Securing a 3/4" acrylic

[Jaren Valnor]

I'm going to purchase a 3/4 acrylic Randomsabers blade. I want to create my own saber from a 12" chrome sink tailpiece, but I need to know how I could secure this dead center to the bare tube with as little protrusions as possible.

[Don Solo]

here is an idea I had... when you get your acrylic blade, take a drill straight in to the side that will be in the hilt. Then get a large bolt (at least 1/4 inch, make sure the drill size will fit it too) and cut the end off it so it's just the threads. Now epoxy that into the blade, and find some nuts that fit over it, and epoxy them into a small tube with a 3/4" inside diameter so it covers a little bit of the blade. You sould be able to unscrew the blade from the hilt but keep it securly in place with moderate sparring, and no screws sticking out the side! ;D

Lemme know if you try it

[JediKai]

Here's my method.

public.fotki.com/Kait/star_wars/host/1.html and click through the next 3 photos.

The end piece of my lightsaber is a faucet handle (mine is a Big Yellow Box Style II). I've used outdoor sprinkler tubing inside it to hold the blade.

Not sure, though, that it will hold up to really hard dueling.

[Ani-Chay Pinn]

Have you asked the Randomsabers people how they usually secure their blades?

I'm also thinking of getting one of these acryllic blades. They have 36" and a shorter 22" blade. The shorter blade might look silly, but it would solve the travel dilemma that I keep fussing over. And silly looking lightsabers don't bother me. ;D

I'm also trying out a sink tailpiece for a light saber; it's the chrome design from the Big Yellow Box with a few changes. He said not to use a hacksaw, and of course, I did. It's just battle damage.

I was thinking of possibly using thrumbscrews above the handle to hold the blade in place, but I don't know how that would look. I was going to wait until I finished the saber hilt before deciding and trying out a few things. I'm absolutely certain that I will need an interior cylindar inside the saber hilt that the acryllic blade fits snugly into. It's possible that is what the thrumbscrews would hold in place and I'd also drill indentations in the base of the acryllic blade that the tips of the screws would make contact with.

If the acryllic blade fits into a 3/4" PVC coupling with a male screw end, then all I'd need to do it fix the matching female PVC screw end inside the hilt. But I still need to figure out how to secure that end of the PVC inside the hilt.

JediKai, do you use something like that to hold your blade in place? It's not clear to me from the pictures.

[JediKai]

I use plastic tubing from the lawn sprinkler aisle at HomeDepot. The 3/4" acrylic blade fits perfectly into it. Then I use other bits that fit together that ultimately are superglued into the faucet handle.




Yes, a thumbscrew holds the blade in place

[Ani-Chay Pinn]

Aaaaaah, now I get it. The first picture is of what's inside the lightsaber hilt, holding the blade, with and without the pommel. The second picture is a close-up of the base of the fixture with the pommel. It was the second picture that I wasn't getting. The thumbscrew on the outside end is a nice touch and functional.

I have a different pommel on what I'm working on, but I think I can use the screws on the hand grip to keep things in place. I don't need anything for dueling, but I'd want it to stay in place.