Greetings saber-ites!
Seeing as my Catalyst mod thread is very secretive, I am going to let everyone follow along with this customization/destruction "build".
Some of you may have seen my review video of this hilt and know that I didn't like it for a few reasons. Anyone who watched my video can probably skip ahead, for anyone curious, my PERSONAL issues were as follows:
I was most disappointed with the covertech wheel being right in the middle of the hilt and killing any chance of comfortable grip. I requested a different position because I knew it was in the middle of my grip point from looking at placement on photos, but I was not aware you could not request a different covertech position. It's "one size fits all" so to speak. Had I known that, I would not have ordered this hilt in the first place. But I rushed in and bought it. And even paid extra to get Sunrider's Destiny because I thought it would look bad-ass in this saber. So... "a fool an his money" as they say. For me, to remove the covertech and install it somewhere else leaving a hole in the hilt, or having to put some sort of scew or plug or whatever in the hole and still have it stand out and look silly, was just not an option. For the price of the saber, plus international shipping, having to "fix" it was a hell of a let down.
I also didn't like the single little window where the blade color came out one side. It seemed cool in photos and reviews, but in person I found it to be very tacky and not well thought out or executed.
Apart from that, I loved the SRD color, loved the overall design and feel of the hilt, but just didn't want a shiny and wonderful saber with a random screw hole in the middle of it looking like someone made a mistake. So my plan was to kill it. If it was going to have a hole in it, sweet Jesus, it was going to earn that hole and it was going to be there for a damn good reason. This thing is going to look like it went through TWO Clone Wars. It's going to look like it got handed down to Jedi after Jedi, all who had their asses handed to them. A cursed saber, so to speak. A Prophecy that "misread, could have been".
So come with me on a journey as I "misread" my prophecy all over the place. And be careful not to get any in your eyes!
Dr. Emel and I sizing things up on the work bench.
The story behind this saber is that the crystal overloaded and blew out the side of the hilt, killing it's owner and caused the internals to get so hot that they melted the circuitry and well as started to melt the outside of the hilt. The saber then got dragged around, lost, bought, sold, stolen, and handed off through many people who didn't know how to fix it.
A young apprentice who's master had been killed before he could teach him everything (including how to construct a lightsaber) bought it from a scrap dealer and hunted the black markets until he found someone selling Kyber crystals. Knowing that his crystal would call to him when he found it, he visited multiple Kyber dealers until he found one that while probably not THE right one, still registered with him to a certain degree.
He learned what he could from older smugglers and traders who'd witnessed the fall of the Jedi Knights. Bought ancient texts said to have been of Sith origin, and cobbled together as much knowledge as he could to build, or at least piece together, his lightsaber.
The plan is that the hole where the covertech wheel WAS in the grips, is going to have a wire going from it, up to the hole where the LED goes, under the gaping maw in the side of the saber neck. This saber will still be mostly silver apart from the dirt, grime and carbon scoring it will have, so I thinking a red wire. It will be a bypass wire of sorts, powering the new magnetic containment field unit. As the saber inside is clogged with old slag and debris from when it failed, not all the new components fit properly. Especially as some aren't for a lightsaber, but tailored and tweaked to "do the job".
After about a half hour of cutting, sanding, grinding, milling, snapping things with pliers and wire wheeling I am done with the first pass. And also out of daylight. I will get back to it either tomorrow or the next day and start to add more melted sections with the wire wheel, and fill out the cracks near the emitter a bit more.
Because the old crystal blew up the side wall, you will be able to see the new crystal inside the hilt.
And while I will loose some of my SRD color by doing this, that's ok. I have decided to keep SRD in my back pocket until I find a truly worthy hilt for that amazing color.
That's all I have for now. I hope some of you enjoy this thread as I make my way through this project. I will update as I go
