The original glass eye mount also serves as a large thumbscrew to tighten against the blade plug or blade when it's installed, to keep it all nice and snug.

I do notice I have one more issue with my crystal mount, it's not coming on with the rest of the saber, due to a grounding issue. It's not a short, but it was an oversight on my part about how the board works. Right now I have t he crystal LEDs grounding through the whole saber. Which works when it's out of the body, but when it's all installed, it doesn't work right with the recharge port, etc. that does actually ground back to the battery pack.

So one more teardown to fix that, and we're looking at home stretch, folks.

ROCK! First try, the charging circuit is happy, all my wiring fits, the new grounding scheme works with the crystal mount, and so far no smoke.

It's getting there!

Grips, D ring, main blade left to go.

Here are a few pics in better lighting. The light coming through the hex grid in the glass eye is really something.

The hex grid gets distorted and refracted and looks super cool , and the light spilling out of the crystal chamber is right on.

Here it is with the blade plug installed and lit, to show all the lighting when it's out of the saber skin.

I need to make the top LED holder and wedge into this space above the crystal, and this section will be done.

Here you see some spare parts. My intention is to construct an Empire Strikes Back version of this saber, so that the crystal chamber will interchange between the two. I also have a Return of the Jedi saber blank that I will move on to eventually.

I had to just go ahead and decide to make the D ring clamp. I couldn't find any that worked, and harder still to find the right metal, then lo and behold on the floor of my garage was some thin aluminum. I cut a section out and bent it around this rod that had the same diameter of my D ring, and placed it in the vice so I could round it over to the front, and crimp it under the roll.

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