Black Bladed LightSaber

[SharkBait]

Hello guys, recently I read someone say that they would buy a black saber in a heartbeat. Well that got me thinking, we have seen this in the EU and star wars the clone wars. Pre Vizsla had his black bladed lightsaber

Well why not make one like this? All I am thinking is what if we replace the inner part of the ultraedge blades with a black reflect material instead of a white one, then you get a silver or white led. Along the entire blade either small holes can be made or even zigzags, anything to resemble his saber blade. IMO if done properly it could look like the night sky with the holes being stars. Idk if this is even possible, I am probably just being stupid but its fun to think about

[Landen Se-Sentien]

Go here, Shark Bait.

http://www.saberforum.com/index.php?topic=8539.0

[DarthScrub]

The other day, I was thinking how cool it'd be if the lightsaber came with a blacklight blade, black would be cool too!

[SharkBait]

ohhhh dang, what do I do lol , I didnt see that post

[Landen Se-Sentien]

No worries. It happens. I do like the people commenting on the impossibility of it. Ummmm...we are talking about lightsabers, right?

[Darth Blightus]

idk sharkbait. that ultraedge with white LED idea sounds good. but i have a feeling you'll just end up with a grey colored blade.
im not saying its a bad idea. just that it sounds too easy. (if it works then great)
but thanks for keeping the black blade concept alive. most people iv talked to say its not good because "black is not light"

[SharkBait]

why gray though?  there shouldnt be mixing of white and black.... thanks you anyway 

[shade_1313]

A long time ago, when I was doing a SW tabletop RPG with some friends, I looked at the (then, before the prequels) information that could be gleaned about the properties of the blade based on what we see on screen.

Notably, they cast shadows.  It followed, then, that whatever plasma they were, it was dense enough to stop outside light from going through.  From that, I theorized that a saber might have a crystal which resulted in a plasma which cast light in the UV end of the spectrum.  Not visible to the eyes of humans, although to some aliens it would be.  But I figured that it MIGHT show up as a black core with a dark violet halo around it.

At the moment, DVA is as close as I get to that.

[Darth_Solidus]

I was thinking about this and thought instead of doing a black color from an led, what if you made the blade itself black. It could be a thin black film to allow just enough light and have a design which let white light show through to give the illusion of a black blade.

[justmutantjed]

I seem to remember in the (now non-canon) Young Jedi Knights series, a student at Luke's academy constructed a lightsaber with a hunk of obsidian-like crystal from a volcano. I think it was Tenel Ka -- from either Hapes or Dathomir, I wanna say...? It created a grey blade, and unfortunately didn't last very long. In a sparring match, the crystal gave out (either shattered in the hilt or caused the saber to outright explode) and yet another Star Wars character came up minus an arm thanks to a lightsaber incident. Seriously, don't they have something like OSHA?
Well at any rate, that was a bit of a shaggy-dog story, but MY take-away from it was that I don't really like grey or dark blades. They look awesome, but I wouldn't trust them. Party on!

[Kouri]

I'm not going to say a black blade can't be done, but you really need to understand how light works before you can even come up with a plan to achieve the effect.

A) Understand that black isn't a color. There's no such thing as black light. Black is how our mind renders the *absence* of light. Black objects appear so because they absorb most of the light hitting them, only bouncing back the tiniest bit of white light back, which we mix with the nothingness to perceive the gray highlights. One more time - there is absolutely no way to make black by mixing any sort of light - you have to block or absorb light to achieve black.

B) To achieve the black-core/white-aura effect, you need to come up with a way to prevent the eye from perceiving light emitting from the center of the blade. Perception is key - the issue isn't actually whether or not light is emitted from the center of the blade, just whether or not the human eye and brain perceive it's there. On the flip side, you also need light from the edges of the blade to reach the eye, or else no aura will be visible.

So far, there have been three ways to achieve this effect.

1) Clone Wars Darksaber-styled flat blades: This is the easiest to achieve. Manufacture a flat, light-up blade. Cover the sides in black (paint, vinyl, tape, epoxy~) Only the uncovered edges light up. Downside is there's no omni-directional way to replicate this on a round blade.

2) The Spinning Box - I forget who came up with this setup, but the basic idea is a long, blade-length black box. One long side of the box is left open, and an LED string is fed along the length of the box. The setup is attached to a motor in the hilt and spun at just the right RPM that the eye doesn't register when the LEDs are pointed directly at the viewer - the brain only perceives the light when the box is pointed off to the sides. This creates the *optical illusion* of a black core with a white aura. Sadly, this setup is rather delicate, power-hungry, and really only for the mechanically inclined.

3) Polarized Film - This would've been the home run, if materials were readily available. One enthusiast procured some of the polarized film used in the construction of LCD displays. By applying two, cross-hatched, layers of the polarized film to a  standard saber blade, light was re-directed from a standard saber blade. Basically, instead of moving straight-out from the core, light would hit the polarizing film, bounce, and only exit at about a 90-degree turn. This meant that the center of the blade always appeared dark, while the edges appeared lit. Sadly, the film proved very expensive and was only available in small sizes - so at best, there were seams in the blade. The material is typically only sold-to/manufactured-by LCD suppliers, so it's not readily available to saber enthusiasts.

So keep tinkering, fellas - but know that you're wasting time if you're fiddling with different colored LEDs, any sort of reflective black film, or smoked polycarbonate - there's no way to get something to light-up-black. However, if you can come up with materials that block and/or redirect light in interesting ways, you just might be onto the next black blade breakthrough.

[SharkBait]

COooool

[Bluedevil24000]

Sounds like a great Idea for a darksaber, but the problem would be that the battery life wouldn't be long with the motor and it would be difficult to fight with a constantly spinning blade, so instead, there should be a spinning switch along with the LED switch

[Akoxol]

So my ideas is that when making the blade instead of having a hollow middle have a solid back and on the outside walls have a little space so light can go through from the LED, therefore it could make the saber look like it has a black core with a aura of color of your choosing

[Thanamira]

So my ideas is that when making the blade instead of having a hollow middle have a solid back and on the outside walls have a little space so light can go through from the LED, therefore it could make the saber look like it has a black core with a aura of color of your choosing

Light doesn't work that way.  Unless you're blocking the light on the edges, it'll evenly diffuse in that circumferential ring, and look like a normal lightsaber, only less bright.

The best darksaber I've seen was not attempting to be a circular blade, but more like a katana blade: the flat of the blade was black and the edges were lined in EL wire.  Yes, it looked more like a glowy katana than a darksaber, but still a cool effect.