As you should know from the title of the video, this is part 3 in my Custom Lightsaber build log.
If you haven't seen the first 2 videos, the card popping up in the top right
of your screen right now will take you to a playlist where you can check them out
and see how I built the Emitter and the battery/sound board sections of my lightsaber.
In this video I'm going to be assembling the Kyber Crystal Chamber
which is one of the coolest looking parts of the MB-Sabers Metal Master chassis I'm building.
In order to assemble the Crystal Chamber I first had to assemble the battery/sound board chamber
which is why I built it in my previous lightsaber build log. I first grabbed this little 3 pronged
crystal holder piece from my 3D printed parts and set it into it's place here atop the battery
chamber. Later on when I do the electronics this will have an RGB LED in it which will allow the
crystal to light up in any color I choose. The next thing I needed to do was add a 3rd
M2 threaded rod to help hold everything together and to do that I first needed to insert this M2
nut into this slot on the battery compartment and then thread the M2 rod into that nut.
With all 3 threaded rods in place I was then able to begin assembling the radiator fin stack
for the Crystal Chamber. You can buy these fins as a 3D printed part on Shapeways but MB-Sabers
also sells a kit of laser cut fins with all the needed spacers on his website and I chose
to go that route because the reason I wanted to build his Metal Master chassis is because I
love all the detailing and I feel the laser cut fins provide the look that I'm wanting.
I first had to put one of these little brass spacers onto each of the threaded rods followed
by one of the laser cut fins. I then repeated this process until all the fins were in place.
To lock the fins into position I grabbed 3 of the threaded spacers that came with the fin kit
and threaded them onto the threaded rods.
It was then time to put on the last fin which is a different shape and thickness from the
other 7 fins. I then secured it to the rest of the fins using three more threaded spacers.
At this point I was ready to prep this piece which is the top plate of the Crystal Chamber.
Prepping this piece took me longer than most all of the rest of the Crystal Chamber.
There's all these little holes that have 1mm diameter brass rods that go into them
and getting them cleaned out and widened enough to be able to insert the rods was a BEAR of a
task. Now the reason it was so difficult for me is because of the material I chose for this piece.
I chose to have it printed out of steel which is, as you probably know, a very hard metal.
(heavy metal music and screaming)
Had I chosen a softer metal like brass then this would have been a much easier task.
Anyway after several hours of struggling with it I was finally ready to move on to the next step.
This part of the build I really loved doing because it was when I got to add all the wire
detailing and stuff. I started with two straight 1mm rods on either side of the long threaded rod.
To be able to install them and the other wire detailing I first had to
loosen up all the threaded spacers and move the fins away from the battery compartment.
Now that I had a nice amount of empty space between things the rods went in nice and easy. It
was then time to move on to the slightly trickier wire details that are integrated into the fins.
I grabbed some needle nose pliers and got to work bending 2 pieces of wire into a "U" shape. After
making the first bend I then fed the wire through one of the holes in the fins it's supposed to go
through and then used the other hole to figure out the 2nd bend. Once both wires were properly
bent I fed them through the fins like so and then it was time to shift everything back down again.
With everything all assembled like this the spacers and fins have a tendency to get caught up
on the threaded rods so it took me several minutes to get everything all moved back into place
but I eventually got it and screwed the threaded spacers back down.
Once I got everything to this point there was some brass tubing that needed to cut to length
and placed over the two straight rods next to the long threaded rod. To determine the
length I needed to cut them at, I first placed the tubing up next to the rods, marked them
and then used my Dremel to cut them off. It was then a simple task of slipping the
tubes over the rods and through the holes in the radiator fins. Once both rods were in
place I could finally put the final fin back in place and secure it using the threaded spacers.
The next item of business was to secure my Kyber Crystal to the 3 pronged crystal holder
and I chose to do this using some short M1.6 screws. I first had to drill out these holes...
then tap each of them for the screws... and finally install the screws. Once my
3D printed plastic crystal was secure in the holder I got to work on the
final piece of the Crystal Chamber. Yup I am finally getting back to this guy.
The first thing I needed to do for this was glue the 3 pieces that make up the top portion of the
Crystal Chamber together. I first glued this inner ring piece to the Crystal Chamber top piece and
then glued the 6 pronged crystal holder on top of it. From there I installed these two brass
tubes which are part of the Metal Master Assembly kit into the holes on the Crystal Chamber top
piece, uh like this. And with that it was ready to install this little add on piece I bought
because it looks cool. This piece just slides over top of the tubes like this and with that
done we're ready to put the top on our Crystal Chamber and the other little finishing touches.
The top piece slid into place fairly easily and afterward I spent several hours making
these wire detail pieces here. These serve no useful purpose
whatsoever. They're just for adding a little customization and to uh, look cool.
So I'm getting down toward the end of this build. The final section of the chassis I need to build
is called the Plasma Gate... which not only sounds cool but is also equally cool looking
in my opinion to the Crystal Chamber. Once I get that all put together and have the chassis
fully assembled it'll be time to pull it all apart again so I can install all the
electronics and uh, then we'll see if I can actually pull this lightsaber build off.
Hey!
What just happened?
Why am I all tiny now?
Oh this is the end of the video where you can put links to other videos and stuff.
To anyone still watching at this point I wanna say thank you, I love you.
We should hang out sometime...
You know... get a Big Gulp, eat some nachos?
No?
Ok
I respect that.