Lightsabers & Blasters How can I build my own lightsaber?

I just cut the thing out tonight, I'm painting it tomorrow

I've proved that you can make a saber hilt (however bad-looking) with household items, and without having to spend any money

 

All in a days work. Congrats .

 

Actually, my friend painted the hilt a few months ago for our 2nd fanfilm (that will be finished in a week ), I just had the idea to cut it off and make a hilt from it and the broom .

I'm yet to add decoration, I'm searching for old mousepads we don't need to use for grips...

 

Why didn't I think of that ? So it's going to be for a fanfilm? Whats it going to be called? Is it going to be on TF.N?

 

Actually now I'm trying to make a skiing pole that I 'took' fit into the hilt by wrapping some tape around it...its too thin at the moment...

The film will be (most likely) finished by next weekend, and we will try to get it hosted by tf.n, but I will provide a link to it in the FanFilms forum . We haven't quite decided on a name yet, and its mostly an FX test with a bit of a story behind it

edit: I now have a skiing pole (without the handle or the spike at the bottom) as my blade, its extremely light too I hope it will survive some bashing...

This saber I'm making now isnt for the fanfilm coming out in 1 week, we have already filmed for that one. This saber is for the fanfilm we will make after my exams finish in June.

Added pictures of new blade:

[image=http://img454.imageshack.us/img454/6466/p10102127hm.jpg]

And this with the blade in the hilt:

[image=http://img454.imageshack.us/img454/5882/p10102132bt.jpg]

Still need to decorate the hilt some more though...searching for un-needed mousepads now

 

Man I suddenly have a craving to make an EL lightsaber blade but I can't order things online. Can someone tell me where I can get the EL string and something to use as a blade?

 

The best place prbably would be the custom saber shop but there might be others. I have read about finding a bulb at lighting stores but i dont know if that would work. Parksabers sells blades and this site www.high-techmagic.com/cgi-bin/ez-catalog/cat_display.cgi?0X348591 sells plasma but i dont know if that would work...

 

I personally only built my first saber out of this one type of pieing that all screwed together and added a converter to screw in a piece of dowelling. After that i got a cell phone belt clip kindof like the ones they use in the movie and stuck it onto the saber. I also used tenise racket gripping and wrapped it around to make it look authentic (kinda)
Overall it only cost me about 15 bucks and the most expensive was the docttape that i used on the blade

 

I said I wasn't allowed to order things online. If I was I would have ordered something from The Custom Saber Shop a long while ago. I have never seen a lightbulb store.

 

I meant lighting store. I have often spent houres on google looking for blades and el and build it yourself. I had some listed on my favorites but now there gone . I would just follow the instructions on the el lightsaber blade tutorial. For me personaly i might just get a fx and be happy with that. Ever consider el wire?http://www.zapwizard.com/Guides/Lightsaber/Index.htm has a good tutorial for doing it with easy options the only probolem might be getting it into a better hilt.

 

I was wondering if i should make a lightsaber out of a graflex or be creative and make my own personalized one. When i make my costume i want to be a jedi of the new republic so i dont know what my saber should look like. Any one have some good sugestions?

 

Please don't use a graflex if you're only going to do a graflex "inspired" one. They are too rare and should be reserved for those going to convert them. It's easy enough to get a tube and cut out that s-curve and do what you want than take up a graflex for a custom.

If you meant making a graflex Luke vs. Custom just ignore that... make a custom. It's more satisfying and personal.

 

I can get my hands on either type of flash guns for a good price and i dont know if i should just go completly customized.

i have some preety cool sites that have tutorials but i was thinking of obi-wan with anakin grips and different emmiter. If not i will just go with the plain tube and fancy emmiter and grips. With my obi/ani lightsaber i doubt that i would be able to fit a el balde in it though.

 

Wow, those cheapy EL "lightsabers" look crappy with blades that have no diffusion. The coiled wire looks kinda stupid IMO.

I had heard of people finding EL kits for cars at auto parts stores and even K-Mart, I remember seeing one at K-Mart, myself, but that was a few years ago, and I think it only came with 5ft of wire. I don't know if these places carry anything like that anymore. I see more neon stuff, lately.

darthnave, you are unlikely to find EL wire anywhere but online these days. You can't just walk into a hardware store and find it.

 

I agree with the crappy coiled wire look. But it is a simple and easy way to give it light. But it is possible to find, i was in walmart yesterday and i saw some of the el wire. The only probalem is that it is a plug in. the link i mentioned earlyier tells you how to make it operate on batterys.

 

Guess what I found to make the grips for my saber hilt. Table-tennis racquet grips Just cut them up with a knife in some nice shapes and stick them on with superglue Here's a few pics:

TOP VIEW:

[image=http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/7900/topviewhilt3xt.jpg]

LEFT/RIGHT VIEWS:

[image=http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/7886/leftviewhilt4cj.jpg]
[image=http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/7937/rightviewhilt6vj.jpg]

BOTTOM VIEW:

[image=http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/7893/bottomviewhilt9dp.jpg]

So I have made my hilt and blade from these things (so far), all found lying around in my garage and my room:

Ski pole
Umbrella pole
Table-tennis racquet grips
Paint
Tape (for making the blade fit in well)

TOTAL COST: 0$

It may not be the best looking, but its OK according to me and its great for combat too

 

I was wondering what is a good price that i should be paying for a three cell graflex or a microflash? I know that these are very rare to come by but im pretty sure that the person who is offering them is selling them at a fairly good price.

 

Well is there a way to make a LED blade from non-digital stores? And by that I mean not online? I wasn't really interested in LED's because they work the same as the "Build your own lightsbaer kit". With the lense to use as the colorer (is that a real word?). And in the build your own lightsaber kit it really blows. Also where could I get a sound chip? Also I am going to post my lightsaber on here and you people can tell me if I can use it as either an EL or LED hilt.

 

To get a sound chip you might wanna take apart a hasbro lightsaber that does all the sounds.

It may take a while. I own a couple of them and i havent really gotten past the outer shell. Either then that i cant think of anything to use.

 

Have you looked at all at LEDs??? That's not how they work at all. The LED is whatever color you want it with no filter. An LED doesn't compare at all to the crappy little flashlight sabers. You can use colored disks over a white LED but it still beats a Hasbro toy anyday.

On ebay a good condition Graflex goes for from $75-100. An MPP (vader) $200 minimum, there's one on now that beat that and still has a while left. I wouldn't buy them from the person you know until you see them though there is another extremely common flash that is usually just called a Graflex 3 cell too. If he has an actual MPP I urge you to buy it they are so rare you'd have a treasure.

 

darthnave: I suggest going to http://www.corbinscomponents.com and having a look at his saber tutorial. That should clear up a lot of misconceptions about LED sabers. If I may ask, why so explicit on the off-line supplier? Would a mail-order catalog be acceptable? I don't know of anyplace that would supply the necessary parts, and Radio Shacks are < Digi-Key for specialized electronics.

Ti_el Terall: If this is your first saber project, I would advise against shelling out for the vintage Graflex or MPP flash guns; there's simply too many things to go wrong and ruin it, and that'd be a shame. Do a little research on the other threads around this forum for links to websites for suppliers.

 

Thanks Hack. Now i know that its a really good deal. Ill probably keep them both though and convert them to sabers when i get the time.

I probably wont sell them unless i get anymore.

Darth Adderal thanks for the advice. I will take this seriously and perhapes make a pvc saber.
I dont think i will be doing any lighting with my blades untill i have more experience.

 

http://ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ti_el_terall/detail?.dir=/f2d4&.dnm=6e11.jpg&.src=ph

Thats what i made my first time and it doesnt look that good.
I wrapped some tenise racket grip around it and put a belt clip on it,
Now ive lost it so i have to start all over again (This saber costs under $10 canaidian).

 

Maybe because he's something like 14 and doesn't have his own credit cards and his parents won't let him use theirs?



Oh, and BTW, Ti-el_Terall, instead of making multiple posts, why don't you edit your first one? You have 90 minutes to edit a post, and I see you making multiple posts within an hour. It helps save the threads from getting quite as cluttered.

See? I forgot to add this part and just edited my own post!

 

Give the woman a prize! Yeah, he's talked about his parents on another thread and I don't have a prize so...