When I started in this hobby, I made my first lightsabers on a manual 3-in-1 Chinese machine. As my creativity flowed and my experience grew, I found that my machine limited what my creativity wanted to do. So I invested in a CNC mill. The first saber I made with the new mill was Cobin Das's Killer Penny. Yes, you read that right, the Killer Penny was made entirely on a CNC mill - there was no lathe involved. Well, when you jump into the hobby and one of the first things you create becomes what amounts to a legend, it's hard to top that. Over the years, I have expanded my shop, acquired new equipment, learned new tricks, and machined some of the most popular sabers in our community. Through all that, the one thing that rings true for me is that I am always trying to push myself to do 'bigger and better'. I am not in competition with anyone but myself - and for years, my main goal has been to try and create a saber that is as recognizable, if not moreso, as the Killer Penny.
I have had ideas come and go. I have started easily a dozen plus different models and concepts always to scrap them. I have ideas and visions in my head, but a hard time getting them 'on paper' so to speak. I have always admired slothfurnaces artistic abilities and his work. I look at his work and marvel at it's beauty. So, I reached out to slothfurnace and asked if he would be willing to help me get my ideas on paper to give me a frame of reference to work with and model from. After some email exchanges where I gave sloth my ideas, this is what he gave me:
It's taken almost a year of design, discussions with Brad, changes, and refinements and this is what I ended up with:
In talking with slothfurnace, the decision was made to offer an extremely limited number of this design for sale to the general public. There will only be 7 Black Mamba sabers made. One for me, one for sloth and five available for sale.
Details of this run:
These will be empty sabers designed to utilize the Plecter Labs CFLS (string blade Crystal Focus board). They will include all machined parts, stainless steel hosing/tubing, LEMO connector (since I have to machine parts to modify it), hardware, anodizing and any other finishing. I will also be supplying some very thin 30 gage wiring to help with the wiring of the saber. I will supply the recharge port, RICE port, switches and speaker. It will be up to the owner to supply the 18350 batteries, li-ion circuit board and CFLS board (but I will supply links to the parts I chose to fit the design properly). You will also need to supply your chosen crystal chamber crystal and SMD LEDs (it was designed to use 5 per sloth's request, but you can use whatever you want). Again, I will supply links to the parts I used in the design. Installs are not for the faint of heart. If you can install this saber, you will be elevated from the level of Cram-Fu master to Cramuri (Master of Samuri level Cram-Fu). This is not a saber you will install in a few hours - it will take planning and thought.
Well, as you can imagine, given the limited number, complexity of this design, and cost of raw materials and finishing cost, the price will not be cheap. I am setting the price at $3200 per empty saber plus Paypal fees. This does not include shipping fees to you. Because I am anticipating this project taking at least a year to complete, I am going to do something a little different with payments. A down payment of $500.00 will be due to ensure your place on this run. I will machine the saber in components. After each component assembly (spine, pommel can, rib section, crystal chamber and emitter - 5 components) is finished machining, I will ask for another $500.00 payment be made. I will most likely hold off on anodzing until the very last part is machined to ensure that the anodizing is consistent throughout the saber. When I receive all the parts back from finishing and do final assembly of the saber for shipping, I will ask for the final $200.00 plus shipping cost. Advance notice that a payment is coming up will be given and I will give you time to get your payment made. You can expect payments to be due about every 2-3 months or so. Please bear this in mind when deciding if you want to participate in this run. I will either keep a thread here to detail progress as it progresses for people to follow.
In addition to the saber itself, each run particiapant will receive copies of the original artwork slothfurnace drew for this design. I have the initial sketches and they will be going back to sloth to be signed soon.
This run will be open till December 31 or when all the spots are filled. I will begin work in the new year starting with the spine components.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.
1. acerocket
2. slothfurnace
3. cannibal869
4. Aginor
5. Pfockerchief (purchased from Revanchist (purchased from link))
6. Cavjo (purchased from GusmanB)
7. darth hondo (purchased from NeptuneTQ (purchased from Dansamir))
(7-30-18 - adding update regarding progress)
(8-9-18 - added pictures)
(8-18-18 - added link to assembly page)