Thank The Maker
Jr Member
Wanted to share something I've been working away at for the last month or so.
My wife and I had our first child last September and like any good father I decided my little padawan needed her own lightsaber.
I've always loved the OT aesthetic and wanted to build something in that spirit using an old flash gun. Luckily I already owned a Minicam Jr flash gun which is perfect for a padawan sized saber.
As well as the saber itself I wanted to make a suitably 'in-universe' way to store it so after convincing my wife to give up an old wooden jewelry box I set to work.
I didn't really have a plan for the saber itself. I had seen the minicam jr used for Even Piells lightsaber but I wanted something more fancy and more old Republic/ancient feeling. I also wanted to repurpose an old green LED torch I had so I needed to add some length.
First thing I did was to remove the guts and install a piece of aluminium tube to create an emitter section. After some shaping, drilling and tapping I had it installed with many of the original flash gun parts back in place.
I added a brass thumb screw and a brass collar which came off an old lamp fitting. The clamp card is the display from an old LED calculator I had picked up, which felt suitably Old Republic so I followed that path. I had seen people using brass 'grips' in the 'show your custom saber' thread and that felt like the right choice here so I grabbed a length of C - profile brass.
I was really liking how it was coming together so I wired a battery and the green LED end of a cheapo torch directly to the switch on the end of the flash gun.
Once I had the saber built I moved on to the box which would hold it. I had a 3d printed jedi order keyfob which I paired with a large toothed ring thing (I believe it was part of a lens assembly from an old cinecam?). I used a forstner bit to drill out a recess for them both.
The lid still looked too plain for me so I took the short version of the jedi code (Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force.) and after converting it to Aurebesh I etched it around the perimeter before colouring it with a gold Sharpie.
The interior was painted with a very dark green acrylic and then padded out with foam which was covered with some dark green velvet.
The last thing I wanted to do was hide the key hole. It was too recognisable and since the key was long since lost it couldn't be used anyway. I figured I would try and make something that looked like a complex ancient mechanical locking mechanism so some styrene, brass rub and buff and a few brass greeblies were assembled and fit to the box.
Overall I'm super happy with how it turned out and if my daughter decides she's not that into Star Wars I guess I'll always have this to play with to help soften my disappointment.
Thanks for looking.
My wife and I had our first child last September and like any good father I decided my little padawan needed her own lightsaber.
I've always loved the OT aesthetic and wanted to build something in that spirit using an old flash gun. Luckily I already owned a Minicam Jr flash gun which is perfect for a padawan sized saber.
As well as the saber itself I wanted to make a suitably 'in-universe' way to store it so after convincing my wife to give up an old wooden jewelry box I set to work.
I didn't really have a plan for the saber itself. I had seen the minicam jr used for Even Piells lightsaber but I wanted something more fancy and more old Republic/ancient feeling. I also wanted to repurpose an old green LED torch I had so I needed to add some length.
First thing I did was to remove the guts and install a piece of aluminium tube to create an emitter section. After some shaping, drilling and tapping I had it installed with many of the original flash gun parts back in place.
I added a brass thumb screw and a brass collar which came off an old lamp fitting. The clamp card is the display from an old LED calculator I had picked up, which felt suitably Old Republic so I followed that path. I had seen people using brass 'grips' in the 'show your custom saber' thread and that felt like the right choice here so I grabbed a length of C - profile brass.
I was really liking how it was coming together so I wired a battery and the green LED end of a cheapo torch directly to the switch on the end of the flash gun.
Once I had the saber built I moved on to the box which would hold it. I had a 3d printed jedi order keyfob which I paired with a large toothed ring thing (I believe it was part of a lens assembly from an old cinecam?). I used a forstner bit to drill out a recess for them both.
The lid still looked too plain for me so I took the short version of the jedi code (Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force.) and after converting it to Aurebesh I etched it around the perimeter before colouring it with a gold Sharpie.
The interior was painted with a very dark green acrylic and then padded out with foam which was covered with some dark green velvet.
The last thing I wanted to do was hide the key hole. It was too recognisable and since the key was long since lost it couldn't be used anyway. I figured I would try and make something that looked like a complex ancient mechanical locking mechanism so some styrene, brass rub and buff and a few brass greeblies were assembled and fit to the box.
Overall I'm super happy with how it turned out and if my daughter decides she's not that into Star Wars I guess I'll always have this to play with to help soften my disappointment.
Thanks for looking.
