Woodturning - Tumblr Posts

Reath's my favourite character from the high republic so of course I had to make his lightsaber hilt. Made with birch, tulip, panga panga, and xylia. This is only the second hilt I've made and there's some parts that don't quite fit together but I'm still pretty proud of it.

Some pictures of the first lightsaber hilt I made, Luke’s from Return of the Jedi. Made with tulip, maple, rosewood, and walnut. The green LED in the end is connected to a switch hidden in the control box and a battery compartment concealed in the bottom of the hilt. I was perhaps a little over ambitious with trying to get electronics into this. Even though it’s a relatively simple circuit I’m not exactly an expert, and I think the hole I drilled down the middle was too small which made the wiring really awkward, but the idea was there. Still, I’m happy with how it turned out for the first one.

Stellan’s lightsaber hilt has got to be one of the prettiest lightsabers in Star Wars, so I wanted to see if I could replicate it. This hilt is made with cedar, chamfuta, purple heart, and padauk. I turned the main shaft of the hilt on the lathe, and used the scroll saw with various sanders, hand files, and chisels to make the cross guards and details. I also used one of the chisels to accidentally stab my finger which was fun… As with the others, some of the joins still aren’t quite perfect but this is still one of my favourite things I’ve made.

In honour of more Avar content, I made Avar Kriss’s lightsaber, with cedar and gonçalo alves with a spalted, erm… wood, stand (I don’t know what kind of wood that is it wasn’t labelled when I bought it).

Avar’s hilt is a little less complicated than Stellan’s, this one took around a week compared to about 2 weeks for Stellan’s, but it’s still a great design even among high republic lightsabers. I still haven’t quite figured out how to make things fit completely perfectly but generally the gaps are small enough to just fill in. I also ran into a small wormhole in the gonçalo alves I had to fill in which I’m hoping isn’t that noticeable.

The Eye of Darkness was everything I needed. My boy Reath got 4 whole mentions, including one physical appearance (yes I was counting, don’t judge me). Also Burryaga just allowing Ember to burn his fur so he could give her pets is so cute.

My lightsaber shelf is getting full, however, I do not care. Here’s Bell Zettifar’s lightsaber, made with palm, olive, and sycamore, with a cherry stand.

This was the first thing I’ve used sanding sealer for as the black grain in the palm is very hard and splinters out while turning so it’s difficult to get a smooth finish. I’m not sure if it’s done anything but it’s not splintery so I think it’s okay.

Bell’s lightsaber is much simpler than some others I’ve made. It only took me 3-4 days as it doesn’t have many extra parts that aren’t part of the main turned core part of the hilt, and those that there were were very simple, I didn’t even need the scroll saw.

New lightsaber just dropped, and this one stabbed me personally multiple times. Those spikes are, in fact, spiky.

Ty Yorrick’s lightsaber, made with leadwood, mango, sycamore, and a tiny piece of redheart, with a beech(?) stand.

The mango looks really nice but the piece was full of fine cracks which did make it difficult to work with, especially the spike pieces which kept breaking. The sanding on the spikes probably could’ve been a little neater but if you don’t look too closely you can’t really tell.

Ty’s such a cool character, I hope we get more of her in phase 3

Wooden Jedi vector, made with cedar, panga panga, redheart, and lacewood, with a cherry stand.

This was quite awkward to figure out because there isn’t one specific way a vector should look. All the official art is very slightly different so I had to figure out the right shapes and proportions for everything so it still looked enough like a vector. It’s not massively symmetrical but the Art of the High Republic book mentions that ship models for Star Wars actually have built in asymmetry to make it look more lifelike, so yeah that’s all definitely intentional I did that on purpose, definitely…

The joints on this could definitely be stronger, it’s literally just held together with glue, but as long as you don’t swoosh it too hard it does hold itself together.

Orla Jareni’s lightsaber, made with maple, leopard wood, and Indian rosewood, with a spalted (beech?) stand.

Besides the hinge part, this one was pretty simple to put together, though the hinge was quite simple once I figured it out. I decided to put magnets in the bottom so it would lock itself in the long, staff form. The magnets I had aren’t very strong but it’s just about enough to hold it.

I finished it with citrus oil instead of lemon oil this time. Partially because there’s no small, fragile parts that might break off if I buff it with the wheel, but also because it has a stronger smell, as Indian rosewood has a very, distinct smell kind of like old piss which was not being covered up with lemon oil. Even the citrus oil only covered it up for about a day. It does give a shinier finish than usual though.

Orla was always a really interesting character with how she doubted the ways of the Jedi but still staying firmly in the light

Porter Engle’s lightsaber, made with cherry, mopane, spalted lime, and redheart on a beech(?) stand.

This one was a lot of carving and not that much turning. It’s also one with a lot of art and comic book depictions, but with comic book lightsaber depictions, the exact shape isn’t generally consistent so it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do with the curved guard part. This was a fun one though.

Manifesting alive Porter for Temptation of the Force. He’s not dead you can’t convince me.

Cohmac Vitus’s lightsaber made with spalted beech, padauk, and panga panga, with an oak stand.

This one was fun, with a bunch of carving and a slightly dodgy drill press clamping system which may have exploded a little the bit the piece itself was fine so all is good. I like the bright red/orange of the padauk and I think it works quite nicely as an accent colour against the other woods. I also used panga panga in Reath’s saber and I thought it was nice to have some continuity between master and padawan.

The Rod of Daybreak and the Rod of Seasons, made with tanga tanga, cherry, cedar, and red mallee burl with an ash base.

I got a chunk of red mallee burl for Christmas and I was really hesitant to use it cause it was too nice, but I finally bit the bullet for this, and I think it worked out pretty well. I wanted something a bit different to go in place of the crystal parts (echo stones?). It was a pain to carve though because the grain goes in all directions at the same time so it’s really hard to get a clean cut.

It was also a challenge to get the two rods to fit together. I haven’t done much of it before so I went very slowly and it’s a pretty decent fit.