Star Wars Lightsaber Blades without air bubbles

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dehnehsu
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Star Wars Lightsaber Blades without air bubbles

Post by dehnehsu » Sun Feb 06, 2011 3:43 am

Sometimes you hit the Lego Lightsaber Blade lottery and get the transparent parts with no air bubbles trapped inside. I still usually end up with some that have one or sometimes many bubbles. I found that Plastruct makes 1/8" arclyic rods that work perfectly. They are 1/8" (outside diameter) by 9" Flourescent Acrylic Rods made by Plastruct.They are bubble free. They come in Red, Blue, Clear and Green and as a bonus, they do glow under a blacklight. They are easy to cut with a fine saw, or can be scored and snapped! You can finish off the edges with fine Sandpaper. I like to round out the tips to make them more "realistic" The only downside is the Red, and Blue are less vibrant and more subtle than the actual Lego counterparts. The green is a near perfect match. I also found the 1/8" rods sometimes is a bit loose when fitted into the Hilts. a bit of white glue will hold it in for displaying or you can melt the bottom of the blades with a small flame an it will fit snuggly.

I called around to many nearby hobby and craft stores but no one seemed to carry them, I ended up buying them online. Just do web search for Plastruct 1/8" acrylic rod. You can purchase them directly from Plastruct, I believe I purchased mine from hobbylinc. They cost around $5 for a set of 7 (one color) in 9" lengths.

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dr_spock
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Re: Star Wars Lightsaber Blades without air bubbles

Post by dr_spock » Sun Feb 06, 2011 9:44 pm

Thanks for the tip. I didn't know Plastruct made those. I used to use their styrene products in my HO model railroading days.

dehnehsu
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Re: Star Wars Lightsaber Blades without air bubbles

Post by dehnehsu » Mon Mar 07, 2011 11:31 pm

dr_spock. Glad you found it informative.

Here's a sample of the Rods I used to clean up Buzz's spaceship. On the far left side of the pic are the newly cut Green Lasers? found on the wingtips which replaced the ones which were riddled with ugly air bubbles. The new Green rods were cut to length and ends rounded. You can see how close a match the Green color is. On the stand, Anikin is holding custom Red and Green rods. There is also the orginal bubble filled Tealish Blue Saber Rod next to the custom Blue rod. (Note the difference in the Blue colors)

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Last edited by dehnehsu on Sat Dec 29, 2012 7:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Star Wars Lightsaber Blades without air bubbles

Post by Mantisking » Tue Mar 08, 2011 7:38 am

Nice!

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Re: Star Wars Lightsaber Blades without air bubbles

Post by gamermic » Sun Aug 14, 2011 9:47 pm

Do they have glow in the dark types?
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