Lightsabers & Blasters Jedi-Loreen's EL Lightsaber Blade Tutorial

Great tutorial strydur, but i have one question. it doesnt seem like the blade would go in far enough to be held securely, as it would need to be in, say, a hardcore duel or some serious use. Also, in case anyone besides me hasnt noticed, Strydur sells 48 inch pieces of 3/4 OD 1/2 ID 1/8 wall Polycarbonate tubeing for 13 bucks on his website. I've been searching all over for that stuff at a reasonable price and aparently missed the fact that Strydur was doing us all a favor by buying it an selling it at a fair price. Just thought I'd throw that out there incase anyone besides me missed that.

 

Some of those parts don't exist anymore, could you find some other place to get them?

 

SHHHH!...not too loud, I want there to be some left for me

 

The blade is being held 2" into the hilt. This is plenty of support. I have never made a hilt that holds more than that and have never had a problem.

What parts cant you find? I bought all that stuff at Lowes the day before I wrote the tutorial. If there is certain items that you cant find maybe I will offer them on the site. Trying to find sources for more items as I get time. Been selling blades like crazy.

 

2 inchs is just fine, all my blades are 2 inches in. I had some 4 inch ones made, but have not used them yet.

as long as its a good tight fit and secure, there is no issue. The weight of the blade is not enought to affect support.

You're breaking point anyhow is always gonna be at the end, no matter how far inserted.

But I have not used my 1/8th that I bought yet, still using the 1/16th and my kids have hit trees and limbs and you name it. No breaks yet. Now I know thats not a full adult swing.

But I cant imagine why you would want to fit that hard with it anyhow. Thats some serious injury to the person, if contact is missed with the other sword.

I took a break from making sabers for a few weeks. My son had is cubmobile race and We been having fun riding go-karts, The this weekend I made a nice size wishing well for my front yard. gonna make a waterfall inside of it. Off topic I know.

Sporty

 

I've recently emailed strydur about those nice chrome hole plugs he uses. I can't find the darn things anywhere! Plugs sized to fit both 1.5 and 1.25" tubes would be nice.
The other thing I can't find for love or money is a 1.5x12" slipjoint extension tube, which is needed for the style 2 bigyellowbox hilt. None of the stores here carry them, or have even heard of them. And DON'T tell me to go to Lowes. Anyone who does will have to clean up my head explosion, as we don't have Lowes here in Canada.

I just got my dremel tool, and will start practicing with it. Truth be told, I've never used one before and am kinda intimidated by the thing, too worried about screwing up.

 

someone put this up for auction. done in the describition it says something about needing somebody to sell these. I dont know thought someone here would be interested.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=154&item=5210914607&rd=1

 

I've been thinking about the whole sound issue. My main concern is getting my saber to light up and look cool. Power up/power down effects and sound are just potential icing.

I think if I ever did want sound, I would want a way to shut it off and still keep the glowing blade. I took one of my toy sabers to a fireworks display (beats the heck out of a glowstick) and some guy actually got on my case about it, saying that the low hum was annoying him and telling me to turn it off. I was pretty peeved. After all, the guy was a few feet away at the time, it's not like he was right next to me. So that has pretty much turned me off of sound effects- one less thing for somebody to get cheesed off at.

 

Hey Strydur saw you site, it's awsome! By any chance will you add orange el wire?

 

I can get you orange if you want. But it would not be long life,thats why I dont offer it on the site.

 

How long does the orange wire last if it's not long life? I was curious because an orange saber might be fun to play with.

 

The orange is lasts about half as long. Which is still like 1500hours..plenty of time
I will order some and have it in stock later this week.

 

Thanx Strydur!

 

sporty posted :

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I cant imagine why you would want to fit that hard with it anyhow. Thats some serious injury to the person, if contact is missed with the other sword.
[hr]





Thats part of the point of swinging hard. It makes each person try harder and makes the fight better. If you've ever seen the move The Last Samurai, thier practice fights are kind of like what I'd like to do, only i dont have my standards set that high...

 

Wow, thats some heavy hitting, That was a samuri master in the movie, the many seens you saw tom loosing and then later a draw.

They asked him to help with the movie, spent time with tom teaching him. And he also was in the movie.

Do you know the scene where Tom fights in the town against like 5 samuri ? That scene was done without him and then later added tom in fighting them.

I watched the making of it on the history channel and the bonus disk when I bought the movie.

Yep likely to be going thru some lightsabers. Get a really good blade holder/ insert.


Sporty

 

Jedi Loreen do you know if your EL blades will work with Hilts form the Big Yellow Box. I have been seeking your guidance on this. I am intereste in consrtucting a nice looking but battle ready EL lightsaber and was also thinking of scavenging my old lightsaber toys to add sound effects. Please advise thanks Ye master of the blades.

 

I know im not loreen, but this has been asked a few times, anyone that has enough room inside the hilt, so none with a dowl in teh middle, should have enough room to fit the electronics in, and woudlnt be too hard to fix up. im using number 4, 6 and 8 right now, and they have enough room for the parts. just have to fit the electronics in and use stryders guide as a starting point and figure it out yourself.
-eidos

 

Thanks, Eidos_Zexus, for answering that.

 

Strydur,

I would like to say, your site is AWESOME! I havent ordered yet, but I will be in the near future. Beats going to all the different places and this way it all gets here at the same time. Also your Hilt tutorial is excellent. Especially the insert for the blade inside the hilt. Many people can stop asking questions about it now. That is just about how I did mine too.

Next saber will be built soon, Keep an eye out for my order!

P.S. No discount codes yet

 

RED GRAFLEX STYLE BUTTONS

This has sortof become the everything tutorial, Hilts, Blades, Electronics....
Maybe we should change the name to Jedi Loreens Blade Tutorial (a.k.a. The Perfect Lightsaber)

I am sure many of you have been to project graflex, but it only just dawned on me. I was talking about the graflex style buttons a few days ago, and sure enough, here is a tutorial. YAY!

Just thought many of you might want to know.

Respectfully,

Darth Roadkill

 

What is a good diameter for the inside of the handel??

 

I think you can get away with 1" but I have had no luck with anything smaller than 1 1/4". My current hilt, the functional one, is 1.5" It is a good bet that the bigger the inner diameter (ID) and the Longer the Tube the easier it will be to work with. I think most of us use 1.5" Outer Diameter (like 1.4999999999" ID) by 12" Sink Pipes and have all had good luck with that.

DRK

 

ok... maybe im just stupid but how does the EL wire work? do i hook positive to the small wires and negative to the big one and then connect them together at the other end? or do i have to do something else? i have read 3 or 4 tutorials for the wire but cant quite figure it out...

 

el wire,


well it is a/c.

but some inverters do have a color coded wire. red-pos, neg , black and white.

i pretty much hook up the red to the main thick wire (inner wire ), the 2 outter wires, really then, i connect to black. But again it is A/C.

Sporty

 

EL wire is powered by the AC voltage that comes from the inverter, which changes the DC power from your battery to high frequency AC. There is no polarity with AC. If you are trying to hook up the EL wire right to a battery, that won't work.