Odin Makes: Giant sized Lego Lightsaber from Star Wars

hello i'm odin and this week is may the 4th which is practically a star wars holiday so i thought this year i would make a star wars prop i've wanted for a long time a lego lightsaber that lights up so i've made a few lego pieces before these are all giant size with a scale that i determined that i wanted to use there's some previous videos you can check them out and i've almost made a star wars blaster already because this piece with this if this was translucent orange this would be the late 90s the very first version of the star wars blaster that lego put out so i've already got that almost what i want to make in this video is the lightsaber pardon me which is the handle and and then the blade these are two separate parts i want to make just the element that i can use with these pieces to actually build with and then i want to make another one where the blade is permanently attached and part of the light saber so we can light up and i don't mind that the blades can be permanently attached because lego actually made a light up lightsaber minifig a few years ago and it was all permanently attached and permanently attached to their hand so lego center precedents that light up lego lightsabers the blade doesn't come off so it's okay if mine doesn't but first let's make the basic hill since i have made some lego parts before i was able to make detailed patterns for my lightsaber before i cut any foam for this project however i don't know every measurement i need i know how wide each strip of four millimeter foam needs to be and how wide i want each strip of six millimeter foam but until i wrap the foam around my lightsaber hilt i won't know how long each one needs to be to make the core i have a one inch pvc pipe that will be cut to 133 millimeters long it's currently longer than that right now and i scratch up the pipe with some 80 grit sandpaper that helps the glue to stick apply contact cement to both the pvc pipe and to a piece of four millimeter foam and once the contact cement is dry i can wrap the foam around the pipe and then later i'll cut it down to the correct length this gets me to a diameter of just about 42 millimeters which is the exact scale or size that i decided to make all of my lego pieces now i start to cut the strips of four millimeter foam some of the strips i know the size that i want i've made some similar shapes for earlier lego builds these known strip sizes make the stud bumps that are on the either end of the lightsaber and each one is made from two layers of four millimeter foam and i'm wrapping them around a one and a quarter inch piece of pvc pipe for gluing the one and a quarter inch pipe is also 42 millimeters in diameter so it's a handy tool for making these parts now there are two different lengths only slightly but they are different and i make two sets because i want to make two giant lego pieces one end has another ring made from two layers of four millimeter foam these are wrapped around the longer stud piece the other end gets the four claw pieces which is the last part i'll figure out i cut a set of plugs for the pipe so that my lego piece will look solid and i make sure that they fit those are good i've got i got the emitter i've got my emitter end uh with the lego piece it can be either end the the the one that's got the double rings at the top it's got the two rings and then there's the body and it's got the the other two that go around here to me this is the emitter end so i've got both of those made for both the ones i want to make i guess i want to figure out this i need to cut down this part let's cut down this part [Music] i wanted to try my new ryobi miter saw just to see how clean it would cut the pipe and foam it's perfect of course the center pipe is cut to 133 millimeters long and i super glue the plugs into both ends i set my calipers to 11 and a half millimeters and lock the size so i can mark the depth that i want to glue the emitter onto the center grip more super glue which is easier to use than contacts event when you're fitting cylinders together like this the clawed end is also super glued but this only has a five millimeter overlap but the claws are going to add more stability once they're attached i can figure out how long the six millimeter strip needs to be by wrapping it around the grip and both strips are attached with contact cement [Music] okay i need one more kind of big detail and there are four veins or claws or something that uh go here at the bottom of the lightsaber this has always been the bottom to me i know it's lego and it can go either way maybe those are at the top for you but when i look at a lightsaber that part's the bottom and this part's the emitter at the top because this looks more like luke's uh lightsaber from jedi my brain but i need to make these pieces and these are actually going to be easy to make i need to cut some 10 millimeter foam 18 millimeters wide and i'll do two layers of that and then cut an angle on it really that's about it i start cutting some strips but then i think about how the bottom stud is only eight millimeters thick not 10 millimeters so i glued together some four millimeter foam making it the right thickness and that's what i use for making the claws or veins or whatever these things are i just need to cut the corner angle all the dimensions are listed in the pattern there's a link in the description and i have the parts i need for two lightsabers yeah that's that's the lego lightsaber that's all it takes wow one last little bit of detail [Laughter] oh that's really cool i mark where i want each of them to go apply contact cement to all the pieces and i finished my first lego lightsaber hill i've got my uh i've got my basic piece i've got the the piece that's part of the building kit but i want to make one of these that lights up that's that's that's the real goal right if you have a lightsaber it needs to light up and emit light because it makes it a lightsaber so i've got a piece of acrylic tubing no i have a piece of polycarbonate tubing that is going to be just about the right size for the blade it's a wee bit smaller but it's gonna be just fine and i'm gonna use that for the entire body that way it's it's structurally sound but all of these extra parts i made doubles of when i was making this one so this next part should go a bit easier i think i'm going to wipe some of the extra glue off this first naphtha will remove the dry glue from the foam which will give me a cleaner finish once it's plastidipped i cut my inch and a half diameter polycarbonate tube to 578 millimeters long that is long enough for the blade and the body of the lightsaber the end is capped with more polycarbonate sheet glued in place with some weld on 4 solvent glue and i really flooded the joint with glue i'm planning on cutting off all the extra plastic anyway and a band saw can remove that plastic that i don't want polycarbonate can be easily cut with woodworking tools but it can grab or feel sticky while cutting so be careful with plastic and power tools i use my disk sander to smooth out the cuts and slightly around the edges then i use a set of fingernail emery boards to smooth out the tool marks and get the plastic really close to being smooth again and another coat of weld on four brushed over the sanded area will make the plastic smooth and shiny now i could have also flame polished this plastic but i actually forgot about doing that today so what i want to do with the inch and a half blade is wrap it with two millimeter foam but this wrap portion is going to make up the entire body i i cut this to the length that it should be yeah not appropriate for uh it's that's the way you check scale right it's like close to my eye it looks like that nothing looks like that that looks like it's about the same scale yeah that's pretty close might be a little bit short but it's close so uh the light up one's gonna have the permanent the blade of the light up lightsaber is going to be a permanent piece of the the full light up lightsaber in fact it's going to be the body so what i want to do is wrap the bottom 160 or so millimeters with some two millimeter foam and then i can build the rest of the body on top of it and then i can finally start painting them i cut the two millimeter hd foam skin for the tube it's 124 millimeters wide and 169 millimeters long i scratch up the end of the plastic tube this provides a texture or tooth for the glue to grip the blue tape protects the part of the tube that i want to keep smooth i marked the tube with a line as a guide for applying the two millimeter foam it'd be easy to stick it on crooked without any kind of guide apply contact cement to both pieces and then stick the two millimeter foam onto the polycarbonate tube and now to attach the second set of pieces that i have made earlier the emitter end is super glued on and the rings are contact cemented in place by the way these strips are 10 millimeters wide and there's a 10 millimeter space in between each of them so as i glue one on i can then trace the next strip for my open space and then glue the next strip on that pencil line the other end is super glued in place as well i make sure all the gaps are closed even on the inside and then add the four claws so do i like making lego lightsabers yes i do uh this one was really cool and as long as i get it to light up the way i want it to i think this might be one of my favorite lego props that i've done not quite there yet uh do i want to make a whole bunch more well maybe not uh i'm still kind of the oh i'm happy i made one of those moving on but um yeah this is really you know that's not the way that works this is really cool i'm i'm very very excited about this uh yeah yeah okay so i'm really glad that i can get inch and a half wide uh polycarbonate tube that's very cool all right uh i'm gonna clean up the extra glue off the outside of this guy and then i can plaster it both of them i realized i needed one more thing before spraying there we go that'll be all right all i need to do is plug up the end because i just don't want to have a bunch of plastic that gets sprayed down the inside of my clear blade because that'll just make me cry so that's going to be fine that's all i need now uh these are both ready well no i need to cover the outside of this i made sure the inside was protected now i'm going to cover the outside then i can spray it so i want to put electronics into the lightsaber it's drying right now with plastic up so i don't have it here with me i can choke to death on camera so that's a plus so i still want to put electronics into my lightsaber so i want it to light up and be a lightsaber that's gonna be more fun right now it's it's over there drying still because i just sprayed it down with plastic dip so i'm not going to be able to get a hold of it for a little bit but that's okay because i know how i'm going to do the part you see i've done this before i've i've done a lightsaber build over on the beyond geek channel so there'll be a link for it right right up here and what we want to do is pretty much imitate what i did before now there is one element to that it's gotten a little harder to do since the time that i made that video that video i did back in 2017 2016 somewhere in there it's been a few years and so the toy that i like to use i still have one isn't readily available anymore so unfortunately i can't just say go to walmart and buy one of these like i did six years ago but i'm sure there's something compatible and and whatever but i still have some guts to to a couple of these so i'm going to use ones that were torn up way back when they were only 10 bucks a piece and i'm going to leave this one alone because i'm going to leave this one alone but um so it is also something to look out for in thrift stores or the hilts to these guys because the electronics are still going to be good or at least should be i want to upgrade them what i've done is this is the controller as it comes out of the toy with a basic led a basic speaker that's broken uh this is where the battery connects and that takes uh three double a batteries which is four and a half volt that's great that's going to be easy to to replace with an 18650 battery this is actually only uh three and a half volts straight from the battery but if i run it off of this end it's up converted to five volts i can do it either way i'll probably run it on less power because it won't be as it will the light won't heat up as much as it's gonna be just fine so what am i doing by taking the original electronics and upgrading the led and upgrading the speaker and upgrading well the power supply i'll get this instead now this was one that i was working on for a friend that wanted a teal lightsaber uh which is great but i don't want to teal lightsaber so i'm gonna leave this guts alone and set it aside and i'm gonna rework my last board i've got on hand and put in a blue led so um yeah so there's one other thing i can plan on right now that's going to be a benefit uh this is the plastic safety cover that slipped over the old fluorescent bulbs again something i'm not sure you can readily get anymore but i've got one uh and it's they're about an inch and a quarter or so in diameter which just happens to fit right inside of the inch and a half polycarbonate tube so as long as i get all of my electronics to fit inside of this i can easily slip it inside of the lightsaber as is and i'll be okay there's a lot to cover with the upgrading of the electronics for the toy my new led takes more power than the toy does and that needs a 242 power transistor to work and my rechargeable battery is taken out of a five dollar power bank for harbor freight tools which includes the charging circuit as part of the power bank so i do apologize that i've jumped ahead a little bit here i didn't completely shoot everything with putting this particular electronic package together and it's still not totally fit together but what i've got um you know what there'll be a wiring diagram uh right right down in the in in the description it's basically the same diagram that i posted for beyond geek uh and if you want a really detailed idea on how i put this together both look at the beyond geek lightsaber build and the gundam beam saber build because this is doing the exact same electronics from the toy with the upgrade with the speaker and and a better led that i did for beyond geek but i've also incorporated the rechargeable 18650 battery that i use the beam saver and so the end result is i'm not pointing it at the camera because this is a really bright led and i don't want to be doing that but uh yeah this is this this should be just fine and it's got a little bit of it the toy knows when you're swinging it around which is pretty cool so all i got to do is get these extra few little parts inside the plastic sleeve that i know fits inside of the polycarbonate tube preferably without pinching any of the wires that are you know important because they are all important there are no non-trivial wires going on here remove the plug put the electronics inside the tube all right now the blade isn't lighting up very well but it's doing everything else i want so what's the deal basically i need to put a diffuser in the blade uh not not a not a big shock this is pretty standard and all i need to do for the diffuser where did i put it is cellophane really that's it this is the the clear cellophane i'm just gonna go cut go somewhere there's less dust i i'm to go cut myself a good piece of this roll it into a tube put it inside of the blade put the electronics back inside and having a few layers of this inside the blade is all it's going to take to diffuse the light and make the whole thing light up you'll see just a second roll up a couple of layers of clear film and put it in the tube realize the end of the tube is still not diffused so i cut out a small piece of illusion film to fit back inside the bottom of the tube that's great i put the clear film inside and then the electronics kind of looks like the building clubs from futurama but um it's proportionally the same it's it's within centimeters of being correct so uh i'm okay with it [Laughter] and the last thing i need is a silver coating now lego lightsabers do come in various colors and finishes but what i wanted was the non-chrome yet shiny silver version and using a waxy paint called rub and buff feels like the look that i wanted and it's pretty easy to apply and dries [Music] quickly all the items in this video i already had in the shop i put a list in the description i am super happy to have more legos to be able to go with the other parts i've i've built uh i've taken these to a couple of cons now uh laid them out on a table and just let people realize what they are and the fact that the pieces do actually fit together and work the way you want them to everybody lights up everybody who knows what these are lights up and enjoys playing with these things so making giant legos is definitely something i'm going to be doing more of uh and now that i've got a lightsaber yeah this is this is really really cool [Laughter] so definitely um i still have a preference for classic space but i mean come on lightsaber lightsaber lightsaber so uh this is this is really really this is really what i needed this is really what i wanted today this is really cool i need to get some clear parts made up that would be pretty cool that is something i am kind of missing right now is that i don't have the clear elements i don't have the uh you know the the bits that i need but still okay so if there's any other elements that you really want to see if there's if there's something else that would be the first choice for for for the next part to make uh i'm not quite ready to do a mini fig yet everyone wants me to make any figs that'll happen i'm not quite there yet i'll i'll i'll i'll get there but i do know that there's going to be lots of different ways that you can make a lightsaber not just from lego but this is how odin makes well that won't work i want to thank marvel guy 2001 steve mead miss mary mack and all of my patreon supporters patreon members at the 5 and above level get access to my private discord which includes weekly games with me proper related chat and early access to live streams my patreon support is the number one thing that makes this show possible if you like the video don't forget to subscribe have an idea for something for me to make please leave a comment below and if you make any of these projects you can send me a picture you

Channel: Odin Makes

Views: 175,703

Keywords: cosplay prop making, cosplay prop, cosplay props, cosplay prop tutorial, cosplay diy, tutorial, foamsmith, foamsmithing, how to, diy, how to make cosplay props, how to make cosplay prop, how to make, cosplay, lego star wars, foam, lego star wars 2022, lego star wars the skywalker saga, lightsaber, lightsabers, real lightsaber, giant lego, giant legos, odin makes, eva foam, odin makes lightsaber, cree led, led, cree, hasbro, bladebuilders lightsaber, obi wan kenobi, ewan mcgregor

Id: yhJbSDUe6Hg

Length: 23min 9sec (1389 seconds)

Published: Thu May 05 2022