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Jan 2, 2015 | By Alec

The numerous Star Wars fans amongst you might recall a very cool project by the French 3D printer manufacturers LeFabShop, that allowed you to recreate the very controversial 3D printed lightsaber from the recent Star Wars trailer. The Sith's blade featured a crossguard hilt that induced an uproar all over the web, but I can guarantee that recreating it in PLA will greatly help you to make up your mind about whether or not it's an acceptable addition to Star Wars canon.

That we were not alone in thinking this 3D printing project is very cool, has just been proven by a very interesting and doubtlessly artistic clip by the Fresno, California-based artists group Dumb Drum. They specialize in making extremely low-budget 'sweded' versions of famous films and their trailers and stretch the limits of cardboard creativity in doing so (For those of you who've never heard of the term, a sweded film is a low-budget, summarized, recreation of a popular Hollywood movie or TV show).

And their most recent release? A recreation of the trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, complete with a 3D printed lightsaber made using LeFabShop's very handy and multifunctional STL files. It's a very funny and surprisingly creative recreation, that took almost a whole month to realize. But it's already an obvious success, having already gathered almost three hundred thousand views on YouTube. You can check it out here:

And for the overly curious among you, here is also a link to a frame-by-frame comparison of the actual trailer and the Dumb Drum version.

If you'd like to recreate your own crossguard lightsaber using 3D printing, check out LeFabShop's Instructables page here. Dedicated fans of both 3D printing and Star Wars might have already come across some designs for lightsabers, but this particular design is definitely worth checking out. Not only will it allow you to recreate this controversial weapon of the Sith, its designs are also very modular and can be adjusted to resemble any lightsaber from the franchise; even Darth Maul's!

The STL package contains the following parts:

• A long telescopic laser, printed all at once
• A short telescopic laser, exclusively for the crossguard
• 6 different sabers tip, including the T shaped crossguard
• A belt clip (very handy if you don't want to hold in in your hands all the time.)
• Grips
• Lightsaber switches
• A lightsaber's cap
• A connector to assemble many sabers bodies together

The lightsaber seen in these images was 3D printed in PLA filament, with a layer resolution of 0.2. Just about any type of FDM printer can be used, but it might be best to use one with a 'z height' of at least 15 cm. Just pick a lightsaber design of your choosing (you will need at least three of the thick tubes to recreate Darth Maul's lightsaber), and use your intuition for assembly. It's a very fun and easy project to complete, and we can advise every Star Wars geek to check it out!

Posted in 3D Printing Applications

 

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