Today, I got out into the garage while it was still early and cool, and decided to get the lathe heated up and turn out some metal for this saber.

I started today with the emitter neck. This is a solid piece of aluminum that goes up into the handle, and up into the emitter can. I also machined the other emitter tip. I have yet to trim the emitter cans down to proper length, so they're both still a little long.

Once I got both emitter necks done, I needed to contour the handles. I start with setting the lowest point of the contour, measuring with my calipers down to 1/8 of an inch. To do the tapers, I'll need to set my angle on my toolpost, and use the crank to bring the tool across at that angle.

However, my crank is a PAIN to use, and has bad results. So I found a hand crank off an old X/Y plate, and drilled two holes into it to fit my crank, now I have a much easier and smoother way to turn this.

The biggest contour done, I had to play with the angles in tiny increments to get the right 1/8 inch in 7 inches slope.

Turned the handle around and dressed out the end where the emitter neck plugs in. Mental note, next time, I should do both contours on the handle before unchucking it. Doing the short angle is pretty difficult when it's not the exact same alignment as the main slope.

Here is the smaller slope, again, it's not perfect due to the fact that I rechucked it. But with a bit of sandpaper it cleans up.

I laid these out on the garage floor to see what the length would be like, once I decide how the two sabers attach in the middle, I'll trim that extra material off the ends. I let myself have enough material just in case.

Not too shabby. I am still evaluating a few parts, might replace one of the necks, and I need to figure out how they attach together, but I got a LOT done today.

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