Black saber blades?

[Ronin]

Yup, lights are around the black tube which make it look glowing, still, I'm impressed.

[Darth Sicarius]

indeed. it is impressive.. most impressive. but, how would it hold up for dueling i do wonder..

[Onli-Won Kanomi]

The second one you notice he doesnt take it off the stand...its relatively easy and not new to get an ILLUSION of 'negative blade' from one direction for a static display-only saber and there are multiple threads elsewhere that explain how others have done so. Getting it to look that way from every direction on a moving blade as you swing it around...well I won't say impossible... [I know a way using multiple motorized tubes but the expense, time, math and alignment precision required would be not worth it for something that would be quite non duelable] ...but I'd stake everything I, and the many others who have EXHAUSTIVELY covered this subject to death on saber forums, know about physics that this isn't a 360 degree visible while spinning negative blade but another "from a certain point of view" ONLY one.

[Manroon]

They are both neat, the top one actually looks better to me. The second... simply doesn't do it. It looks too unreal for me. Too much like the digital world has leaped out of my monitor. The top, seems much closer to what I think of with a black blade. White core with a black 'glow'. Granted, the effect of a black glow is entirely illusion as that is not physically possible, but it's still more real to me. The only thing is that I think the white core should be thinner, almost like the effect of a regular ultrablade. I suppose to do that you would have to use a much thinner polycarb tube. Either way, kudos to the builders. Those are still very neat sabers!

[Smokiewan]

This topic has been beaten very much like a military snare drum during the Civil War...!

If you want to re-create what you saw in Makotosai's videos, get a saber with a white LED and some black electrical tape. Run a length of tape down the side of your blade, snip the tip into a point, and VOILA! You've got a Blacksaber that does exactly what you saw. Really, it's just a one-sided illusion.

Or.....

Get a clear blade and stain it with a black paint. When the light struggles to find its way out of the tube, you will see a faint hint of..... well, GRAY. Not black.

Graysaber.... doesn't have the ring in your ear like BLACKSABER does, but try it. It's the only way you'll learn for yourself that it is quite improbable (I don't like to think anything is impossible) to get the effect you really want (TFU style).

Good luck.

[Darth Luran]

If you use the electrical tape idea but use 4 small strips of tape and put them on all sides of the blade you could achive the "black core" but with 4 view points instead of one. Still will only work if looking at one of the 4 sides at one time but will give a little movability.

I'm only guessing, i haven't tried this but hypotheticaly.........I can see it in my head 

Thats just my 2 cents! 

[Manroon]

Or you could try even SMALLER strips of tape, all the way around. You know, instead of 4 use 6 or 8 or something. Though each strip would probably further diminish brightness, and again it's all hypothetical. *shrug* this is probably one of those things everyone will talk about forever, and then after all the stuff and everything some random science whiz will make it work and defy physics (with a scottish accent, no doubt) and everyone will hate him and love him for doing the impossible and making all the talk a moot point. LOL

[Onli-Won Kanomi]

If you add more tape then you get multiple black lines visible from any single angle not a single black core visible from every angle.

Ok it seems I'm going to have to explain how a 'negative' blade CAN be done to show y'all why it WON'T be done.

Remember the double-slit experiment from your physics lessons? That is the key to how to build a negative looking blade; interference patterns. IF you take an opaque hollow tube with a powerful LED at the bottom and cut slits in it what do you have? Slit-thin lines of visible light showing through an otherwise opaque tube. Now put another somewhat larger opaque tube also with slits properly calibrated to create an interference pattern in proper alignment with the slits on the first one. Then put them both inside an even larger clear tube with a normal diffusing film. You will want to have clear teflon roller bearing mounts at the bottom, at the tip and perhaps somewhere along the length if you can do that without it ruining the effect because you are going to SPIN the two precisely aligned interference-effect slit tubes inside the outer diffuser tube. With a sufficiently precise calibration of slits and with a proper rate of spin the optical phenomena of 'PERSISTENCE OF VISION' would cause the eye/brain to perceive the spinning interference pattern of the slits as a solid 'true BLACK' core yet the slits will still allow light out to the diffuser film to create a lighted 'glow' around the black core. Visible from any angle.

IN THEORY.

This is the ONLY way - even in  theory - to create the illusion of a 'negative blade' that would appear to the human eye [actually the visual cortex of the human brain] to have an appearance of a 'solid' black core surrounded by white light TFU style no matter what angle you viewed it at whether the saber was standing still or moving.

It is also throroughly IMPRACTICAL even though THEORETICALLY possible...the calculation and experimentation needed to get everything 'just right' to make this work would simply not be worth the bother...and it could NEVER be dueled with; the slightest jar to the spinning inner tubes would knock them out of alignment ruining the effect...these blades would be so fragile they'd make MR or even plasma tubes seem robust.

Now maybe you can see why some of us old fogeys say FUGGEDABOUDIT and some [not me] want to 'flame' noobs whenever the subject of black blades come up...we really have gone over EVERY possibility even impractical ones like this...unless some totally new physics is discovered at CERN's LHC that enables us to apply some as yet unknown principle of dark matter/dark energy breakthroughs to our saber 'toys'  LOL an any-angle negative blade that is practical for our sabers is NOT going to happen...we'll probably have REAL sabers before we have toy 'black' ones that look like the one in TFU.

I said it before and I'll say it again; Reality bites and it bites black blades HARD.

Sorry, but c'est la vie.

[Eternus]

I'm sorry, but worrying about brightness with a black bladed saber seems kinda off to'eme hahaha!

[The_Night]

heres how i'd do it:
1. Take saber
2. Turn on saber
3. Turn off lights
4. Turn off saber

your saber is now black. congradulations

[sjorsjo91]

heres how i'd do it:
1. Take saber
2. Turn on saber
3. Turn off lights
4. Turn off saber

your saber is now black. congradulations

You sir has just won the internetz.

[Darth Eyece]

So, if everyone's tossing down two pennies, I suppose I should throw my coin in...

Pelan Tan was an ancient Druidic Ritualistic Tradition of modifying the theme, and some say, invited energies into a cast circle.  Pelan Tan was the birth of the black light.  Unfortunately, black light is such a low wave-length light spectrum, that you would need the Adegan white blade for this to work, IMO, but maybe even the purple would work, since that's all were doing here, since a truly "Black" light is just a contradiction in terms...

Take the blade tube, and get yourself some cobalt dye.  You can get this type of stuff at craft stores, and occasionally like a JoAnn fabric store.  The Druids took glass bowls, swirled the cobalt dye around in it, and poured out the excess, to allow the thin film to dry.  Try that, only use the inside of your hollow lightsaber tube instead.  You might need two applications, there will be drying time, and unless you "seal" it in there with say some clear paint, I wonder if the dye would end up flaking off into the lightsaber blade tube... still...  if it works, you will have a lightsaber that makes anything white around it pop, and this could add endless possibilities to a Sith costume... 

I'm broke, and this d@mn lightsaber stuff is not going to help... I already have a real sword buying problem, I have 5 real swords, my Odachi (62.9", two identical except for colors Katana, and the CAS Hanwei practical shinobi ninjato.  I vamp them up too, and am almost done replacing the tsuka (handle) on my Ninjato with authentic Ebony, authentic samegawa (instead of the plastic paneling they come with), and authentic silk Ito.  Afterwards, I am going to remake the saya, and BAM, a 3 year project finally gets to die!

You can all expect me to modify the h3ll outta my Dominix V2 LE w/covertec in Guardian Blue when I get it, as well as coming up with my Sith-like costume...

Sorry, I'm new to the forum, and this is my second post.  I'm just trying to be pro-active and I hope this helps any who venture down the blacklightsaber road...

"Nuetrality can be much more difficult to master than good or evil..."

[Manroon]

Hey, welcome!  That's some interesting idea, I never thought of dyeing the tube... Wouldn't that be funny if it turns out to be that simple? lol Also, the sword stuff sounds AWESOME, and I cannot wait to see what you do to that Dominix LE! You gotta post pics of that when you do it...

[Amplus Vir]

how about a black film???    it would take down the brightness but pretty much everything would

[taggers-dog]

double tube
a black core and a transparent blade with a p4 white
thats how he did it
the light has to go between the black core and the transparent blade
maybe this would need a diferent emmiter or maybe more leds