Slothfurnace's ROTJ Luke V2 Epic Reveal thread

[slothfurnace]

Eh, might as well start posting some of this, Thanks to Erv for letting me test out the new features on the CFLS, this will be a springloaded chamber reveal based on the recent Russrep V2 run.

Here's the crystal I will probably use. A green Quartz,, one I picked out of a stack I got in the other day.

Here I am drilling out the pommel in preparation for boring it out to fit the CFLS.

Note that there was enough room to still retain the threads, though I might ditch those soon anyway in favor of more customized internal frame.

Here I am milling the bolt recesses in my chamber retainer plate. This plate will keep the grip and emitter from flying off the chamber under spring pressure.

The angle matches the internal angle I machined into the stock clamp section after I did away with that set of threads. I also bored out the grip section a lot, and polished it so the reveal would be smooth.

The chamber will be machined and milled out from this solid rod, there's a step at the end of the rod that stops at the retainer plate.

So yeah, imagine some kind of milled chamber there where the rod is.

Did some sketching...

Will have some time today to machine on this, but I wanted to get some ideas down first.

Milled a bit on the chamber today...

These cuts will reveal the crystal and mount, and I'll fit some piping to conceal my wiring in the recess at the base of the chamber, and through that piece of conduit I have in there.
Those three holes in the section underneath the clamp are for clearance for the three cap socket screws I have holding the retainer plate on. I'll replace one of them with the longer latch plug once I get it made.


More coming soon, this saber's not done, but it's further along than this...

 

[Kevin Gossett]

More beautiful work, Brad! Going to follow this one intently

 

[subaru]

So beautiful!

 

[kurtyboy]

You guys with all the skill and hardware SUCK! (I meant that of course as a huge compliment )

 

[SolosHold]

Always a pleasure to see your work.......

 

[slothfurnace]

More beautiful work, Brad! Going to follow this one intently

Thanks so much, Kevin, I hope to have this one done by the next North Texas Prop Party!

Sketching out some ideas...

I am integrating one of my radiator assemblies in one of the open windows. I might open up another window on the back to view the crystal a bit more, as this main window will be full of art guts and wire conduit.

Cut some wire channels for the LEDs, installed the main wire conduit, and have been fiddling with the chamber details a lot.

Ok, I needed a way to make sure the grip/emitter section didn't get out of rotation with the rest of the body...

So I drilled a hole for a piece of broken 3/16 drill bit through the stock (now modified) Russrep center section,

Lathed a point onto one end of the drill bit, and turned the other end down and threaded it for 4-40 to replace one of the 4-40 retainer ring screws. Then dipped both ends into Birchwood Casey super blue to oxidize them to match the rest of the rod. Shown here is a bunch of aluminum grit I need to clean off...

Not sure if I will use this for any kind of locking mechanism yet. Still wavering between having the cone knob be a chamber release or the recharge kill key.

But this allows smooth rotation-locked travel for the grip/emitter section. And I reckon it's straight enough, no binding at all when closed.

I still need to clean off a lot of that sharpie, and hit the chamber housing with some files and sandpaper to clean it up.

More to come!

 

[Daddy Solo]

love:love

 

[slothfurnace]

Got some work done on the radiator element last night, Trying some aluminum fins this time in preparation for the radiator section of the 2013 commission. Had to run some 4-40 allthread on either side of my 1/16 piping, to keep it all straight. Will machine some kind of thing to make that look ok once I get closer to being done with this. I'll only need five fins, the other two were just extra in case I mess something up.

I'll also machine some 4-40 spacers out of those nuts, or something thinner. Also, not sure if I like the copper or the brass yet, but I couldn't find 1/16 aluminum rod/tube.

Coming along... new milling machine gets here tomorrow, so I'll do some more work on the chamber then. Till that happens, I have some stuff in here that needs cleaning up and straightening, but it is taking shape.

The chamber release also works great. That wedged cylinder engages the latch that pivots on the clamp lever.

Running some lighting tests, got the crystal mount almost done, routed some brass and copper pipe...

Gonna need to straighten and clean and polish a bunch of it before I am done, it's looking kind of rough in there. More on that later...

For now, we have a vid on the chamber release...

slothfurnace.com presents - ROTJ Luke V2 Chamber Release Test - YouTube

There's the chamber release mechanism. This is just a test. If this were an actual emergency, the saber you see would have been followed by screaming and running.

There's a lever between the clamp bars, in the natural gap of a graflex clamp that pivots on the clamp lever bolt. The spring is under the back of the lever, towards my thumb, and it pushes the lever up when the chamber is closed. That spring sits inside a 8-32 threaded hole, with a short setscrew at the bottom. If my latch needs to be tighter or looser, I can adjust that set screw and change the spring pressure on the latch lever.

The lever's actually much more tucked away compared to the obi, no accidental releases

 

[Cameron]

What a beauty!

 

[slothfurnace]

What a beauty!

Thanks!

I've been working on the chamber some more, with the new mill, and straightening out and replacing a lot of detailwork...

Replaced the central tubing, drilled for a setscrew to hold the crystal mount down underneath the piping, milled a bit for the front tubes to fit better. Will polish and clean all this up once I get them all fit correctly.

Also drilled for some extra brass and spring details...

Will mill out the battery compartment next I suppose.

Tonight I spent time after work duplicating the emitter head, with edits to account for a blade, and an extended plug area at the grip end...

Not sure if I want to put that recessed ring in there on the emitter face or not.

Shown here with outer polycarb tube only. The inner diffuser will be shortened a bit, and fit in that stepped ring. I'll hollow it out further to accept the base of my blade string.

I might just make both heads from scratch so I can make sure I have enough to work with for the DIN plug section.

 

[scottjua]

Not sure if I want to put that recessed ring in there on the emitter face or not.

I'd skip it... it ain't no sposta be there mang.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

Very cool! Just please don't stick real electronic components in that thing! That's the one gripe I have with people doing reveal sabers is when they stick real components instead of making up Star Wars-y looking components.

 

[slothfurnace]

Very cool! Just please don't stick real electronic components in that thing! That's the one gripe I have with people doing reveal sabers is when they stick real components instead of making up Star Wars-y looking components.

Nah, it'll be as "otherworldly" as I can make it. I don't like seeing anything easily recognizable as "earth origin" either.

Kind of like this one I did...

Any actual components are gonna be all shielded and hidden. Speaking of hidden, this is one of my favorite features on this saber...
The tailcap SD card access panel...

I needed to toss the back of the russ pommel so I could gain SD card access...

So I wanted to do what I did with Obi #1, a custom tailcap access plate underneath the pommel cap...

I'll work out the locking mechanism next,, I have it in my head, just need to draw it out.

Or skip the drawing entirely, I hadn't drawn this section yet anyway, it just came together today out of the blue.

Well, today I spent the morning working on the tailcap assembly. And figuring out the locking mechanism for the cap, milling the inner cap for the soundboard and SD slot, etc.

That little notch there, it interlocks with the guiderod when the saber chamber is closed, locking the pommel cap. To get to the SD card, you open the saber chamber, which moves the guide rod forward, out of that notch.

Then you just rotate the pommel cap counter clockwise not quite a quarter turn, and it slides out.

 

[jedimarkj]

I love your build threads Sloth! And also seeing the finished piece! Look forward to seeing the progress

You do such amazing work!

 

[RooBee]

Looks already perfect, amazing!

 

[James Kenobi 1138]

As always, simply stunning work. Most excellent.

 

[Andymac84]

Oh WOW, I'm so impressed. The inner hardware and circuits fits so well in this saber. It seems that they're simply belongs to the inside. :thumbsup

 

[Ham Solo]

I always love seeing your work, man!

 

[vidman]

That is 1 of the nicer reveal set ups I have seen so far. Excellent work you have done, and the sd card access feature is the 1st I have seen like this. Again excellent work.

 

[thd9791]

oohohoooo! this is breathtaking work