A Busy, Slow Week

Lathe in use…

Well, another slow week on the saber build.  The lathe has been busy with a piece of mystery metal that I brought back this summer.  The metal is non-metallic, gives off a kind of green corrosion, and is really heavy.  It could be stainless steel (but green is wrong for it's corrosion) or it could be monel.  At any rate, it has finally come off the lathe today.  After the lathe gets a thorough cleaning (remove all metal chips and old grease), is re-oiled and put back together, I'll be back to working the saber.  Here's what the lathe has looked like for the past week or two.

This piece of metal is heavy and, worse, slick.  It's heavy because it's a solid metal cylinder about 4.5 inches in diameter by about 6 or 7 inches in height.  I haven't measured it exactly because machining it isn't a precision (read to tolerance) job.  It was a somewhat ugly lump of metal that is now a shiny uniform piece of metal.

Concepts for the Saber

I'm thinking of modifying the saber so that it doesn't have the crystal chamber.  In part, adding the crystal chamber is cool, but the drawback to it is that I have to solder a very small solder join on the Petit Crouton sound board.  If I mess it up, I have to buy a new sound board, which is not cheap, so I may not add it to the saber.  I am, however, going to go ahead and build the crystal chamber because I may get brave enough and I'd have most of the work done.  So, in the next few weeks, I'll detail the work involved in making the chamber.

Whether I make the crystal chamber or not, I am making something cool to add to the saber: an emitter plug.  The concept is based on some work Rob Petkau did and showed in this video: Compressor Blade Plug.  First off, I can not stress how much I love Rob's work: Genesis Custom Sabers (his saber shop) is top notch from my point of view.  Anyway, when I saw that video, I knew I had to make one for my saber.  The good thing is that it can be used in place of the crystal chamber.

The key, I think, is in sourcing the right plastic.  Plastics have different uses and different qualities because of they are manufactured for those uses.  While sourcing plastic for this part, I'm looking mainly at the light transmission qualities and durability.  While there are very few plastics that are both brittle and translucent in the given size that may be needed, there are a few.  One such plastic is acrylic.  It is clear and easily machinable, but it can "explode" if not carefully machined - it shatters due to it's brittleness under stress.  I currently have to order some acrylic in the right size if I plan to use it in this project.

Two other plastics that I have and will work for this job are PEI and Nylon.  Here they are:

PEI (on the left) is a plastic that is used in relatively high temperature uses: I've heard that the stuff can survive a medical autoclave.  It is amber in color - I call that a German stout amber.  It is easily machined and, in my experience, very durable.  Aside from it's amber color and price, it is ideal for use near an LED that I've heard can melt hot glue.  Using a powerful LED similar to the LED in the saber, here's a picture of it's light transmission.

The other plastic (and the one used by Rob in his video) is Nylon.  We're all fairly familiar with Nylon.  It's major problem is that it is a little devil to machine.  The surface gets ugly when machined or, at least, the last time I machined it, I couldn't get it pretty to save my life.  I'm older and wiser now, and I like to think that I've learned some tricks over that time, so I'm going to give Nylon another go.  As you can see, it transmits light nicely.

Once I've completely serviced the lathe, I'll get some real work pictures up for you guys to enjoy.

Please, send me some comments or questions about anything you've seen done here.  Thank you for taking the time to read.

Twitter: jek_creations