Darth Vader costume build

[Cantina_Dude]

Thanks! It’s been a lot of work but has been fun learning new skills along the way. This project has utilized pretty much every area of the VHS shop… Cutting leather in the sewing area, metal work in the fab shop, machining aluminum bits in the machine shop, using the mouse sander in the woodshop, dying leather and painting parts in the paint and mess room, laser cutting plastic and leather bits, and… wiring at the electronics bench, like this:

The first step of assembly is gluing the metal mesh I cut into small pieces into place on the lid insert I designed and laser cut from black sheet styrene. These inserts will make more sense later…

Then I can install the red and green lights in the lids to hold the styrene inserts in place.

Next the battery holders get welded into place.

The on/off push button switch gets some prewiring done, including the resistors required to keep the LEDs happy in this circuit, before being welded to the lid insert.

Then the leads get soldered in the appropriate places.

A few more lengths of wire are then soldered into place to complete the circuit.

Some 9V batteries are popped in to finish things off.

The lids are then screwed on to their bases and the lights are tested. All lights looking good!

Pressing the mesh in clicks the internal on/off push button switch. This was my solution to the problem of turning the lights on and off without spoiling the external accuracy of the belt boxes, since the original belt didn’t have any visible switches. A little over-engineered perhaps, but I thought it a pretty slick solution!

[Cantina_Dude]

Here’s a few photos of what the completed belts look like, finally assembling all the parts that I’ve been working on for so long!

Here can see some of the belt box details including the machined aluminum knurled knobs I’ve been making for what seems like forever…

Here you can see the custom made stainless steel lightsaber hook pop-riveted to the belt.

Here’s a closeup of the assembled buckle, attached to the belt via a pair of cap rivets, one of which is barely poking out from behind the buckle, just like on the screen used belt. It’s the little wonky details like this that the people I’m making these for really dig.

I attached some “hook and ring” hardware to the back of the belt buckle assembly via the threaded post on the back of the aluminum disc piece I machined on the lathe. The little hook on the buckle fits into a hole on the other end of the belt.

All lit up!

I’ve finished and shipped off a few of these belt replicas so far, but still have several to go! I gotta machine more knurled knobs and do more wiring, which are the two most time consuming parts of this project. Fun times!

[lukecyca]

Just… wow.

Exquisite work and nice photos.

[TyIsI]

What @lukecyca said. I don’t think I can add anything.

[Cantina_Dude]

For completion’s sake, here’s an image of all 10 of the ANH Darth Vader belts I produced for folks in my run. Each one is a little different (just like all of us… ) as each person had different options they selected. This was a long project but I’m really happy with how they all turned out and I really enjoyed learning lots of new skills in the process! Yay for makin’ stuff!