and disguise the fact that I'm using a sinktube. Old saber on top, new saber on bottom:


I can't wait to get this baby finished

[Jay-gon Jinn]

Wow, I inspired another saber, huh? Cool! It looks good, I like the way you got the layered parts look done with all the other aluminum pieces. Just a little info about that though, is that look was achieved on my custom saber with a single piece of aluminum tubing that was machined on a lathe, and then on a cnc mill. It's all one piece, and you can see that in this pic:

The Overtube or sleeve is on the left.

[gundamaniac]

Alright, my saber is now more or less complete. The hilt work is done, all that's left is ironing out a few kinks (I'm having problems with sensing motion along one axis with my CF, I had to kick my vibrating motor because there wasn't enough room to mount it/I didn't know how to mount it, and I need a better way to mount my micro momentary switch, which is currently hidden in a recessed hole that is SO recessed I can't actually touch the switch....). But anyway, pics!

Once again, compared to my old saber (new on left, old on right):


As you can see, the new saber has a more prequel and more, IMO, elegant feel to it. It also looks more detailed and interesting, I believe, thanks to the staggering of layers in my hilt, which were achieved by curving sheet metal around my base tube and hiding the breaks under tubes of a larger diameter (ie, my obi-wan-ish grip cutout).

Here's some more pics to showcase what I think are the obvious similarities between the two sabers and the "evolution" of the design.
I'm particularly proud of the way I managed to achieve the prequel TPM Obi-Wan-style grip here; I think it looks better than the old grip:

Between the upper grip and the lower "gear" is my version of the Graflex clamp...minus the huge chunky box. I like the way the cutouts turned out. I used my recharge port as the second "screw" on the "clamp", which I think helps it look more like the original Obi-Wan ANH clamp (with those neat nuts and washers pasted on the clamp):

You can tell that my new saber is a sinktube saber when I screw off the pommel...TCSS on top, sinktube on bottom. Not a bad job disguising the sinktube cap, I think:


And now some beauty shots, with and without my old hilt:





Hopefully it doesn't look too sloppy. I wanted to make a sinktube saber that looked custom machined...and I think got pretty close to my envisioning of the hilt. Maybe, maybe if I have the money one day, I'll have this saber actually custom machined, but for now my dremeled sinktube hilt is definitely good enough for me. I hope you guys enjoy it! I know I sure do =)

[MaverickJsmith]

That's looks fantastic Maniac! (I feel like I'm in Wing Commander saying that)

Very creative indeed. Really look forward to seeing it running

Maverick

[strengthofrage]

Very sharp, it does look machined... I like this one, I am a fan of layers

[gundamaniac]

So am I. When I was making this hilt, I was adamant about getting multiple layers in to help make the saber look a bit more detailed and complex without a crapton of boxes, switches, and screws. It also feels interesting in your hand (the different layers really feel alot different from a tube of a consistent diameter all the way hrough).

I'll get some pictures of it lit up. Some Obi-Wan fans may be disappointed though; this doesn't use a blue LED but rather a green K2, mainly because my old hilt was a green and when I made it I didn't want people to think I was dressing as either Obi-Wan (because of the blue-bladed hilt) or Anakin (because my robes are a dark color scheme and I'd have a blue blade...). Not to mention, green is a color with some personal significance (because of St. Patrick's Day, a story for another time haha). And, considering it is a hilt I consider to be my personal hilt, it seems only fitting for it to light up in a color that's important to me =).

I'm considering using a green Seoul P4 sometime down the line, after seeing the way it lit up Novastar's Flange III. I have a white P4 from TCSS, and I'm currently toying with the idea of making my saber silver-bladed, because it would be a pretty neat neutral "color"...but I'm pretty attached to green at the moment.

[Darthig88]

Wow great work, How did you do the gips on the new saber to look like Obi's from TPM did you use a template???? What were the grips made from on the first saber???