How to make a black lightsaber blade disscusion

[Obese Wan Kenobese]

Blacklight lightsaber, if you're interested. Yes, it's a clear polycarbonate blade and film with a 395 nanometer lightsource in the base.

[ithekro]

That's a nice color.

Don't know what side effects you'd get from that.

[Obese Wan Kenobese]

This is a 5/8" diameter clear polycarbonate tube painted silver, then black, then scratched with lightning patterns, wrapped in a thin layer of film and placed inside a 1" diameter polycarbonate tube.

Maybe it's more of an electroblade than a black lightsaber, but it's an experiment.

http://youtu.be/BwhpfzuwOwE

I painted the 5/8" tube silver first, so the black paint won't absorb the light before it reaches the length of the inside tube. I placed film inside the 5/8" tube as well. The thin layer of film between the tubes is just to prevent the paint scratching and making a mess.

The camera is making the base light look brighter than to the naked eye. It gives only a little light appearance on the edge. The light on the outside tube goes up about 8 inches, so I plan to eventually etch a lightning pattern on the outside of the 1" tube with a soldering tool to add dimension to the lightning.

[Obese Wan Kenobese]

And the 395nm black light shouldn't have harmful side effects. The energy is just enough to get neon things to react like a blacklight, but it's not going to be harmful like the UV-B and UV-C sources I've heard of people using. Polycarbonate is supposed to filter UV-B and C of 380 nanometers and shorter. So, it would take long term concentrated exposure for this to do harm. It is still technically UV-A. It's just barely higher energy than visible violet.

I have a Han Solo Nerf blaster that is blue and orange which reacts to the blacklight. My cameras are not picking it up though. The range from the saber is not far. So, it's really just an alternative purple saber.

[Obese Wan Kenobese]

Another attempt to link the same black core video.

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

[Redryuu2016]

Blacklight lightsaber, if you're interested. Yes, it's a clear polycarbonate blade and film with a 395 nanometer lightsource in the base.

I made a black light... Light saber about 6 months ago... I don't have access to photos right now. It looked good, but wasn't as bright as yours... How did you get it so bright?

[Obese Wan Kenobese]

I cheated. I bought a blacklight flashlight that is narrow enough to fit inside a saber. Runs on one 3.7 volt battery. eBay. Mastiff brand. I had planned to wire the parts in only if it looked right. I looked for the 495nm. 465nm will do better as a blacklight source, but I'd guess much of the frequencies will be filtered by the polycarbonate, so the energy is wasted on frequencies we can't see until they react on other objects. Also, the camera may have adjusted to the bright level. In person, it's a bit of a deeper purple. And not as bright as my VA saber. I wish I had a DVA to compare. It also gets pretty hot quick. Reworking it will likely be beyond me. But this helped me know what it would do.

[Grey Owl]

Another attempt to link the same black core video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwhpfzuwOwE

When I get my saber atthe end of the year would you mind making one fore me? I can shoot you a pm disscussing the details.

[Obese Wan Kenobese]

Oops. 395nm, not 495 as I mentioned above.

[Iram]

Forgive my ignorance (and forgive me if I'm reopening a topic some would rather not discuss ), but how do you create a blade like in the pics posted at the very beginning of this discussion?



Thanks,
Iram

[Greywolf]

Forgive my ignorance (and forgive me if I'm reopening a topic some would rather not discuss ), but how do you create a blade like in the pics posted at the very beginning of this discussion?



Thanks,
Iram

IIRC one way was to glue several strips of black tape inside the blade leaving only two gaps on opposite sides
-> that way you can mirror the Force Unleashed effect on photos, at least if you always rotate the blade till it is 'aligned correctly' with the photographer...

[Iram]

IIRC one way was to glue several strips of black tape inside the blade leaving only two gaps on opposite sides
-> that way you can mirror the Force Unleashed effect on photos, at least if you always rotate the blade till it is 'aligned correctly' with the photographer...

Thanks Grey! +1

[sllikskills]

I think if we want to get into a technical discussion of a black lightsaber, we'd have to accept the fact that it would not glow. As a matter of fact, it should do the opposite - it should be taking light away from the person holding it/the sabers surroundings.

It would be an awesome way to visualize it. Picture a room that is moderately lit so that you can still see everything, and two Jedi dueling - one with a regular blue saber and one with a black saber. The black saber should be absorbing all the light while the blue saber should be projecting lots of light. When they clash together, you should see the black saber almost vacuuming the blue light from the blue saber.

With that being said, black sabers should in theory be completely un-seeable in the dark - making it more menacing if it were a real color saber.

Thoughts, guys?

[Obese Wan Kenobese]

This is about replicating the look seen in games and series before. I don't know of black matter sabers or black hole sabers to vacuum light. How the black appearance is made, I don't know of specific reference. We're trying to make the appearance similar to past examples.

[sllikskills]

Ahh yesss. My apologies for not fully reading through the whole thread. The coffee hit me hard lol...