Lightsaber Hilt

[Brad]

So I'm going back down to Disneyland this year in October with Melissa's folks (they go nearly every year). In October there is a Halloween party event thing were you can get tickets and spend extra time in the park at night and all the adults can were costumes as well as the children (normally only children are allowed to wear costumes in Disneyland). So everybody in the family is going to dress up.

Due to the rules of not being able to cover your eyes, carry weapons which could be mistaken for real, or have any type of gore, blood, etc... and also due to time constraints I ended up being a "Jedi" for Halloween. Ya know with a big brown robe/cloak and a tunic and funky shoes. This is actually Disneyland themed. They have Star Wars rides, sell Star Wars merc, and do a Jedi Academy thing for kids at Disneyland.

As Melissa is working on the robe and tunic I decided to create a prop lightsaber hilt for myself. I could just use one of those toy ones with the retractable blade but everybody has one... and they are kind of heavy and don't hang on your belt very well. Also they've got that piece of the blade always sticking out which makes them kinds of long and bulky. This leads to me deciding to create just a prop hilt out of parts from Lowes/Home Depot.

There are tons of resources on this web and even people which sell customized parts so you can get an EXACT REPLICA of the movie saber. However I am cheap so I'm going to make one out of like $20 worth of hardware store parts. The simultaneous best/worst resource for this on the web is Lightsabers from the Big Yellow Box. Make sure to have NoScript enabled when visiting this site. It has a ton of different saber designs and detailed parts lists and instructions on how they were made. The site design and hosting however are some of the worst I've seen in a long time. If you don't have Javascript disabled some of the ads can actually redirect you to a different website and hitting the back button will not take you back to the same place you left (problem with the frames).

This post is getting too long... The kid and I hit up Lowes and Walmart and got most of the parts I'll need. I will be taking pictures along the way of course. The whole thing has to be completed in just a couple of weeks. Hopefully it won't take that long.

[Brad]

Got the metal piece cut to the appropriate length. My first real time cutting up metal. First lesson - wear eye protection! That crap flies everywhere.

Also cut out the PVC section that will become the "emitter" piece. After divining the circumference, I am now working on creating the pattern which I will attempt to carve onto the PVC piece using my rotary tool thing. Before that though I need to drill the appropriate holes for the various buttons and whatsits that I will attach to it using the rivet gun that Nick left over at my house and I haven't got around to returning yet (sorry Nick!)

I think drilling the holes into the PVC first, and then after fitting the PVC over the metal section (and clamping it on or something) drill the holes through the metal will lead to a lot less slipping of the drill bit. Should make it much easier to line everything up and reduce the chances of me ruining the metal section.

I have taken pictures using my cell phone camera. Will post them later; probably when I am bored at work tomorrow.

[Cody]

This is pretty cool. I have always wanted to make a good one of these but never really invested the time or money to do so. Best thing I ever really had was those plumbing pieces we put on our foam sabers. Oh those were the good ol' days.

[Brad]

Yeah I still have a couple of those in my garage somewhere.

This project is pretty cheap though ($20). It doesn't get expensive until start trying to make a light up blade that is strong enough to hit people with, which I am not doing.

[Brad]

Got the emitter overlay cut out of PVC last night. Still pretty rough, lots of sanding needed. I had to do i t twice as I miscut the first one.

Here are some crappy pictures. It annoys me that attachments don't work on the mobile version of the orums.

[Nick]

What!  I will be fixing that shortly. Our orums need mobile accesable attachments!

How does the forum look on your tablet?

[zourtney]

Yay, I can finally see the pictures because I'm on a real computer..! Looks pretty cool. Keep 'em coming.

How are you planning to paint it up?

[Brad]

The PVC pieces will just end up a flat black color and the chrome pieces will stay chrome. Finished sanding and started painting the main PVC piece last night.

I want to turn this lightsaber hilt into a working flashlight. Because a lightsaber flashlight would be cool and also actually useful. I am thinking LED for reduced voltage requirements and therefore smaller battery size. Should I buy a cheap LED flashlight and cannabilize it? Or just buy the parts seperately from Norvac or somewhere?

[Nick]

I would not go norvac. Get a cheap LED light and take it apart or I can give you a fist full of the tiny LEDs that run on 3v. I have resisters too.

How bright do you want it?

Something like this will be *really* bright and have good battery life but takes an 18650 battery (Li-Ion cell)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-1000LM-WF-502B-CREE-XM-L-T6-5-Mode-LED-Flashlight-18650-battery-Charger-/130717711859?pt=US_Flashlights&hash=item1e6f61fdf3 <- Ships from NY - $16 is not bad, comes with batteries and charger. I paid $22 for the same thing last winter. (I used mine to find a clog by shining it though a vacuum hose to see a dark spot. The thing lights up the whole yard at night. Battery will last all night on low while still giving off more light then a halogen MAG. Head gets hot on high after a few minutes. Fine on med.) If you put it in the oven at about 500 it will turn brown/orange They call it 'baking' the light.
Amazon review of similar light (no batts or charger)
http://www.amazon.com/Ultrafire-502b-Flashlight-Lumens-Integrated/dp/B005E48K6I

If you don't care about it being that bright some of the $3 ebay lights are good (I have one you can use) or there are dollar store/Big-Lots/Harbor freight  LED lights that would work with more of a standard battery but would be less then a tenth as bright.

With all these light you just need to wire up the head to a switch or remove the tail of the light and wire that to a switch to connect/interrupt the battery. Pretty simple and should all easily fit in your handle.

[Brad]

Thanks for the info. Sounds like I will be making a trip to Habor Freight soon. I need to get the light quickly as I don't have to much time before we leave to get everything completed. So I don't want to rely on internet sources.

As far as brightness goes I am only looking for standard flashlight brightness. About the level of a pocket maglite would work.

[Brad]

Where can I get a momentary switch at a moments notice?

Actually I need a toggle switch but momentary sounded better. The switch I cannibalised from the flashlight is too short to go through the metal and PVC layers.

[Nick]

I have some old power supply switches that might work.

[Brad]

I think the switch from the flashlight will actually work, I am just going to use a cleverly disguised small carriage bolt to push down the button on the switch inside the hilt. The difficult part is capturing the bolt so that when you turn the hilt upside down it doesn't fall out.

How I plan to do that is to attach the switch to a small cylinder, put the carriage bolt through the hole (which is just big enough for the bolt) and screw a nut onto it. The nut is smaller in diameter than the cylinder but larger than the hole the carriage bolt goes through. The cylinder is attached to the inside wall of the hilt. The nut stops the bolt from coming out but allows you to press it inwards thus activating/deactivating the toggle switch. This sounds more complicated than it is... also I'm just using some junk lying around on my workbench plus the switch from the $1.50 flashlight.

Got a bunch of painting, cutting and sanding done tonight. Should be able to have this thing finished soon. Only real puzzle left is how to create an end to the hilt that I can remove to change the batteries. Will post more pictures tomorrow.

[Brad]

Lots more work done. Decided to use a regular button from radioshack. It was too hard to keep everything lined up inside the tub. I need like really long thin forceps or something to work inside a tiny tube...

All that is left is the inside piece to hold the leds and the grip. The grip has been painted and is drying. Here is a crappy picture of the current process.

[Nick]

Looking good!