Securing Windshield Wipers

[petary791]

I was so happy that my mom's windshield wipers crapped out. So happy in fact, I got the materials to make a saber with wiper grips. The thing is, how do I secure the wipers?! I tried glue (I suggest not doing that on a plumbing pipe : and I tried drilling. There's no way to drill through rubber. I tried to put a hole through it with a nail and then tried to drill, but it's just hopeless.

Help needed.

[Ani-Chay Pinn]

There's no way to drill through rubber? Maybe you can't dirll a clean hole through rubber, but I'm sure the drill will go through. A leather punch should work fine making holes. However, the Big Yellow Box recommends using the black plastic parts of the windshield wipers and not the rubber parts. I was surprised by that, but they work fine.

The Big Yellow Box recommends using a riveter, which are aparently not very expensive. But I don't have a riveter, so I used screws and nuts. It's easy for the screws that are near the end of the tube. The problem is for the screws closer to the center of the tube. I have small, skinny fingers and could just get to the nuts inside the tube to hold them while I tightened the screws down on the wiper parts/hand grips, but that may not be possible for everyone. I also had a pair of very long tweezers to help hold the nuts in place as well.

And recently I had to tighten those inner screws holding the black wiper parts on. One of the screws had gotten loose. I tightened alll of the screws and nuts for good measure.

A word of advice.....don't permanently glue the end cap of the saber on. Mine tends to come off sometimes but it's worth it. If something comes loose on the inside, you'll never be able to get at it.

[petary791]

Aw shucks, I thought it meant the rubber part. The rubber part would feel much better on your hands I would imagine.

And I do have a riveter... but i'm pretty sure I broke it.

[Syn-Kai-Jinn]

have you tried double face tape ? You know the stuff for automotive body side moulding .
That works for rubber parts .

You may have to trim the tape with a razor blade or exacto knife .

[Plo Strax-Avix]

Not sure if I should post this here or start a new thread...if it needs to be move please do.

Using windshield wiper blade is a common misconception when making sabers, like how I found out the really hard way...

The original wiper blades used(if you don't already know) were taken from trucks or even tanks built in the 50s/60s/70s, and their wiper blades were nowhere near as sophisticated as today's wiper blades. Those were simpler times, and their wiper blades were basically just T shaped rigid rubber strips, without any fancy bits found on today's high-tech, multi-faceted, super-duper rubber or teflon wiper blades.

Modern wiper blades are slim, flexible and extremely thin, and are totally not suitable as lightsaber grips.

A friend of mine have however found something else which is almost identicle to the old styled grips - Automobil rubber placemats; the type with the ridges on them. You'll need to do some fancy cutting with a box cutter, and may have to throw away many strips before you get what you need. But if you cut them right and get good at it, you have yourself a source for cheap, unlimited supply of saber grips.

I'll try to get my friend to snap some close up of the grips me made this way and post it up.

In fact, my friend made his Vader saber from things you can't even begin to imagine! He also scratch built his Vader costume with the most unimaginable materials.

[petary791]

Ah, very informative Plo. Thanks!

[tanzanlinnear]

I've always used Loctite superglue, and although the occasional section might come off, once ever few months, I've found that it's the best stuff to use and can stand up to extensive use and handling