TOPIC: My Solo's Hold Luke V2

This is my second install I ever did on a saber and I couldn't be happier with it.  Luke's lightsaber(s) from ROTJ have always been my favorite since first seeing Luke catch his lightsaber from R2 while on Jabba's sail barge.  Just under a year ago I started having an interest in this hobby and while I've been a collector of collectable hilts for years, 2016 was when I thought how I wanted to actually swing these around rather than just look at these hilts under acrylic cases.  After doing my first build which was a Graflex 2.1 with a crystal chamber(with Spark 2) I thought, let me get one of my favorite lightsabers and put in the most advanced board out there (and take a chance on ruining a very expensive board) with a crystal chamber.  So I went with a traditional GGW tri-cree, Crystal Focus v8, Goth 3D Master chassis, 5mm green and white LED for CC, 8 segment green bar graph, stencils, Roman's Graflex clamp, Slothfurnace's V2 clamp card and of course the Solo's Hold Luke V2.  The only other mods/changes I made were I added gaffer tape to the neck, used Roy's (Wanna Wanga's) V2 lever and went for a 3/4" D-ring.  

I used black satin Rustoleum for the paint on the saber.  Before I started I sprayed the booster and then used some mineral spirits to smear the paint around and make it look a little more dirty.  After my first attempt to do the stencils, which went on pretty well, I wanted to clear coat it to protect them.  I used a satin clear coat also from Rustoleum and after putting it on, there was a milky film over large portions of the saber that were too noticeable.  After much thought on how to remove it and asking a dozen questions on forums/FB groups, I decided to strip the whole saber and start again.  Second time around I used a different clear coat and everything went on perfect, no milky film.  Some mineral spirits and some Q-tips and old t-shirts work great in getting to weather this hilt.

I painted the chassis a copper and silver.  The copper was to give it some feel of the Hero version.  I will say there is nothing better than finally putting the SD card into the CF and pulling the kill key and hearing a boot sound on the first try!  I still need to play with the crystal settings but I love how the bar graph looks/works. I kept it simple with green because it's a cannon saber.  So far I have Madcow's Hero, Juansmith's MkVI and Lord Blako's Skywalker ROTJ sound fonts which are all amazing.  Without further delay, here are some pics and the links for the whole album. If anyone is doing their own V2 build, I can point you in the right direction for the bar graph, stencils and other add-ons.  Thanks for reading.

http://imgur.com/a/AxQ9j
http://imgur.com/a/cYP7W
http://imgur.com/a/kKXTk

Dude that is fantastic! Great job--that turned out beautiful! I recently have gotten into building these things---I can't get enough of it, tons of fun!
Congrats man!

DK44 wrote:
I never would have thought a year ago I would be able to do this. Thank goodness for the helpful people in this community.

Looks good!

I love the look of a realistically weathered Episode VI Luke saber from any company. However, when it is the product of someone for whom such things are not his "day job", and to achieve such superior results anyway...I have the utmost respect.

Replicating the ROTJ saber can be a tough thing to do, but you pulled it off remarkably well, and it looks pretty darn sick, Nice job and i'm looking forward to checking out more from you!

May I ask what was the 2nd clear coat product you used that worked well? I've tried a few different ones out , and can't say I'm happy with anything I've tried yet. It seems like they either leave that milky film you mentioned, or leave a shine, which I don't want either (especially not over weathering).

Salacious B Crumb wrote:
I used a minwax lacquer clear satin spray that you can get at either a Home Depot or Lowes. I think there was a Matte version as well. I was having similar problems and tested a bunch of clear coats on some aluminum parts I had to see how the finish would come out. This was by far the best. Hope this helps.

Thanks Andi,
Heading to the hardware store tomorrow anyway, so I will grab a can to test out! I've been testing a few out weathering/coating products on a hilt that's completely lathe turned and thus radially symmetrical and easy to clean back up. Didn't want to put on the real hilts these were really intended for until I found the right thing... I did get a lot better at getting a good weathered look in my iterations, so luckily not a complete waste of effort thus far.

Salacious B Crumb wrote:
If you're doing all that work, I'm sure it'll look great and turn out how you want it! Good luck with your builds.