A new saber from Billet

[DarthCooper88]

 Here is a project that has been in my head for a long time, and now it's time to make it real (I already have prints drawn and most parts on hand) I have been wanting to be able to lathe my own hilt from billet for awhile now. After research I found one thing really needed beyond a lathe, a mill and a band-saw, is a good center rest. They made these for my ancient Craftsman lathe and now are extremely hard to find.
I thought MMmm not about to spend  250+ I'm sure I can build something that will work near as well! I ordered up a set of center rest fingers with sealed ball bearings, a piece of 3" x 5" x 1/4" L-bracket, had a couple of pieces 1/2" billet I use to make control boxes on hand.

This is a piece of 1-1/2" x 12" stock, I turned down the front section for the emmiter and tsuba mount. With this set-up I was able to achieve .003 tolerance across the piece checked with the dial indicator, the wall thickness near the blade opening is all of .05

[Faa-Yal Dragu]

awesome! dont suppose you wanna pop up some design pics, or are you just going to surprise us?  i cant wait, all your builds are kriffing epic - they are soo good that we need a new word for how epic they are. none that i can think of do any of them justice.

[DarthCooper88]

awesome! dont suppose you wanna pop up some design pics, or are you just going to surprise us?  i cant wait, all your builds are kriffing epic - they are soo good that we need a new word for how epic they are. none that i can think of do any of them justice.

This one is going to have some super secret technology in it, and for the most part will look like a traditional katana with some unique leather wrap

[swords4two]

I can't wait to see more! Know you it's going to be crazy!

[DarthCooper88]

Ok here is the hilt finished after a bunch of milling and hand shaping with files to get a nice oval shape ,with a neat gold powder coat my PC guy just got in. I have the  sled for the battery and board finished, wiring done and tested for the most part(suckers bright and loud!). now its just a couple of small details like blinkies and such and then onto wrapping!

[Mace Vaapad]

wow man, that looks wicked! ive seen a few of your other threads too, i am in awe!

[DarthCooper88]

 Thanks!, This one will be custom wrapped with leather doe skin and real sea-ray Sagewama, from a Jedi friend that wrapped my last Katana , the control box is only 1/4 tall by 3" it houses 2 tact switches, the recharge port and a 3smd red led array that goes under a pored acrylic window. I am just getting my testing and different fonts and music tracks sorted out, this one is actually a theme saber that I'll show more of once complete, of course with video

[Faa-Yal Dragu]

darth cooper, you have graced us with your most epicness-ess talants once again. PLUS 1!!!

[Darth Sabre]

[DarthCooper88]

and the sound board wired and ready for install, this is a neat little gem that is quite rare and does some amazing effects

I used micro plugs on the battery, speaker connection, and the 4 wire main RGB led's for ease of later up-grades

[Ninja-Jedi]

looking for to the finished product, I have that same soundboard for a katana build I am doing right now. Running a quad rebel RRBB and it is supa bright espeacially the clashes with VA at full powah. I will prob post some pics soon

[DarthCooper88]

looking for to the finished product, I have that same soundboard for a katana build I am doing right now. Running a quad rebel RRBB and it is supa bright espeacially the clashes with VA at full powah. I will prob post some pics soon

Hehehehe!, yes it looks like one thing but it is not, this is3 of 9 that exist at this time (I made the team)

[Ninja-Jedi]

I know what it is now I just seen you were on builders list.  Man you are a lucky dawg lol

[DarthCooper88]

Thanks! I just finished installing my 2nd one with a crystal chamber and 3 accent led's , just getting the sd card sorted out and DP feature's time sets to match the change fonts, the one just being finished I managed to fit inside of a 1" x 4" PVC sled stacked on top of a 17670 Panasonic (yes Cram-fu has been used liberally to fit that and some 30ga. wire ) so this system can fit into a very tight build, I also like that the satellite board can be snapped off and cut down to fit even tighter spots. The billet Katana is at Yar-Nala's being wrapped with ray skin and leather, from there I plan on lacquering the leather for both preservation and a bit of a sheen. I also managed to make a custom sword sheath that fits the overall theme the saber is based on, hope to have a vid made by the weekend, looking forward to seeing your finished saber as well, oh yeah regal 1.5 watter and the premium (not 27mm bass) speaker seem to work best with the sound-driver from tcs.

[DarthCooper88]

 Here is a much more complicated version, this has every pin used for accents, and crystal chamber lighting to match the main blade colors, Youll see more of this shortly its 99% finished