Many of you know, I like tinkering around with new blade ideas. The combination of Tim getting colored PC stock and Photonic Bladesmith doing some work with FL acrylic led me to tinker around with the Red and Blue PC blades. The initial results have been good, but I am going to continue to work on diffusion and tip issues/design. I think I will be able to start offering these as an option on the sabers I sell here in the Trade Federation once some further R and D is done. Since my last blade was the "Full Core Blade" I'll simply dub this as the "White Core Blade" as what I am looking to emulate is the whiter core that is often seen as more screen accurate.
So the best result was with the Blue P.C. blade. I took Tim's Blade stock and loaded it with 6 feet of Cellophane, and wired up a Single Die Cree White. Shots of the test below (Keep in mind there are always exposure issues, so photos don't really give a great representation so see commentary after pics)
Surprisingly this gave the best "white core" look. The core was still a very light, bright shade of blue with the White cree illuminating the cellophane and the blue aura being created by the blade. The tip issues are similar to that of the "Photon" blade, but easier to solve because their is no "special effect" as the photon blade produces. A simple translucent PolyCarbonate Blue paint illuminated blue (instead of white) and provides a matching tip. As I said, there are some diffusion issues that need tweaking before the blade is considered "ready" IMO, but this was the best of the two.
The red blade was "OK" but did not replicate the "white core" effect as well as the blue blade does. Same process: Red blade, Cellophane, White Cree:
While the blade still looked good, the cellophane was still very "colored" and thus did not replicate the white core effect as well as the blue. I am ordering some acrylic florescent red to see if the effect that Photonic blade smith got with Red can be relplicated with a typical saber setup. If it does, I a may look into the possibility of producing a run of Florescent Red Polycarbonate stock.
Anyway -
I'll probably have the blue available as an option soon, and will also test Purple and Green soon to see if the "white core" effect is doable (green seems more promising than purple given the results with Red and Blue) I also want to test some different tip options.
But Tim has the stock of these (sans matching tips) so if you want to make them yourself they are there for you to create and tinker with as well. Here are the pros and cons that I see of these blades with a white LED setup:
Pros:
With a simple White Cree or Rebel you can interchange blades to get a different color.
Day blades still have a color to them.
Some replicate a "white core" effect
Cons:
A White LED will only really look good with colored blades (unless you like a white/silver main blade)
You will need to color your tips or the blade will be blue/red/purple and the tip will be white.
Onward and upwards, Saberland
