TOPIC: Amputee Custom Saber

Hi Everyone!

Just as a disclaimer, I've never built or bought a saber so this is completely new to me. I am an amputee, and an ambassador for a bionics company. In fact, I recently received a bionic arm! I am also currently putting together my cosplays for San Diego Comic Con this summer. My friend Angel (who also has a bionic arm) and I would like to do a duo cosplay, with one of us as a Jedi and the other a Sith. While wielding a lightsaber with a bionic arm is awesome, I want to take it a step further.

The hand on my arm is detachable, and I can insert another device into the socket that makes the socket more compatible to add other attachments. Would it be possible for me to make or commission a custom saber that I can attach to my bionic arm? An entire saber hilt would be too long and add too much weight, so I was thinking a switch, emitter, and blade. Again, I have no idea if this is possible but if anyone can offer advice (or maybe a quote to build it for me) I'd be incredibly grateful. I've also included a picture of me wearing the arm, as well as a picture of the arm without the hand.

Thanks!

My thought would be this:
1)I don't think it would work because there wouldn't be enough room for electronics without the body.
2)Without having a flex/twist point (wrist) the saber would be more like Optimus Prime's energon blade in that it just sticks straight out. Think more like General Grievous.
I realize the weight of a full metal saber may be somewhat unwieldly. Maybe you can accomplish something similar by substituting the metal body with carbon fiber and using a small, lightweight pommel. Think something like the Exile body, but in CF. Maybe Saberforge can do it or at least give you the specs on it with their thread sizes and you could find a fabricator to do it.
Best of luck with it. I don't know how you became an amputee, nor is it relevant. I do think that if you and your friend can accomplish what you're after, it will definitely give you an advantage in your cosplay. You ARE Luke Skywalker.
Good luck.

I'm not trying to make light of your situation, I can't imagine the pain & hardships you've had......but that arm is BADASS!

If you do get someone to make a custom saber for your bionic arm you HAVE to post pics---that would be so cool!

Welcome to the forum!

That's beyond my abilities as a smith, but there's a couple guys out there that might be able to put something together like that for you.

I'll probably get a little flak for these names on these forums but....

Reach out to .

Randy Johnson also comes to mind.

Like wamphyri said, there probably isn't room for all of the electronics in there without having a hilt body. However, if you have some room inside of the forearm - room not taken up by your fleshy arm - you could potentially rig something up using an emitter (like you wanted), a switch (like you wanted), and a coupler or two. (The coupler(s) are needed in order to make room for the battery, which normally sits inside of the hilt body.)

Something that's important to consider: How does the hand attach to the forearm? Is it a standard connection, or something custom? If it's a standard size connection, then a retrofit lightsaber will be a lot easier. If the connection is custom fabricated by the bionics company, then they're probably the ones you want to talk to about a "lightsaber hand."

Thought: from my limited experience with saberforge (1 saber) it feels like the blade can easily be the heaviest part of the lightsaber. I would suggest looking around for the lightest saber blade possible if weight is a serious concern. I hear that saberforge's blades are not the lightest around. On the topic of weight, saberforge parts (like what you'll find in the Adaptive Saber Parts section of the website) are very light. I doubt that it would be worth looking for anything more lightweight, since these parts are machined from aluminum.
(Sure, carbon fiber is lighter, but it won't make a drastic difference at the size we're talking. If you can find somebody who will make the parts out of CF relatively cheaply then go for it. Otherwise you're probably fine with aluminum. You could also go for wood if weight is a really critical issue - but obviously be careful not to break it.)

wamphyri13 wrote:
This was the first thought I had. You at least need a 4" body section to comfortably stuff a battery pack into.

How long is "too long" and how heavy is "too much weight"?

The Apprentice hilts are shorter and lighter than the Elite hilts, and even those are quite lightweight. The Consular I have is just shy of 10" pommel-emitter and if it weighs one pound without the blade, that's pushing it. My longest hilt is just over 12" and heaviest is close to two pounds (with full electronics), if that.

Lumen_Cordis wrote:
SF uses 1" diameter thick walled polyC, which is the heaviest blade on the saber scene and meant for full-contact dueling. Other companies offer various diameters and thicknesses. Generally, an "thick wall" is 1/8" wall and "thin wall" is 1/16" wall. Any thin wall blade will be half the weight of a thick wall. And a 7/8" diameter (which only comes as thin wall) would be even lighter than a 1" thin wall. You can a piece of 1" thin wall blade stock as an adapter to fit a 7/8" blade into a 1" emitter (either use superglue or it should just hold by friction). That'd be the best option for dealing with the blade weight, imo.

Ultrasabers or Vader's Vault would be the best places to go for other styles of completed blades (US for quick shipping). You could go over to The Custom Saber Shop (TCSS)... but then you'd be DIYing a blade, since the diffuser tube they use in the "Completed Blades" is terrible (my blade was brighter once I removed it, lol).

Stick with a shorter thinwall blade for weight - maybe about 26".

If you avoid sound, whole thing can be smushed into 5.5"(2" blade socket, ~1" heatsink, ~1/2" for the switch, 2" for a 14500 or 18500 battery). If you do want sound, would have to get a bit creative with speaker placement and venting - add maybe one more inch in length. Not familiar with fitment, but only ~3.5-4" needs to be exposed to keep external access to the switch.

PVC body would also cut more weight down. A shorter blade would also light up just fine on a single Cree LED.

Mmm~ personally, I'd keep the arm with hand and just detail them up as a SW cybernetic replacement with a standard saber in the other hand.

First, thanks for all of the support, everyone! If I do manage to pull this off, I'll definitely post pictures.

Lumen_Cordis wrote:
If you look at the picture of the forearm without the hand, you can see that there is a hard CF outer shell, attached to a white inner socket (this socket is more flexible and allows for comfort while wearing the arm). On the inside, up toward the wrist, there is open space between the outer and inner pieces. In fact, this is where the battery pack and wiring for the hand is, as the silver port on the side of the forearm is the charger port. So in theory, with one LED, battery pack, and the necessary wires I should be able to fit the components in that space.

Connection is the tricky part. I'll post pictures of the socket when I get home later today, but in the meantime I'll put a picture at the bottom of this post with a better view of the detached hand. You can see in the picture that the end of the hand beautifully made, with a set of locking ball bearings encircling it. So for now you can get a bit of a feel for the size of the socket based on the size of the hand fitting into it. HOWEVER, I believe that the panel between the wrist and the aforementioned "open space" in the forearm can be opened, which may help when trying to secure saber pieces.

KelbornX wrote:
The forearm weighs ~1-1.5lbs. and the hand (which is completely made of metal) adds almost 3lbs. And I'm used to carrying other objects using the hand, so I think if you remove the weight of the hand and substitute the weight of saber parts I should be fine.

To answer a few other questions or comments that have been brought up, I am perfectly fine without sound. The saber parts don't have to be incredibly elegant or made of the best materials, and I'm also aware that the saber will be rigid and stick straight out from the forearm (I think it adds to the menacing tone of the Sith to have had a bionic arm engineered as a lightsaber).

I might consult my prosthetist and/or the bionics company to see if they'd be interested in helping me fabricate an attachment, but I don't see that being cost-effective...

So you're looking at having a small blade come out the front where your prosthetic hand would normally attach to the arm piece? Seems doable to me, if you have something like a makeshift blade holder extend past the opening and have an LED, latching switch, and battery tucked inside.

Thanks for the photo!

That doesn't look like any kind of standard-size attachment I've ever seen, but it could easily just be one I've never had to encounter. If it is custom then I would still say your best bet would be to talk to the bionics company. All you need is an adapter that attaches to the bionic forearm on one end and fits the threads of ASP on the other. I know that ASP uses a standard thread size, but somebody else would have to tell you what that size is.

If you can get an adapter made, then the rest of the project should be pretty simple - get some lightsaber parts and electronics, screw/plug things together, et voila! Sith lightsaber arm.

If getting the bionics company to build you an adapter is too expensive, you'll need to look more specifically at the dimensions of the arm socket and at whatever locking mechanism is used for the hand. Theoretically, it should be possible to make something that connects into the socket and sits rigidly. Since the saber won't need to rotate like a wrist does, a home-made connection should be a lot simpler than the connector on your hand. (Since you won't need bearings, etc.)

As an aside, I agree with the advise others have given of using a short blade. Not only will it make the saber lighter, it will also help you not need to keep your elbow bent all the time while wearing the saber. (As longer blades would be prone to hitting the ground.)

Lumen_Cordis wrote:
Phil had a "Contentious" post a couple years back somewhere else where he mentioned the threading. Can't for the life of me remember what it was, I'm not a machinist so not something I pay attention to. Anyhoo, moral of this reply is I'm sure if you poked around the dark corners of the saber world you could find that info.

Maybe the way back machine. Used to be posted on the coupler order page.

SF uses a M32 x 1.5 thread.

Point for Khang - just dug it up on the old Spear Extension page to verify.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160512165745/http://www.saberforge.com/accessories/spear-extension

Khang takes the snap, drops back, he's got Kouri open across the middle and hits him in stride, Kouri breaks a tackle, he's in TOUCHDOWN!

Please excuse my complete and utter ignorance of terminology, as I have yet to delve into how sabers are constructed, but can someone explain what is meant by "thread"?

Thread is a measure of the grooves, spiral, number, and pitch of the screw portion of the parts.

Lumen_Cordis wrote:
Khang wrote:

I wanted to go ahead and take a few higher quality pictures of the end of the hand, and the socket it connects to (with #2 pencil for scale), just so you guys get a better understanding of what I'm dealing with. I spoke with my prosthetist and there should be room inside the forearm for a small battery pack and wiring. I agree with those of you who have suggested a blade that is short and lightweight, I now just have to figure out how to connect this forearm to whatever the first saber piece needs to be (switch?).

Any chance you have a pair of calipers? Having precise measurements of the space available would make it a lot easier to gauge what's needed. For example, room for "a small battery pack and wiring" might be enough, or it might be too short for the batteries normally used. Precise measurements may also be necessary for any kind of prosthetic-to-saber adapter.

Lumen_Cordis wrote:

I don't, but I can get a pair. I'll be working with the prosthetist to try and build some sort of adapter, but first need to know which saber part would be attached to the adapter. For example, would the following be feasible if I'm able to have an adapter made?

Bionic Forearm > Adapter > Switch > Emitter > Blade

I also just added pictures to my last comment, I guess they got rejected the first time due to size limits.