The Empire Strikes Back With Bradley W. Lewis’ Lightsaber!

The Star Wars inspired a generation and never has there been a movie as epic as the saga. That’s more than a good enough reason to inspire Bradley W. Lewis to create the New Hope Obi Wan Kenobi Weathered Lightsaber.

Obi Wan Kenobi Weathered Lightsaber

Bradley W. Lewis introduces himself in his website as “a video game developer by day, and a robot pirate builder of things by night”. It was the Obi Wan Kenobi Episode IV “A New Hope” lightsaber from Hasbro and Master Replicas that made Bradley design his lightsabers.

Constructing the lightsaber is one complex process. Bradley started when he got hold of an aluminum tube, which he then shaved down at the lathe to have the blade tube inside RussRep emitter. The aluminum tube barely fits into the light tube, and Bradley had to shave it down so that it would go inside the inner section of the emitter.

Obi Wan Kenobi Weathered Lightsaber glow

Then he got hold of the spacer on the light tube, and had to trim it off so that he could replace the plastic LED base inside with an aluminum base which can be screwed into. In the control board, Bradley used 3 AAA batteries in place of the conventional 3 AA batteries, which would go inside the hollow aluminum booster. He tied up the emitter solidly on the grenade so that it does not look flimsy. He had to relocate some parts like the clash sensor, and he had to feed the rest of the wires in through a drilled 5/8 threaded rod.

He then assembled the emitter section and the hollow rod that keeps all the stuff together as aluminum plug recess keeps it tight and straight. It was a tedious process to have the first 10 LEDs soldered in the ladder string. He then went on to bend the leads which were over the other LEDs, and soldered them together, keeping all other things as straight as possible. He fitted three AAA batteries inside a delrin tube, with enough space to hold the speaker and the resonance chamber so that the volume can be pumped up.

Obi Wan Kenobi Weathered Lightsaber parts

He installed a transistor to hide the recharge port, and glued a non-conductive plug, made of delrin, on the side of the transistor. Bradley then gets every wire heat-shrunk, soldered, trimmed, and electrical strapped. And we have Bradley’s own Obi Wan Kenobi lightsaber!

The entire construction involved much more labor than what you might make out of what is mentioned above. So, make sure you drop by his website and have a closer look at his masterpiece.

If you are a regular visitor, you would have recalled that I posted about the The Miniature Lightsabers in June, and these lightsabers are even cooler than the previous ones. Do check out Ahsoka Lightsaber or learn to make your own Star Wars Lightsaber.

Via: Slothfurnace