The Toepick!

[Manroon]

May I present, with a pretty darn fair degree of pride, the Jix Starrik lightsaber.... Toepick!

Apologies in advance for the somewhat large photos....


She started out life as an Ultrasabers Standard Issue Battlesaber back about January. A month or so after I got her, I added the white rubber grips around the activator and the white rubber ring around the emitter, as well as the D-Ring on the pommel, and she pretty much stayed that way until now. A combination of reading The Jedi Path, thinking up a pair of new Jedi Characters, and finding some choice bits of junk recently led me to put her on the workbench (dining table) again. When I finished, this is what was born! I call her 'Toepick', in tribute to a certain old Figure Skating movie with a hockey player that just can't figure out how to use a toepick, and my sister who seriously used to LIVE on the rink. lol


Starting at the top, I got some acrylic model paint and looked up the proper aurabesh to paint on the name toepick. One of my favorite mods to this!


Working south, you can see the new lower grips. These were made from some old US army WWII Mountain backpack cord that unfortunately tore off of it's pack and was discarded. Lucky for me I didn't need the part that was still on the pack! There's a little clip threaded into the grip which holds the jedi credit from The Jedi Path, and a leather strap which has a vintage green marble tied into it, along with a piece of quartz which was originally going to be a saber crystal, but I couldn't find the one I had and this just really looked good!! lol

A beauty shot:


From there, I leave you with a final picture, slightly out of focus on one end......

[Sephradragon]

Haha I like how you used symbols and the dangling trinkets are an awesome idea! Good Job!

[ThreadJack]

That's pretty cool Wingmate. I'm actually thinking of redoing, or at least tweaking my SI.

[Manroon]

Thanks guys! Yeah, the dangling trinkets totally make this. They were SO tricky to do right though! I was very lucky I managed to position them where they don't flip around too much as long as I don't go crazy with spins or anything, and I forgot to mention... all the trinkets are fully removable! The way I worked in the loop that holds them on, I can unclip all of them if I want to for hard core dueling without risk of shattered rock, lost marble, or broken coin. Incidentally, that coin isn't as durable as it looks. Best I can tell, it's just cheap pot metal with some paint, and the paint scratches off EASY. I've already put some knicks in it just spinning the saber! However, I'm looking into getting a replacement made of more durable material that's a tad more accurate and personalized to the history of the blade.

Wingmate, you should totally go for it! The tweaking is so much fuuuun.....

[ThreadJack]

Yeah, I think I'm definitely going to see what I can do. I don't have money to buy anything though, so I'll have to see if I can find stuff in my house. lol.

[darth tratus]

i love what you did with the paint. i was planning on doing that with my dark war glaive once it is all finished. great job and it looks awesome!

[Shalateaus]

   hmm nice job got a thread on the toepick add ons? i got the darksider one btw whered you get the meddalion?

[Manroon]

Hey Shala. I'll be happy to cover the add-ons right here for ya. The white ring beneath the emitter and the white wrap grip around the activator are both a length of extra power-strip that came with a home-lighting kit I put up awhile back. It's basically white rubber around a copper strip, which sticks out of the ends a little bit to give the appearance of a heating or cooling element in the grip. It's also darned confortable!  Working down from there, the brown grip is actually a length of torn backpack cord from a US ARMY WWII Mountain Troop Backpack. I found it on the floor at work after an auction and counted myself lucky. The metal loop the holds the medallion was just something I stole off an old convention badge holder from Anime Expo LA, and the medallion itself is a Jedi-Credit formerly belonging to Thame Cerulian, which I found in The Jedi Path. (an excellent book, and well worth the money) The leather strap was taken from some access I had, but leather boot lace or cord from any craft or fabric store would work just as well, the green sphere is actually a vintage marble I picked up at an estate sale with several others. It was originally to finish off a small prop project relating to Tootles from Hook, the Robin Williams version of Peter Pan. Turned out I had an extra left over, so it got repurposed. lol And lastly, the rock is just a small piece of quartz.

On another note, I need to update this soon. I've done some minor mods on it. Namely I retied the leather and built a permanent holder for the marble, and will soon be adding a more personalized Jed-Cred to replace the somewhat flimsy one that came in the book.

[lordgale119]

Looks quite a bit like something Jack Sparrow would own...
Very nice work.
Only customization I've done to my Aeon is wrap it in black cloth, and while it looks pretty imposing, it isn't as impressive as this. Like I said, very nice work.

[Qui-Tom Helms]

This is kinda off topic but related; when you talked about making your own cred, I got to thinking about military challange coins.  Going this route may be a little pricy for just one person, but if the cred was standard, I wonder if more people would want to get one?  Anyway, the below link is just one of many, just closed my eyes and clicked the mouse.

http://custom.nwtmint.com/military_challenge_coins.php?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=Military%20Coins&utm_campaign=unit-coins

[Manroon]

lordgale, I thank you. I was thinking of Captain Jack in the back of my mind working on this. His host of little trinkets and trophies from his adventures was part of the inspiration for tying bits of junk on here. lol

Hmmm... interesting idea there Qui-Tom. It's true that could be a bit expensive, but if it was a big enough group to drive the price down to something fairly affordable that might be a sweet idea. Only prob is they'd all have the same guy's face on em'. lol

[Qui-Tom Helms]

It would have to be a pretty face     It really depends on the lot initally purchased.  Don't know what one would cost these days, but back a few years they were like 5.00 to 10.00 a peice depending on the detailing, painting, one or two sided, etc.    Just thought I would mention it since I know you are independently wealthy

[Manroon]

5 to 10 bucks a piece? Not bad! Way better than what I was gonna get from the 3D printing guy, though that was out of steel. lol How many did you have to order to get that price? Something like 10 pieces, or more like 200 pieces?