will wood work?

[sithhed]

Hello everybody. This may concern me as an obvious question,but has anyone used a wooden cylinder the same diameter as an mhs hilt body and use it as a hilt body[the cylinder hollowed out first]? The reason being is that I want to use a wooden cylinder,stained a rosewood,and use it with a v-grooved extension and cut out a couple of windows on a sinktube and cover the hilt.Then use a crown emitter and have a red lux 3 kit.the pommel I haven't decided of yet.

[Jagahati]

Wood is not going to have the structural integrity to be used as the primary material for your saber.

I am not real sure from your description exactly what you plan to do. Doing wood overlays or possibly even inlays is quite possible, but it will not be strong enough to make the actual structural pieces out of.

Also you may want to sit and think long and hard about how to "hollow out" a wooden tube. I may not be the worlds best woodworker but that doesn't sound to me like a simple project.

[Lord Maul]

If you are wanting to basically make a MHS piece out of wood, then no. People have made wood overlays before though. Neophyl did one. Think of it as a sinktube overlay, but from wood.

[Jedi-Loreen]

Why wouldn't it work, if it's for show? I think it would be interesting looking.

Rosewood is a beautiful wood. The body of my archery bow is made of it (the limbs are maple).

[Onli-Won Kanomi]

Doesn't the MHS system basically use the heatsink to transfer heat to the body of the saber itself...in effect making the entire aluminum hilt into heatsink mass? That wouldnt happen with a wood hilt obviously, but if one used a V-grooved extension to mount the LED in as Sithed suggested and screwed that into a 1.5 sinktube adapter and used the wood section hollowed out to hold the other electronics [at least you wouldnt have to worry about grounding out lol] and lathed one end down and attached it inside another 1.5 sinktube adapter for the pommel then overlaid a sink tube on both then that might work? Would depend a great deal on the design methinks.

[enigma1337]

I may be new to the whole saber building scene--but i see no reason why it wouldnt work. wood wouldn't be the best heatsink at all, but since it's not completely wood it shouldn't be too bad. granted wood may not be as strong as the aluminum in the MHS pieces, but depending on the wood and the thickness of the ID that you drill out, it can be quite a strong piece.

and personally, i'd love to see some exotic woods integrated into a saber

[Goltar Bias]

Using wood would be difficult in that as the wood ages it might split and you would most likely have to lathe in to the right o.d. but lathe out the i.d. first. If i understand what you described the sink tube would be over-laid on the wood with windows to show the wood. That should reinforce it plenty.

[Onli-Won Kanomi]

That was how I understood it as well Goltar.

Also sithhed said [s]he would use a V grooved extension to screw the bladeholder into so that would help not only with the heatsinking but also strength since dueling impact stress on the saber would mainly be between those two threaded metal parts which are plenty strong.

I look forward to seeing what sithed comes up with...methinks rosewood and aluminum would be a beautiful combination.

[DJMoonbass]

no no no. it would work i just wouldnt fight with it. if you know your thread minor and major diameters, you could have a wood tube and make the IDs the same as whatever the minor diamter of the MHS thread is. then just screw them together. it wouldnt be easy but that should work. the alluminum should cut its own thread.

no to make that wood tube. you would need a lathe. technically you could possibly cut a wooden tube on a metal lathe using HSS. it would need to be super sharp. you could turn it down using a wood lathe but with out a chuck you couldnt do any boring or drilling work for the inside.

but yeah that saber would be cool. why dont you do it and show all the non believers what CAN be done.

[enigma1337]

Exactly DJ lol, now to see one with petrified wood