3D Printed Lightsaber Hilt - Part 2!!

It's been a long time coming, but Obi-Wan's lightsaber is finally completed! Several months after the first blog post, I was only able to work on this project for a limited time per week, and as you will see, there was a good amount of post-processing required to get to these amazing results.

The pictures above show all of the parts after working through low (80) to high (400) grit sandpapers and then primed with automotive filler primer. 80 grit was used to remove the layer lines from the raw 3D printed parts. Any of the smaller, hard-to-reach areas required the use of small files. I later found that filing the parts was the most efficient way to remove the layer lines and retain the hard edges of the details. The finer grits were just used to remove the scratches from the coarser sandpaper grits, all the way up to 220.

After the 220 grit sandpaper, I started with a single coat of the filler primer, just to see if there were any deeper gouges, scratches, pock-marks, or holes that needed filling. A small amount of automotive spot-putty was used to fill any holes and cracks. Another light coat of primer was used to confirm the putty filled the holes adequately.

A final sand with 400 grit sandpaper removes any spattering from the first layers of spray-can primer, followed by a thorough cleaning.

The next step was to coat everything in a glossy coat of black paint. I wanted to use Alclad brand metallic paints for the final finish, and they recommended using Alclad's gloss black as well. This was my first foray into airbrushing, but since I was using just single colours, with no special shading effects or layering, this seemed like a good opportunity to try it out.

After the gloss black was cured, I applied the metallic paints. The silver parts were Alclad Chrome (applied incorrectly; more on that below), Alclad Pale Gold and Copper for the part just below the emitter. I found out after applying the chrome that I was spraying it way to heavily. A couple very light coats gives you a much more reflective, mirror finish, but the more solid-looking "aluminum-esque" finish works here has well. I glued all the pieces together

I think this project turned out really well, and I'm very happy with the finished product. The final steps will be to seal the part with some clear coat, and add some weathering: washes of dark acrylic colours to make it look old and well used. This will help hide the many imperfections that shiny metallic paint can reveal.