A Real life lightsaber!!!

Real life Lightsaber!!! 

How would you like to own Master Satele Shan’s lightsaber? To me that sounds like just about the coolest thing on the planet!!

I’m not the only one who thinks so because this guy made one for his wife. That kind of sets a new precedent for husband-to-wife gifts, don’t ya think?

It wasn’t an easy task but boy is it awesome! If you’re not familiar with Sloth Furnace, he creates some amazing pieces of functional art/props. These lightsabers don’t just look pretty- they are exact replicas and they work with lights and sounds. On average, he says it takes him 6 months from conception to completion on one of these.

He details the entire process in photo with captions of how he created this fantastic lightsaber, down to each and every detail. It’s pretty fantastic. It’s all from the minds and the hands of Bradley W. Lewis, video game developer and Senior Visual Effects Artist for BioWare Austin. Lewis also worked for InMotion Software and Midway Studios Austin and some of you might already be familiar with his work.

Heres how he went about making it:

I intend to produce a physical copy of this ...

Image property of BioWare

My wife wants me to make her the double bladed lightsaber that the Jedi Consular uses in BioWare's HOPE trailer for The Old Republic. This saber has been a challenge to begin, as I am not sure how to make the intricate details of the handle section. However, the rest of the saber isn't easy either. For instance, the emitters...

To start with, I decided to take some time and attempt to fashion the emitter ends from a section of scrap stainless steel tubing. I chose stainless over aluminum, because of the way the saber is rendered in the trailer, seems more fitting a finish in the long run than aluminum.

I took the screen capture above and blew it up in photoshop, duplicating it across the appropriate size paper to wrap around the diameter of the tubing.

This wraps around perfectly, and seems to look about right. However, I noticed it would be kind of hard to drill through that, so I used that image as a basis for a template that I printed out and replaced the old one with.

This marks my drill points, and groove for the back of the emitter.

Problem #1 - Holes drilled by hand on curved surfaces tend to wander the drill bit... a bit. Therefore making the holes not quite lined up perfectly. This is a problem, as I will have to connect the holes with slots to form the slots evident in the saber emitter, and they have to be straight, uniform, consistent and even. But, even though I know I will probably have to re do this part, I decide to forge ahead and see what I will learn by finishing it.

I found that using my dremel and cutoff wheel is the easiest, fastest way to cut these slots. One cut at the top of the hole, one at the bottom. If I had a milling machine this would be worlds easier, and more consistent, but I don't have a mill, so I have to do the best I can with what I have.

As you can see, the dremel cutoff wheel approach technically works, but leaves uneven results. I will have to bring some stainless tubing out to the ranch and use the big mill back home for this piece, but for now, I have this to think on.

Three sets of three slots, and a groove at the back. Not terrible, but not up to my standards. I will re do this piece, and make two copies once I get time on the mill back at the ranch. I may go back out and enlarge the slots some to make them all more even, but I will most likely leave this piece alone and move on to a replacement.

Here I had used a mill to cut my slots more accurately, straighter. The edges are kind of rough, I'll sand those out on the lathe. Once those are clean, I'll cut it in two so I have two emitter cans.

One end cap installed, I will have to shorten the emitter can a bit to the right length, but it's getting close to good.

Here's a quick sketch I did showing how I think I am going to make the pieces to make this thing all come together.

Today, I got out into the garage while it was still early and cool, and decided to get the lathe heated up and turn out some metal for this saber.

I started today with the emitter neck. This is a solid piece of aluminum that goes up into the handle, and up into the emitter can. I also machined the other emitter tip. I have yet to trim the emitter cans down to proper length, so they're both still a little long.

Once I got both emitter necks done, I needed to contour the handles. I start with setting the lowest point of the contour, measuring with my calipers down to 1/8 of an inch. To do the tapers, I'll need to set my angle on my toolpost, and use the crank to bring the tool across at that angle.

However, my crank is a PAIN to use, and has bad results. So I found a hand crank off an old X/Y plate, and drilled two holes into it to fit my crank, now I have a much easier and smoother way to turn this.

The biggest contour done, I had to play with the angles in tiny increments to get the right 1/8 inch in 7 inches slope.

Turned the handle around and dressed out the end where the emitter neck plugs in. Mental note, next time, I should do both contours on the handle before unchucking it. Doing the short angle is pretty difficult when it's not the exact same alignment as the main slope.

Here is the smaller slope, again, it's not perfect due to the fact that I rechucked it. But with a bit of sandpaper it cleans up.

I laid these out on the garage floor to see what the length would be like, once I decide how the two sabers attach in the middle, I'll trim that extra material off the ends. I let myself have enough material just in case.

Not too shabby. I am still evaluating a few parts, might replace one of the necks, and I need to figure out how they attach together, but I got a LOT done today.

Today's work involved the connection point between the two sabers, and where my speakers mount. Two birds with one ... drill bit.

Here is a sketch or two of how I think it will come together.

This sketch is about the connector tube and latch. The slots on the main saber pieces will be the soundport holes.

I cleaned off the extra metal I left for the middle section, and decided how I wanted to attach the two sabers together.

Here I have carved out enough space for the speaker and connector tube, and far enough back that the tube has enough purchase on the saber ends that it will be sturdy.

The speaker slides right in, on either side of the connector tube. I had to carefully mate each side of the connector tube with each saber section, for a snug fit with no rattle.

You can see here that the connector tube butts up against the rim of the speaker, and will on both sides. Should make for an interesting resonance chamber.

Now the middle is shaping up to be much more like the render. I will run over to the hardware store and get some stainless hex bolts to begin my latch.

Ogh. my acking self. After several hours with the hacksaw, turning my lathe into a makeshift mill by chucking up an endmill bit and clamping my aluminum blank into the toolpost to make long straight cuts using the lathe bed.... ONE DOWN.

More or less. I have left it a bit rough so that when I get the other five to this point I can clamp them all together and shave them all down to a uniform and consistent shape. I also drilled and tapped the back for 6-32 threads for my connection points back to the main hilt. The emitter tip has a groove cut into it to allow the fin to clamp against the main emitter can with a small hook cut into the fin tip.

Mental note. Find some way of obtaining a mill. Or a friend with a mill.

Ok, so here's my jury-rigged milling setup. I chuck up an endmill bit to the lathe, and clamp my stock into the toolpost. Might be a tad unorthodox, but it works for what I need for the time being.

Here are the other two blanks with the straight low side cut. This side will sit on the emitter can surface, so it has to be straight. You can also see the can hook there on the end of the fin.

And here we go with the hacksawing rough cuts, sanding and filing to fit.

Another night, another piece. Three fins almost done, threaded, notched.

Three more fins cut. I still have to shave a tad of metal off these, and cut the notch for the hook on the emitter can. Then drilling, tapping and polish.

Here I am cutting the slots for the fin hooks into the emitter caps.

And this is my test trial for the switch lever... Using only three files and a drill press for the hole, it didn't take too long to round everything off and cut the slots.

Like this, this is my first version of the switch. I will probably redesign as I go, but it's a start.

Not too shabby for only using three files... I might redo this piece.

At this point I got my batteries in from TCSS, and am assembling the battery packs for the saber. I begin with scuffing up the ends, so that the solder has something to hold on to, and then clamping two batteries into my panavise grooves so they're parallel. A couple drops of solder to "pre tin" the contact points, and I flip em over and do the same to the other sides.

After soldering a short piece of solid wire across the terminals on each set, you can now see the two sides to one battery pack. Four AAA rechargable batteries give me 4.8 volts.

I clamp them up again in the panavise, and run one jumper wire between the two sets, and then run my positive and negative wires up through the middle of the pack, and to the corresponding terminals. I'll need two battery packs just alike. One for each side of the saber.






Here I am hollowing out the blade holder to 7/8, and I'll go the rest of the way to one inch diameter with a finer tool to control accuracy.

Here I am hollowing out the center portion to 3/8 for my DIN plug.

So I had to come up with a way to tighten the fin against the anchor. If I made the strut a solid piece, as I tightened it, one side would tighten, and one side would loosen. Since I can't reverse thread this piece, I came up with a solution.
inside the large cylinder is a freespinning bolt, the one going toward the fin. As I tighten that cylinder, the bolt going towards the anchor tightens, and lets the other bolt spin, or stay in place. This way I can tighten my strut. To do this, I took These stainless hex screws, thinned the head down and threaded it. This picture shows a 1/4 x 20 threading, but I ended up going with 10-32

And here is one test strut.. When I twist the outer ring, it tightens, and pulls the fin towards the anchor. The long hex screw is going toward the anchor, and has its head threaded to go into the cylinder. The other screw is just held in place by the smaller diameter end, kind of like a tall washer with bigger threads on the other end to accept the hex screw. This is a much more elegant design than I orginally had.

I got the metal in for the anchor pieces, and drew out the piece. I think I can get two per slab, if I cut it right.

Here I have three anchor pieces clamped together to mill at once. I will mill what corners I need to then hacksaw the majority of the metal away.

Like this. I think by doing this I won't waste any metal, as I can make six anchor pieces from cutting these in half.

And here I am milling out the slots for the anchor pieces. This would have taken so long without the mill. Now it takes minutes instead of hours.

This is how I will attach each fin anchor piece to the emitter neck. I drill a small hole for the screw to go through, drill and tap the anchor, and drill a large hole so I can fit a screwdriver through the opposite side and into the screw. I'll need to do this three times, and on one side mill out a slot for the on off switch housing.

Here I have the strut assembled. I think I'll have to tweak some lengths on some things, but it should work fine. What I don't like about it is the small patch of exposed threads on the sloped face of the anchor piece, and that the hole I drilled for the strut to thread into popped out of the top of the anchor a wee bit. Oh well, "battle damage."

Here's the emitter neck and anchor fit into the slot I milled out of the handle. It's a nice snug fit. I did have to file the round area where my milling bit stopped so that it was square, but that's why I keep some files around.

Shaping up, I need to run to the hardware store to pick up some screws and material to do the other 5 struts. Three on each end. The saber parts are getting kind of scratched up, but I'll buff everything out before I am done.

One thing that's been holding me up on this saber is the main switch. I haven't been able to machine anything that perfectly matches the switch bezels for this saber, but TCSS offeres these new switch bezels that are pretty close, and might work with a bit of modification. I asked the wife if she liked them, and she said she does, so these might be my solution paired with the blue dot AV Switch. One for activation at the center, one for aux button at the emitter end.

While I am deciding on the switches, I went ahead and started using my mill and milling vise to cut the other set of fin anchors. WOW this is so much easier than using a hacksaw and set of files.

Now I have six, three perfectly identical, I might go ahead and mill out three more just to have a nice set of nine to pick the best from.

FINALLY got the other slots milled in the grip of the other saber, now I can drill, tap threads in the fin anchors on the other side, and assemble those pieces. I still have the rest of the fin struts to make, and to bevel the tail ends of the new fin anchors.

Couldn't resist putting a couple blades in there to see what it looks like, this thing is LONG. I haven't decided what length of blades to go with yet, but I'll probably go shorter than what I have in there now. I think they're 34 inch blades currently.

I always snap everything back together when I am done for the day so it will taunt me from the corner of the room saying "come work on me, you know you want to."

I took a 5/8 ballnose endmill and bored out a hole for the switch back to sit in.

The button and bezel are just laying in there now, I'll have to widen the hole just a tad to get it to line up with my centerline. I have wiggle room enough for that though.

I had a bit of a challenge figuring out how I would cut both inner aux AV Switch holes, mounting holes, etc. and make them straight and aligned in both sabers, in the grips, and in the coupler latch tube, since the tube will have to be slotted to fit around the aux switches.

This morning I had the bright idea to assemble them both together, and drill all the holes at once (in one vise session anyway)  I plan on using a longer screw for mounting the switchplate here, so it will go down through the grip and into a speaker retaining ring I need to machine. Also seen here is my ill fated attempt at my latch slot. Cut with a dremel, I will clean this cut up with a 1/8 endmill not only where this slot is, but also where the sharpie is.  I will let these be my sound ports.

Using a ball nose mill to ream out a recess for the Aux AV Switch.  This ball nose mill is perfect for the AV Switches, but since these switchplates are slightly tilted from not being flush, I have to lengthen the recess a tad to allow for the tilt.

Fun fact:  The original model just has the inner switches crammed into the mesh.  There's even a gap underneath the mesh where it kind of 'floats' over the narrowest part of the grip.    I plan on cutting away some of the larger diameter ring the end of the switchplate is sitting on, to let the switchplate go more flush against the grip.

One set of struts machined and installed. The other set is mostly done, just not installed. Another hour or two of work and that will be done.

Here we have the heart(s) of the saber. Two Crystal Focus 5.6 soundcards from Erv' over at Plecter Labs. These are the best. The absolute BEST saber soundcards money can buy. Special thanks to Erv' for support and help throughout this project.

Here's the junction between the emitter neck and the grip, note the slot milledout of the bottom of the neck. This will cradle the soundcard, and also let it come further forward toward the emitter than I had planned. This serves a few functions, moving the soundcard further away from the center of gravity will help the motion sensors get a better reading, and will also let me fit the batteries in more efficiently with the larger speakers I am going with. Lots of things have changed since my original plan of the tiny MR Yoda Board and quad AAA battery packs.

Speaking of speakers, the coupler in the middle also serves as my sound chamber. The resonance chamber will be made up behind the speakers, but the two facing speakers need room to make sound and it be vented, and not have them too close together. I am anxious to hear this for the first time, as it's kind of a shot in the dark.

Here's my wire channels that send my switch wires up and over the speaker, and back into the grip. These will be covered by the switch plates, so they don't have to be perfect, I also curved the channels with the mill so the wires would be able to go this route without sharp metal cutting into them.

Batteries got here yesterday, will begin test fitting.

Great Success! Side A wired up, tested!

Side B wired up and cooking! Still playing with the sensitivity settings, as the motion sensors are a bit tough to get right since even though they're close to the emitters, they are still too close to the center of gravity when it's all assembled.

A better pic today in better lighting, just for grins.

My blade plugs arrived too! ARKM on the FX-Sabers forum made me some razor blade plugs for this build. I normally would make them myself, but his new turbine plugs were too sweet to pass up.

Here it is lit,

And in the saber. I did make a couple minor modifications to the stock plugs, mostly the inside chamfer to the ring.

Via Slothfurnace

Every star wars fan has always dreamed of owning their own lightsaber! what do you think of sloths reproduction of the dual lightsaber? leave your comments below :)