Cincin, OH Idea for a future meeting

I just had a thought. What if for one of our future meetings we did light saber building, we could get some good deals on parts by buying in bulk and stuff, and we could all wear them to a showing of the movie or something. We could either pick a favorite hilt from the saga or design our own...or just start building without a plan and see what we come up with, let the force guide us

I've got a dremel that I could bring, someone could buy a pack of windshield wiper blades, someone else could buy a long piece of PVC pipe, another person could bring a long piece of nickel plated pipe, someone else could get some D-rings or cell phone clips...

I think it would be fun, kinda like a school craft project

 

Great! This is an idea that I had for Speical Interest Group, but a craft corner, is a great also.

I've read the instructions and know the a guy on the boards who has build a few lightsabers in his time. His saber handles are amazing peices of art. He gives a run down the parts needed to build his sabers on his site. They all cost between 20 and 50 dollars. And the stuff you can buy at Lowe's (winks in Mike's wife's general direction ) and other hardware stores.

The sabers he has there take a few weeks to complete so, it would be more than a one shot meeting, I would hope to think. I'm thinking maybe a grouping of meetings to give us other things to do.

I had hoped our group would eventually have a Prop and Costuming Speical Interest Group. Maybe this will be come that, eventually as the membership grows here.

Lotus!

 

I would definately be interested in a prop sub group thingy eventually, Wow, i would be in at least 2 subgroups that have been mentioned so far (mentioned at least privately that is) this one and the collecting group as well.

I still think that a one meeting saber building thing would be fun too, we could even vote on the best in several catagories...most unique or original, best on screen replica, best overall, etc.

we can vote somewhere down the line of to see if there is enough interest for this or not...at least enough interest to make a whole meeting about it.

btw i build luke's ANH saber, it's not anywhere near great...but it's there in my collection to showcase

 

Okay, it sounds like a good idea. We'll have to do more simple versions of the complete sabers. I only thought that a longer on going process could allow for neat stuff like coloured electronics, and customizing. ImperialRecruiter knows his electronics (he majored in it) and soddering, and would probably be happy to teach folks how to create simple circuits for their handles.

So we'll begin by one day workshop and working up from there. How's that?

Lotus!

 

Awefully nice of Lotus just to volunteer my expertise, isn't it? [face_shocked] Just kidding, Just kidding, Sweetie Pie!

So how many people would like to be burned by molten metal?

I'm kidding again. If you do it right, it'll keep your hands nice and warm.

And hey, I've got a Dremel tool also! They're great!

 

I really like this saber idea too. I'm in the process of getting ready to make a couple, which I would hopefully get done for May 16, but I don't know if I've got enough free time. It sure helps that I've got the mechanical engineering machine shop here at Purdue at my disposal for any complex machining.

 

DarthStew,

Hey! That's cheating! No fair! I'm jealous now. I know how to use that stuff, too. I just don't have the access anymore.

 

ok, with this new info, i can totally see the benefits of nixing the one day thing, I am even more for the idea now that i know the whole electronics part of it!!! What kindsa cool stuff could we put into the hilts? I've seen neon type tubes that are supposed to look real close to the real thing... Of course the power up and power down sounds would be cool, mabe some sort of "battery life indicator" type lights....anything else....can you teach us this kinda stuff Imperial?

 

In theory, we can do just about anything within reason for the size of the handles. In reality, I can teach some things easily. Hooking up LED's, stuff to do with lights. It would just be a matter of making sure that the circuitry could fit in the handle.

When it comes to sounds and battery life indicators, these are a bit more complex. There are some materials that I would have to get and play with for the Battery Life Indicator.

The sound synthesizers are more complex. The ones in the older lightsabers were programmed chips. To put in sounds may require an extended hunt for the sound generator chips.

If you can deal with starting out simple, I am more than willing to teach. Time will tell if we can get more complex.

How does that sound?

 

sounds great! Of course whatever you are willing to teach us is all we can ask of you, well we could ask more of you, but then we would be jerks

 

Well then, let's begin with the most important lesson of all...

If the magic smoke escapes, electronic parts will no longer work.

The corrective action for a part that releases its magical smoke, please find the circular file (a.k.a. File 13) and deposit part into file. Go to Radio Shack and purchase replacement part with magical smoke still inside.

Naw, really, the first lesson is that Imps has to come up with the circuit diagram and parts list first. We will continue from there.

It's not rocket science, but you do have to be careful. It's easy! I'll teach you what you need to know to put things together. If you ask for more than that, we'll see what we can do.

 

sounds great!