Hello everyone, I'm Goose.
Last week I was the happy recipient of my very first light saber and I've been giddy as a school girl since(barring a bit of a hiccup after it arrived but that's for another day). This saber is exactly what I was hoping it would be and it feels great to twirl around. I LOVE IT... time to modify it!!
On the non-cosmetic-side of mods, I will probably make a quick Inner sleeve for the Battery, Puck, and some steel or tungsten weights from a local hobby shop to adjust the center of gravity.
I wanted to give my saber a custom look and the best way for me to do that would be with a custom shroud. To start I looked at PVC pipe; the Inner diameter (ID) of the pipes were either too narrow or too wide, or the thickness of the material meant making the diameter of the saber waaaay too thick and unwieldy. And then someone mentioned that 1 1/2" 22-gauge pipe slides right over the V4 designs.... that turned out to be false.
So I went with something else that I know, 3D printing. A nearby Library has allowed me access to their MakerBot Rev2 and so I'm in the beginning run of testing things out. I'm starting simple to get used to this particular machine. I'm used to the (expensive as hell) powder & binder that my school used and the makerbot uses (cheap as hell) PLA so I'm testing plotting techniques and material strength for now. So far my impression of PLA is, holy cow this stuff is far stronger and more durable than I expected, and at a cost of 0.10usd/gram I can get my whole thing printed for just under $5.
Here is my intended goal once all is said and done.
And below are a couple proof-of-concept images from my first test print. The pieces are too large to print as solid pieces with the grain direction that I'm looking for so the two individual pieces each need to be split in two and then CA glued together... 4 plotted pieces to make two solid pieces. For finish I will likely do a thin coating of Bondo and sand it to get rid of the joints, then test out the durability of different spray paints with clear coatings. I've never worked with 'ceramic' spray paints so I am wondering if those are more wear-resistant than standard spray paint. Let me know what you all think, and if you have any questions about the techniques I'm using or what programs I'm using I will be more than happy to answer!
