Maybe Thursday?

This will be the first day I will have my afternoon free in days, and supposedly it might even be rain-free. I have "nurnies" burning a hole in the pockets of my robes. The right-hand sabre looks totally *right* with the addition of the flashlight reflector. To paraphrase Sweeney Todd: my right hand is now complete. Now to get the rest of this done.

Some preliminary things about how I built the right-hand sabre:

1.) It would not have looked as good as it does without the weirdly shaped aluminum pieces that surround the upper part of the sabre. There are six of them. I can't tell you where they were procured but they were in the "nurnie" bags that Obi-Shawn Crosby and David Milano were selling for $10 each at the workshop. I'm thinking they are probably some sort of aircraft part. I used 3D Dots to adhere them to the sabre...those are way better than I ever thought they'd be when I grabbed a bunch off eBay. They have the "curiously strong" adhesive, although it's not 100% perfect. The adhesive does not give off any sort of smell so I suspect it's safe to allow a kid to use them themselves.

2.)Fun Foam is absolutely positively VITAL to getting this to hang together. It's also good grippy stuff too. And it's cheap, cheap, cheap. $0.99/sheet at Michael's. There is adhesive-backed Fun Foam but I have no idea if it will hold to chromed pipe well enough to use it with this project. I have been using contact cement, which is sort of like rubber cement on steroids. That seems to work well. The compression connector that makes up the "control box" of the sabre will hold fast to the sabre without the introduction of any sort of adhesive if you cover the place the control box will sit with Fun Foam first. All you have to do is screw down the screws. Sweet.

3.)Make sure you put a little of your own personality into the project. The Linux penguin, "Any Key" for the ignition switch and the SO-DIMM all are bits and pieces of what I'm into. I'm a proud computer geek and Free/Open Source Software supporter. The use of a flashlight reflector for an emitter is a reference to my first lightsabre building project. Hopefully you can add a bit of yourself to your own sabre.

Tomorrow we have to make an OSH run to actually fix something here. The kitchen faucet is giving up the ghost...it looks like the original '50s vintage one that the builders of my apartment building put in. It is times like these when I wish I had a cam-phone so I could surreptitiously take pix of some of the items I'm using for the sabres in their natural habitat. The evil Home Depot site has some of the necessary items on display, but I don't want to support those guys because of their winger ties. Lowe's is almost as evil but not as much. However, if you have a neighborhood hardware store, do the Jedi thing and support them. The big chains have forced almost all the indies out of business. It's sad but true. Your mission is to defend, Padawan. Go and win this one for everyone who bit it when Darth Samwalton began putting up Sith*Marts in every town and village in Known Space. I think that was Order 67. Or something. Pardon my ramblings.

Oops...OSH is not as lily-white as I once thought. They're a part of the Sears/KMart conglomerate, which is red as a lobster. See what I mean? Go forth and buy at an indie hardware store if you possibly can! Then again, there aren't a lot of them anymore. I can't think of a full-service hardware store in the Valley that doesn't belong to the majors. If any San Fernando Valley folks within the sound of this blog can point me to one, please email me. Sigh...