Customised Catalyst with Tsuba

[Seano]

After seeing the topic of Tsuba's being used on Ultrasabers, I thought "I want in on this action!", as I've always wanted a saber which borrows from the katana look. I looked at which I thought was the best saber to use as the base, so I bought a Dark Catalyst.

A couple of problems I found once I received the Catalyst were that the LED's are on the farthest end of the choke, which I wanted to remove for the customisation, and the focussing lens was hot glued to the emitter. I'm not great at electronics, and didn't want to stuff up the FOC, so sent it back to the professionals for customising. 

I've hot glued the focussing lens to the LED, which thankfully doesn't overheat, and the LED to the inside of the saber hilt, as there was a gap between the tsuba, and the LED, so there was a bit of rattling, but now it's in there solid -



I didn't want the 16mm A/v switch installed, as I though the diameter would be too big for the tsuka-ito wrapping I'm planning on doing. I also didn't realise the area where the Guarded Switch was placed was countersunk, which made the bezel redundant, so now I had other problems to think about, and I had to think of other ways to activate my saber.

Looking at traditional katana, I saw they have these ornaments under the wraps, called menuki, which I thought I could incorporate into my saber. So I went on the interwebs, and found these cufflinks, which I'll use as menuki, and the activation button of the saber -



The following are pictures of what I've done so far - I bought some black leather with stingray embossing to make it look more traditional, as well as some silk tsuka-ito wrapping




I've also hot glued a pop rivet to the A/V switch to help with activation, and will trim it down once the cufflinks arrive






Lastly, the tsuba itself, as well as the blade holder, which I will get lathed down, and anodised a bronze colour




How it looks currently before the leather's glued down, the tsuka-ito wrap's been done, and the trimming down of the blade holder -



More to follow.........

[Infinit01]

Looking good, Seano. I'm following this build for sure

[Tai Chi Chuan Wijchen]

Great ideas, great pics, points awarded!
And as Infinite already said, this is a project worth following.

[Therion Jinn]

Interesting work on this so far

[Seano]

Still waiting on the Jedi cufflinks to arrive, which is holding up my customisation 

In the meantime, whilst looking more closely at a katana hilt, I noticed that they have these little wooden pegs, called mekugi, that go through the handle and tang of the blade to hold the sword together, and I thought I'll incorporate those onto the hilt as well!



Instead of wooden pegs, I'll be using 4 of these soft tactile buttons as faux mekugi (I'll remove the buttons from the main housing of the switch), with one of them sitting on top of the A/V switch to activate the saber, and use the cufflinks as decorative menuki.



I also noticed that they don't fully wrap the tsuka (handle) of the katana with the stingray leather, so will just use 2 strips of the leather on either side of the hilt, which will make it easier to mirror the placement of the holes for the soft tactile buttons.

I'll also be getting the tsuba anodised black, and then get the Jedi symbol laser cut onto both sides of the tsuba -



Once again, more to follow, once the parts arrive!

[Tai Chi Chuan Wijchen]

Nice ideas!
A thought that came up: Whatch that those false meguki's don't bite in you hand. IRL (their) almost flush to the hilt.
Can't wait to see the tsuba!

[Seano]

Whatch that those false meguki's don't bite in you hand. IRL (their) almost flush to the hilt.

Thanks for the heads up, Tai Chi!

Just looking at the pictures of the tactile buttons (which are soft rubber, thankfully!), and judging by the size of the whole switch (they're 8mm x 8mm), they look like they'll only protrude through the leather by about 1-2mm, so hopefully won't bite, and if they do, not hard!

I got my emitter trimmed down today by a local metalworker, and I dropped off the tsuba and emitter for anodising, so they should be ready by the end of next week, if not sooner!

I was going to send them back to TCSS for the machining and anodising, but a) it would have cost me about $80 - 90 US (about $120 - 135 Australian) for the work, anodising, and shipping there and back, whereas I'm only paying $65 AUS for the anodizing and paid $20 AUS for the lathe work, b) don't know how long it will take for the shipping there and back, and the work to be done, and c) I emailed them ages ago about the work I wanted done, but they never replied, so stuff 'em!

More to follow.........

[firehand10k]

I also noticed that they don't fully wrap the tsuka (handle) of the katana with the stingray leather, so will just use 2 strips of the leather on either side of the hilt, which will make it easier to mirror the placement of the holes for the soft tactile buttons.

Just so you know it is only done this way on the newer replica katanas. Originally the wrap was complete and was an essential part of holding the handle together. It was applied damp and tried to increase tension on the wood underneath. The silk cords were wrapped on top of it to hold it on since no kind of glue was used.
High quality modern ones still use the full wrap.

Of course there is nothing to hold together on a machined aluminum saber so however you decide to do it will be making it your own which is the highest goal.

[Seano]

Quick update, and a few more pictures!

The cufflinks finally arrived, and whilst they look great, they're just a bit too bulbous, and will stick out from the hilt too much, so it looks like I'm going menukiless! On the otherhand, at least now I have a nice set of cufflinks!




The anodising to my tsuba and blade holder is done, so I picked them up today, and they look great! I can only show the blade holder, as I've dropped off the tsuba to have the Jedi symbol laser etched into it. These are mock up pictures of what the tsuba will look like when it's done, as well as the blade holder on my saber -




These are what I used as the mekugi - I removed the little rubber buttons from the switch, hole-punched some small holes, and poked the smaller part of the button through the leather. It works perfectly as the activation button, I've just hot glued one of the buttons to the A/V switch under the leather -



I wrapped the hilt with the cotton tsuka-ito, but because the leather and uncovered parts of the hilt were too slippery, even with some craft glue applied to the aluminium to try and hold the wrapping in place, the wrapping kept slipping, so didn't look too great.  I've countered that by buying some anti-slip tape (it has a gritty top layer), and applied that to the uncovered aluminium, and have placed it so it slightly overlaps the leather. I've washed the tsuka-ito to remove the glue, currently waiting for it to dry.




The next post should be of the completed hilt - I can't wait to see how the tsuba turns out!

[Infinit01]

Looking good, I'm loving the build!

[Tai Chi Chuan Wijchen]

Looking good and good to hear you're overcoming the small little problems you encounter.
Who'll probably feel as huge problems once they occur 

Nice build so far!

[Seano]

So finally, I have picked up the completed tsuba, and here it is, the Jedai Raitokatana!

I thought I'd name it phonetically for the Japanese pronunciation of Jedi Lightkatana, or ジェダイ・ライトカタナ

Here's a few pictures, and a short video, of the finished saber -

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjRc8puo8h8" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjRc8puo8h8</a>

If I make any more changes (which I doubt!), I will post them, but for now, enjoy!

[KaiserSosay]

You did really nice work on this. It looks professional done. I'm more than a little jealous! You have a beautiful saber.

[Tai Chi Chuan Wijchen]

I've got the same problem as KaiserSosay.
Beautiful saber and I like the way the hidden switch turned out!

Thanks for sharing!

[Infinit01]

OMG! This is beautiful! I may have to borrow what you did on a future build (or two, or three). The attention to detail is impeccable and I love the integrated switch that is also the mekugi, points incoming for this