Mini-tutorial: Belt clip

This is a "mini-tute" on how to attach your lightsabre to your belt. The Original Trilogy used hooks and D-rings to holster light sabers (tm) but starting with the first Prequel Trilogy movies they used Covertec mobile phone/pager clips. Actual Covertec brand clips are being sold for extortionate prices because of their Star Wars saga connection, but there are alternatives. Here are a few I found on the Web:



Ooh! Shiny! I wish I had known about those.



This is sort of like what I have. However, by my experience, those quick-release belt clips tend to not be able to support the weight of a hardware lightsabre hilt. They are made for little phones and little pagers, not a 12"+ pipe with attached "nurnies" which only add weight.



This is perhaps the closest to what I actually have. Note that at bottom left, there is a "surface mount" connector. It's actually built for mounting your phone on a surface like a car dashboard or your desktop computer or something like that. Usually they come with adhesive pads.

However, that adhesive isn't so hot for porous surfaces like leather. And leather has a flex to it. You need something solid and made of a non-porous material like plastic or metal.

Standing Bear rides to the rescue: (Hoka hey, buddy...)



That little object is a holster clip. Those go on pistol holsters, usually. But they make very nice lightsabre attachments. Who said attachment is forbidden to a Jedi? ^_^

Anyway, here's how I took the surface mount connectors from the kit Obi-Shawn and David sold me and attached them to my Hong Kong-made sabre belt.



Step one: clip the holster clip on the belt in the place you want it. Since the belt is a little wider than the 1 3/4" standard belt width it's designed for, make sure the two bottom clippy things have met. You might have to push it a little to get it to click into place. Once these puppies are on, though, they are ON.



Step two: attach the adhesive pad to the holster clip. Press down on it HARD to make sure it's on tightly with no air pockets.



Step three: Peel off the red protective plastic from the adhesive pad and then press the surface mount holder onto the holster clip.

Step four: There's no step four! ^_^

Here is the result on my belt: note I have two of these to go with my twin lightsabres. Cool beans, no?



This will have to hold y'all until I get the screenshots from the video. Keeping my fingers crossed so that I can get some time on my friend's G5 iMac. If not, I'll use the G5 minitowers at College next week.