My First Saber and some blade questions

[Ds Scavenger]

First I would like to say hello to everyone here on the TCSS forums .
As a new forum poster, and new to sabers in general, I have loved reading through the forums about all the different blades and builds .
With this said, I have searched, but have only came up with 2 or 3 threads about colored poly blades ( day blades )and no videos or pictures of what these colored blades look like lit / sanded / diffused .

If there is such a thread, please, link me the url of the thread, if not, then let this thread be the plac e for any member that uses or has used "day blades" and what these look like ( pics / vids ) in various formats .
My point is to actually see the colored poly blades done in different styles .

Thank you in advance !!

Now, onto to the topic ... my First saber build .
I have read many posts / threads, seen many vids, pictures and builds of sabers and the thing that stood out the most was the complexity of even the tamest of sabers .
While I can weld / cut / fab / wire a saber , I wanted my first saber to be something that was super simple to build yet offered amazing value and most importantly, the saber used parts and supplies you could find at any hardware store or auto parts store .
Also the saber had to have a build cost of less then $100 usd .

My first choice for a light source, as you may have already guessed, was a flash light .
I choose a Maglite 3d for a starting point as this flashlight offers durability and an enormous range of parts and aftermarket support and is dimensionally the correct size for an adult saber .
My other concern was lighting the blade correctly, and the built in adjustability of the 3d appealed to me and seemed to be the best for this build .

So my bargain basement saber had a final cost of $85 usd and has been made of the simplest of parts with the least amount of fabrication possible .
The only part that was modified on the flashlight itself is the LED ( Nite ize ) , that's it .
The only parts that needed to be made was the blade holder .
The blade holder consosts of a 2" washer, 3" piece of 1"id wall conduit, a piece of 1-7/8 id exhaust pipe coupler from autozone , a square flange nut and .25-20 knob bolt .

This is the start of the BB ( bargain basement ) concept .

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Now, before you tell me " they make 3d blade holders here at the shop ", I again will state, the ability to be able to focus or change the light pattern to optimally light the blade was a main concern of mine so I decided to keep the main bulb housing and focus ability, plus, as stated before, I wanted to build a saber that didn't require massive modification or sourced parts .

as you can see in these next pics, there are not a lot of parts to this build at all .

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As stated before, the total build, including the Maglite, and a red Poly blade ( $23 shipped ) had a total cost of $85 usd .
So, what did I get for this $85 usd ?
I got a saber the can be easily repaired and a saber that you can literally run over with a truck or drop off a 4 story building and not kill it .
You could beat someone to death with this saber, and it wont break .

So here are the final shots of the BB saber in all its glory ...

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The "blade" is actually a piece of schedule 40 solid white PVC with an OD of 1" and an ID of .75 inch .
I am merely using this blade for mock up and as you may well know, it wasn't even supposed to glow, or rather, I didn't expect it to glow at all, I mean, its not opaque or thin walled .
The fact that it glows is testament to how bright this MagSaber is when the Niye Ize LED is focused correctly by the Maglite internals .

And now to the second part of the thread .

I purchased a piece of RED 1" OD x .75" x 40" PolyCarbonate for the main blade .
This is known as a "battle blade" / "Day Blade"
Now, my question, asked at the beginning of the thread, does anyone have pics or vids or any type of experience with this blade or blade type ?
I bought the blade because I feel, with the the focus abilty and brightness of the MagSaber I have created, that I can get this blade to perForm and light very well without diffusing .
Im not against sanding the outside, but would probably sand the inside instead with a 1" 12 guage bore cleaner to get diffusion, but I have never seen anu real threads about these blades or any real pics of even really heard of anyone using them .
So please, if you have used them, know any tricks to using them, AND HAVE pics of these blades, please, by all means, share !!!

In closing I will post pics of the BB MagSaber when I get the new blade in the mail , but until them I look fotward to all of your responses and all of your time and pics of these colored poly blades !!

Thank you for reading

[Miraluka]

To be honest, that's the most aesthetically pleasing flashlight build I've seen. Hopefully it will light up a blade well enough.

I've seen a lot of people use day blades but I don't have any photos for you. From what I've seen, people diffuse them just like they would any other blade. With diffusion film from TCSS or if you want to continue your bargain basement theme, clear cellophane/gift wrap.

[Ds Scavenger]

Thank you for the compliment and the response !
Question, do you think the cellophane would work out better then sanding the inside of the blade ?
Ive never seen the difference in person between a sanded blade and a diffused one so sorry if the question seems strange .
Thank you again !

[Kouri]

Cellophane's definitely going to be the better option. I've got a white blade without film that diffuses/reflects about as well as a sanded clear blade, and it still suffers from a very bright base that dims very quickly away from the LED. About 6ft of cellophane really helps to even out the blade brightness.

I've got an old hilt with a thinwall red day blade. Sanded the outside, 6ft of cellophane inside. Lights up really well with a red LED. Haven't tried a white, but I imagine the effect to be a bit less, since it'll only let about 1/3 of the light through. A bit of caution, though, as while the red polycarbonate's still really tough, it seems slightly more brittle than the clear stuff. Had the tip-end crack on my after a bit of sparring. Haven't seen that before on a clear blade.

[Jay-gon Jinn]

Thank you for the compliment and the response !
Question, do you think the cellophane would work out better then sanding the inside of the blade ?
Ive never seen the difference in person between a sanded blade and a diffused one so sorry if the question seems strange .
Thank you again !

I do both on clear blades, sand the inside then add a roll of about 5 feet of the cellophane gift wrap, but i'm not sure if you'd notice any improvement in a transwhite, or other colored blade.

[Zwilliamo]

I do both on clear blades, sand the inside...

What is your preferred method for sanding the inside of the tube?
I've wanted to sand my blade for a while now, but can only imagine this task being quite difficult unless I only sand the exterior.

[Ds Scavenger]

Thank you again guys for the responses, and Merry Christmas!!
Im going to get some cellophane and give it a try after the holiday here .
As far as sanding the inside of the blade, this was my thoughts .
They make gun cleaning kits that have linkable rods and to these rods attach "bore brushes" .

This is a simple kit with links


This is an assortment pack


While I haven't personally tried it yet, I don't see why these wouldn't work for sanding or scratching up the inside of a plastic tube .
Im going to try this soon Im sure, but if someone tries it before I do , please post results !!

( yes I own a few brush sets , so I will try this soon )

[Ds Scavenger]

The Trans Red Blade finally arrived today in the mail ... and wow !!!
I ended up trying the 12 gauge bore brush on the inside of the blade it worked excellent at sanding, or scratching up the inside of the blade .
I attached the bore brush to my cordless drill and went up and down the blade at medium speed from both directions, then, for maximum effect I used a very very slow speed and moved the bore brush in and out of the blade rapidly to take out the spiraling effect .... worked perfectly !!
I sanded the outside of the blade with a piece of 600 wetsand to add more diffusion then inserted a simple piece of visqueen ... yes, straight up plastic , nothing fancy, just plain clear plastic that you would use to cover a floor when painting .
I then added a black push in pipe cap with a bit o aluminum foil inside of it as an end cap .

Heres the shots of it in all its red glowing glory .

In the ( mostly ) dark


Just sitting on the table, light off


On the wall next to 2200 lumens of 85" 1080p projector and it still glows and looks amazing !!!





This MagSaber is still only running at 4.5 volts on a single Nite Ize 77 lumen drop in LED .
Im about to upgrade the power to rougly 10 volts with simple AA x 3 serial Dcell sized adapters .
3 of these adapters will put the battery total at 9 AA' @ ~ 10 volts and fill the Mag perfectly ( im saying ~ 10 volts because rechargeable AA are about 1.2 V a piece give or take )
While this is a future upgrade, right now, as it sits, this "MagSaber" cost a total of roughly $87 usd to make ( about 2 dollars for the end cap lol )

Im about to build another one identical to this one and link them together for a true battle saber staff !!! Ill post some pics when they are linked

[Kouri]

Any particular reason you didn't order a reflective blade tip with the red blade stock?

[Ds Scavenger]

When I started this project, I wasn't too sure how any of it would turn out , so ordering blade tips for something I didn't even know how well would work was a bit overboard at the time to me .
Now that the first MagSaber worked out so well, what I really always wanted was a saber staff , so last night I went and bought everything to make another MagSaber and this was the result ..





My lack of knowledge and the doubts I had about the trans blade and this magsaber were the deciding factors about the tips .

Now that it all worked out so well, yes, I will be ordering the tips from TCSS soon, which leads to yet another question hahahhaha .... bullet or normal tip ?
Do the bullet tips have reflective bits inside of them, how well do they glow, etc ? ( didn't see anything in the description about bullets being reflective )
would the buttons be better then the bullets or vice versa and why ?

Thanks again guys, seriously, I have loved making this MagSaber, and the responses from the forum members here at TCSS forums has been excellent !!
I hope to build many more glowing tubes in the future and TCSS will be my primary shop, supply, and forum for everything lightsaber from here on in !!!