ANH Luke Skywalker Saber - Full Chassis - Signed by Mark Hamill

[nonentity]

I wanted to go back to the roots again, this time with a Graflex ANH Luke saber.  This is my interpretation of the internal lightsaber workings.
 
I picked up a cheaply priced Graflex 2 cell on ebay, and proceeded to make it into a 3 cell.
 

 
Unfortunately, I couldn't find anywhere that offered 3 cell back ends, so I decided to make my own out of some scrap capped 1.5 inch stock I had in the bin.
 

 
I used my lathe to etch the pattern for the tab slots so I could get them even and straight.
 

 
After removing the material with my dremel, it fits just as snug as the original two cell back.
 

 
Next I thought about a crystal chamber. With much inspiration from those who have gone before me, I set off on my own direction, harvesting many parts from harddrives, old clocks, etc.
 

 
I took one entire array of harddrive platters and lathed them down to fit inside the graflex rear. At this point, I have the ... middle decided on more or less, and I will be constructing from there out to either end. I want to make sure I leave enough room in the design for soundboard, speaker, batteries, etc.
 
The crystal chamber is made of various parts, the most intricate so far is the crystal holder, made of brass tubing, guitar string beads, some brass stock from an old clock, etc.
 

 
Here is my Aqua Aura double terminated crystal, a very nice blue without lighting, but with...
 

 
...it really shines..
 
And here's an update.  I present to you my radiator section!
 

 
Some of you may know I was looking for some brass sheet, and I found 3/4 by 1 foot sections at my local hobby shop.  I cut two of these down to sort of 2 inch sections, and drilled through a stack of them in a pattern that fit my three main frame posts.  Here is my first rig, that didn't work too well on the belt sander, as it wasn't quite easy to hold, and therefore dangerous.
 

 
Here you see my better rig, bolted to a piece of scrap walnut, this lets me shave the brass down on the belt sander without bending anything near the bottom of the stack.
 

 
Here I have the stack pretty much shaped, I removed the harddrive platter retainer as I got closer to the shape I wanted, so as not to scuff it up.
 

 
Now for the radiator line holes.  This, again was drilled out on the drill press.
 

 
I had a devil of a time hollowing them out on the inside, to make a C.. I will probably revisit that inside contour, as I am not quite satisfied with it.  Also, after drilling, I sandpapered each section to remove any flash or sharp edges from drilling.
 

 
Here we are assembled and test fit.  I am again using brass guitar string ends for spacing, and scrap brass rod from a broken clock to run through the sections.
 

 
Here's where I need to work on the inside contour... I am not quite happy with that yet, I will hollow it out a bit, and add some interesting details in there.
 

 
A closeup of the radiator section, shows my first bend.  I will bend the rest of the rod around like that to make it look like tubing that needs to be cooled,,, or heated, or whatever.
 

 
And another shot of the crystal.  After assembling this, I think I will lower the placement of the radiator a bit to overlap with the crystal some.  The radiator ended up being a bit longer than what I had in my original sketches, but I think it's fine.
 
I machined a canister for my batteries and soundboard. Then I needed a fore end cap, so I turned down one of the harddrive motor mounts on my lathe, and set it so I could drill and tap for screws to seal it off.
 

 
I like the inset motor coils against the black paint of the motor mount cap.  Here, I have threaded for 6-32 stainless cap screws, to hold it together.
 

 
I also took one of the hard drive platter spacers, and meticulously and tediously wrapped it in copper, for my front lens.  I figured, a magnetic lens would work as well as an optical one.  And I like the contrast of the copper vs the brass and chrome look.
 

 
It fits just fine in the graflex, I left the main support rods long so I can cut them down once my blade adapter arrives, but I have tape about where I estimate the adapter stops.  I will fidget with the spacing a bit once I get the adapter, but I think it's really coming together.
 

 

 

 
This evening, I shortened up my end screws, wired a preliminary LED into the crystal, and set my batteries and a temp switch in the battery canister.
 

 
Another shot, I love the color contrast between the blue of the light and the gold/yellow of the brass.
 

 
All spread out, I may mount it this way.  I'll have to build a mount.

[nonentity]

Well, I am waiting for a shipment from the graflex shop and the TCSS both, so while I wait, I decided to work on the actual crystal mount and lighting setup.
Previously, I had a pretty poor light, taped up in there for illumination.  That's not the Slothfurnace way, so here we go machining some custom parts...

I found some "super bright" rectangular LEDs at radio shack, and whittled them down almost to the diode.

You can see the small rubber o ring I have tossed on there to keep them together while I test for lighting.  It's MUCH brighter than what I had.
However, these pictures do NO justice to how BLUE these LEDs are, they look cyan in the photos, but it's a beautiful deep blue in person.

So I set aside the first mounting ring I made and machined one that accepts my LEDs and O ring in vertical slots for the LEDs, and a ring inset for the O ring.

here you can see the way it goes together.
It's MUCH cleaner, cooler, and brighter than what I had before.  I will solder the ground leads from the LEDs to the brass, and use the positive leads to form a concentric ring around the whole setup, and solder a solid wire to that, and lead off to the battery pack.

And now, today, I soldered on the wire mounts for the prongs, and set it in the chassis, to test fit.  The crystal is NICE and snug in there now, both being held in by the prongs and the LEDs.

Next, I will have to trim a bit out of my radiator for this to fit snug, and maybe shorten the radiator by a section or two.

[nonentity]

And now, some updates!

So now I have my battery pack and sounboard installed, I need to pass the wires almost from the back of the chassis to the front.
Mostly this is easily done, but where I have my radiator and crystal section, I'd rather not have exposed wiring, so I went to work today making a brass wire conduit to replace one of my threaded rods.


I drilled out enough space to fit 7 or 8 wires, and threaded the end.  I'll drill and tap the harddrive retainer plate to accept this 1/4 x 20 threading.

Here I go peeling back my brass rod. I'll want something art deco as a style, as the Graflex comes from the 30's I think that would be appropriate.

And my conduit has shape!  I had to drill it out from the other side, since my drill bit isn't long enough to go all the way through it.  I left enough material to shorten and shape to fit at the top of my conduit.

Here, I have drilled the harddrive platter retainer and am tapping it for 1/4 x 20 threads to accept my conduit. 

Once all set in place, my wires will run from my soundboard through these motor stators into my conduit, up through that into the blade socket.

Before, I just had a small screw and nut holding these together.  Now I must drill out and tap for another hollow brass screw I'll need to make so my wires have a place to run.

And here's my hollow threaded brass rod that ties the two stators together.
More soon, as I begin the slow task of bringing this all together.

[nonentity]

So I've had a few hours today to devote to this... And my approach today was to fix something about my design that's been bugging me.
 
 
You may have noted from previous posts that I made a wire conduit for passing wires across the crystal chamber. I do like my conduit. It makes me not like the random bits of brass tubing that I have on the other two posts underneath the radiator.
 
So, as the Slothfurnace Way dictates, we must make custom parts!
 
 

 
This is a section of brass cut down to match the wire condut base. Notice I have one section, but two pieces. I do this so my diameters match across the two pieces, then I will cut it in the middle and have two matching pieces. It's easier to do this than to start fresh twice.
 

 
Here you see the finished pieces that match the conduit. I don't thread these on the outside, but I do thread them 6-32 on the inside to act as nuts so I can tighten the harddrive platter retainer down, and get rid of the 6-32 nut between the brass tubing and radiator as seen in the previous photos.
 

 
Now I need to turn 16 brass 6-32 nuts down to cylinders. You'll see why in a minute, but it's to further remove unsightly non-custom parts from the chassis.
 

 
These are almost the right diameter, don't think I need to shave them down any further.
 

 
And this is why I need them! I will thread them in between the plates of my radiator. I needed to do this for a couple reasons. Mainly to make more rigid my radiator, as it was a bit floppy when installed because the way it went together meant I couldn't tighten it down. The other reason is, again, to hide the unsightly threaded rod.
 

 
MUCH better, I'd say. my three support posts now match aesthetically, and are more functional to tighten things down so nothing moves.
 
I will polish up a few pieces and re-assemble the radiator. Yes, it will be much more tedious this way, but it's worth it. Also, the with of the brass cylinders is just a hair thinner than the width of the brass guitar string bead ends, so I may leave those out, but I haven't decided.

[nonentity]

Well, tonight I thought I'd tackle the speaker chamber, and found some Delrin to make the speaker retainer rings out of.  Normally I would have plenty of pics of the "making of," but my camera battery was dying so I only have a few of the "after making"

You see here the temp speaker, and a speaker grille I found out of an old radar detector.

The delrin rings kind of sandwich the speaker and the grille together, and the outer shell of aluminum holds everything snug.  I'll eventually put a set screw in the rear ring to keep it all tight.

The smaller diameter lip of the aluminum cap also secures my battery pack inside the battery can.

I might need to shave a little off for length though, I need to make up about a quarter of an inch someplace so it all fits in when collapsed.

[nonentity]

A minor update with a quick sketch!

This is how I hope it turns out, a quick sketch to see if I like it before I head towards the finish line...

Last night, I decided to work on my switch, the obvious place to put it is in the red button, but how?  The switch the graflex shop sent that "supposedly" fits under the red button is way too thick to fit there... what to do?

Ah, I see the mailman has brought me my Pololu latching switch pcb.  hello TINY!

After a bit of modification to the original button, it fits great, works great, and I am very pleased with the tactile feel of the snap of the switch under the red button.
I did have to VERY CAREFULLY remove the little dome tab under the red button for the Polulu to fit, but once I did, everything fits like it is supposed to.

Well folks, after about a week of trying to think of how to interface my switch and detachable blade to the rest of the chassis, I think I have it.  Last night I stopped the mental gymnastics and actually started making the interface point a reality.

Here we have my blade adapter, modified with a big notch and filed down in the top channel to be as flat as I can make it.  Also visible is my aluminum plug that inserts into the adapter, and outer collar that fits the harddrive platter retainer from the chassis, and also perfectly fits the inside diameter of the graflex housing.

The plug precisely fits snug into the blade adapter.  This is where the end of the chassis will plug into the blade adapter and through this, on to the blade and plug.

Why the notch?  Well, My Pololu switch, while awesome, does need connection back to the rear of the chassis, and having a quick disconnect wire that I plug in and stuff into the thing isn't the slothfurnace way.
So, we make custom parts, and create a multifunctional feature.  This notch both serves to index the angle of my chassis to the saber itself, therefore keeping things in line, and to allow me to use a 3 contact plug (mounted in the chassis front piece) to connect the Pololu to the back of the saber.

The reason for the long wires, is so that I can push the Pololu out to the end of the channel and drop it down so it all fits when I insert it into the graflex top end.  The height of the Pololu wouldn't let me mount it in the channel, I have to set it out and down, slide it all in, then once the Pololu reaches the switch hole, I raise it up, and slide the adapter on in under the switch.   The wires are coiled that way so that they compress into the adapter channel when the switch board gets closer to the perf board.   It BARELY fits.  nice and snug.

This was a scrap piece of perf board and a small screw I had in the parts bin.  The flatness of the perf board across the top of the adapter channel keeps the plug stationariy up and down, and the notch keeps it stable left and right.  I'll notch out on my aluminum end piece to accept the plug, and when it all fits together, it should be nice and snug.
Next up, the actual blade and the non blade light up insert interface.  I have the parts, but no pics yet.  I need to test it first.

Well, it's been a while since I have posted, but here's some updates.
Last week I spent a ton of time on the plug that goes into the blade adapter and interfaces with the detachable blade.  More on that later, but here's a few pics.

When the blade is not in the saber, I have a 1" to 3/4" blade stepdown adapter as my plug.  Inside that I have soldered 6 Mako V3 LEDs to make the ring illuminate when it's turned on.  Not quite finished with that part yet though.

Here I have set up my radius cutter to do the radius for the collector on the inside of the chassis, positioned above the crystal.

Here you see my radiused inner surface, the hole will be for another Mako V3 LED.

Here I have knurled a section, radiused the outer edge, and begun trimming down the back of the piece so I can part it off and thread it.  This will hold the top harddrive platter retainer plate to the machined adapter plug.  That might not make sense now, but once I get pics made of that piece it will all be clear.

Here's the custom bolt finished, threaded for 3/8, hollowed for the LED, and cut down so it fits the inner hole of my harddrive platter retainer plate.

Here's a couple pics on a major update,

This was the result of some very tedious headscratching.   The joining of the chassis to the actual adapter plug went through heavy revision until I finally found a way to do it with the space I had left that also let the unit be strong.
I decided to take the very heavy risk of drilling and tapping six 2-56 holes through the retainer plate into my plug housing, then using scrap harddrive screws to mount the retainer plate to the plug.  I had no room to use the custom LED bolt collector I had machined, so this is how it has to be.

And here I am testing my wiring harness for fit and finish, all the wires fit, and I also took the last four radiator plates, and for three of them drilled a hole that will accept the shock sensor, and the very last one, a hole that fits the wires for the shock sensor. I like having the shock sensor embedded here, as it adds a bit of interest, and gets it away from cramped spaces while also keeping it rigid.
The switch wires run through holes in the radiator as well, the length of the chassis.

[nonentity]

The final details are so slow.  The last ten percent is the hardest...
 

Well, tonight I had to solve a lingering problem with my crystal mount.
The LED matrix had a kind of sloppy circular positive lead ring.  In addition to being sloppy, it tended to ground out against my support pillars after I added the thicker machined brass trim pieces.

To solve it, I tossed the Mark I LED matrix in favor of the Mark II.  A triangular hot lead, with inverted LEDs, passing the hot lead under the mount, against the crystal itself to add stability to the crystal.
This also is a tighter, closer in setup, and after noodling with how exactly  to do it, I finally just bent and soldered everything with the crystal installed, thereby making sure it all fit.  I inverted the LEDs so I could pass the ground Leads up into the mount, grounding against the body of the mount, and hiding them as well.








 
Tonight I spent ironing out a few things with wiring, getting ready for the final assembly. Hopefully I will only have to tear it down and rebuild it all a few more times.
 

 
I also spent some time on my blade adapter plug, for when the saber has no blade installed..  These pieces are a 1 inch to 3/4 blade diameter reducer, sloped to fit the machined insert, which holds the vintage bulb contact point from the Graflex.  It is suspended by the original spring, which sits atop the six Mako V3 LEDs.  I connect everything through the Graflex Blade adapter via an 8 pin DIN plug.
 
 

 
And a test lighting of the lit adapter plug.  You'll notice the large gaping hole in the bottom of the graflex blade adapter.  I hollowed this out to accept the original glass eye, as I was unsatisfied with the glass eye thumbscrews available.  Plus it lets me put a section of Anode mesh from a broken nixie tube behind the glass and let the blue light come through.
 

 
The original glass eye mount also serves as a large thumbscrew to tighten against the blade plug or blade when it's installed, to keep it all nice and snug.
 
I do notice I have one more issue with my crystal mount, it's not coming on with the rest of the saber, due to a grounding issue.  It's not a short, but it was an oversight on my part about how the board works.  Right now I have t he crystal LEDs grounding through the whole saber.  Which works when it's out of the body, but when it's all installed, it doesn't work right with the recharge port, etc. that does actually ground back to the battery pack. 
 
So one more teardown to fix that, and we're looking at home stretch, folks.

[nonentity]

 
ROCK!  First try, the charging circuit is happy, all my wiring fits, the new grounding scheme works with the crystal mount, and so far no smoke.
 

 
It's getting there!



Grips, D ring, main blade left to go.
 
Here's some better pics in the morning light...

 

 

 

 

[nonentity]

But now we come to one of the final parts, and one more trick up my sleeve.

I had to just go ahead and decide to make the D ring clamp.  I couldn't find any that worked, and harder still to find the right metal, then lo and behold on the floor of my garage was some thin aluminum.  I cut a section out and bent it around this rod that had the same diameter of my D ring, and placed it in the vice so I could round it over to the front, and crimp it under the roll.

Here I have crimped it, and sanded on it a bit, and made sure the clamp has the amount of play in it I want for the D ring.

A little more metal removed and sanded to fit the shape of the inner bevel of the graflex endcap.

And here is the final contour and hole drilled for my stainless cap hex screw.  This screw I had to shorten quite a bit so that when it's all mounted, my chassis still slides all the way to the back of the Graflex end.

After CAREFULLY drilling and tapping the Graflex endplate, this is it all put together.  It's not 100% perfect, but I am very close, and satisfied for now.  I am in a bit of a rush to finish this for Celebration V, and I hope to have it with me when I go.
Oh, that trick I had up my sleeve?
 
 


I drilled out the cap screw.
There's just enough purchase left for the hex wrench, and now this is my sound port.  Without it, my sound is half as loud.  I wanted to have a sound port back here, but I didn't want to impact the visual authenticity of the saber.

[nonentity]

Mark LOVED it!
 
Going in, it was all morning in line to get it signed.  I debated the whole way leading  up to it whether to get the battery can or the plaque signed, and finally just decided to get the can signed. 
 
The people at the door to the booth really liked the saber, and all convention it turned heads.. But the real joy was when Mark saw it.
 
He did a double take when my wife said I built it myself.  He said it was so much better than what he had on the set, and told me about how the original one had metal tracks that cut his hands, and how uncomfortable it was to handle.  He said mine was much more comfy, and really liked the inside, and how it lit up.  He sat and talked to me for a few minutes about it and thanked me for bringing it.
 
I had paid for one signature, and when he was done talking to me about it he said, "Yeah, I tried getting it all on that round part" and I said, well, I had this plaque here if you couldn't, but that looks fine... and he said, "Here, I'll sign that too" and snatched it out of my hand and signed it and handed it back to me grinning, like he knew his handlers hated when he gives out free signatures.
 
He really was so gracious and nice, and a funny fellow.  Unfortunately, they did not allow photography at the table, but I will never forget him shaking my hand and thanking me for bringing it for him to sign.
 

 
Now I have the battery can AND the plaque signed.  He solved the debate on how to get it signed!

Here's a couple pics of it around C5, I have to edit some more pics when I get home, but these I liked..
Here it is next to the EFX Luke Reveal...

One of the guys at the EFX booth there saw me taking this pic and asked me to please put it down, hands off... he didn't realize I was holding my own saber next to theirs.  The other fellow there, an engineer for EFX, didn't catch his name, almost didn't want to hand it back to me after I showed it to him.  He started off saying, "We can't make this, it's too complicated.  That's why we delayed the Obi, the casting molds were too expensive...."
This shot is the saber at the G4TV Hoth Ice Bar...

Which was a lot of fun.

[nonentity]

Did a little work tonight on my blade, I think I finally finished this step up. I had to shorten my blade a couple inches, and then I needed to finish my plug.
 
 

 
Here's a shot of the blade plug setup. I have my LED string in there, with one LED off the base, with wires, bent and cut down to fit the hole I drilled in the base DIN plug adapter. This allows me to shine a very bright light into the graflex glass eye. Otherwise, I wouldn't be getting any light in there due to the adapter covering up the glass eye port. I also had to drill and notch the DIN plug retainer bottom half to accept where my LED is sitting. It's all very close quarters in there, but it fits and works fine.
 

 
Here you see how it goes together. The LED is cut flush to the inner diameter of the blade plug. The wire slack will coil up inside the adapter.
 

 
Here is the setscrew that keeps it all together, this keeps the plug in the blade adapter, and the adapter in the blade.
 

 
And now for what I like to call "a little moment of truth." It's when you get it all together and turn it on and see your hard work pay off. It's when you have your fingers crossed and flip the switch.
 

 
I have a little more work to do on the battery canister, I need to make absolutely sure everything is isolated, stable, and good.  But I am very very close.

Got my battery can finished up, and here's some beauty shots...