This is a very late (approx 1 year) post, but oh well. I thought I should show you guys how the walking sticks I made last year turned out.
For those who are likely unfamiliar with what I’m talking about, here’s the original post:
Christmas Presents: Light Staves
I did in fact finish that project just before Christmas of last year, in time to hand out as presents.
When I last left off, I had designed the top portions of the staff, but had not figured out how to get the threads I wanted to connect it to the broom handle. I ended up remixing a model that someone else had made:
Broom and Paint Handle Threads 3/4″x5 by halley on Thingiverse.
I experimented with scaling a bit, and merged it with the interface part for the flashlight to create this connector:
Technomancer Adept Staff Broom Handle Connector
I used cutaway pieces like these to test the fit:
I just left the extra gap in there since it wasn’t really hurting anything. As a point of comparison, this is also how I test fit the other components.
Once I found out that everything fit, I had to paint the pieces. I used a primer/pigment spraypaint, with a couple coats of a clear gloss coat to minimize the occurrence of the paint rubbing off on things.
I simply clearcoated the “crystals” so light could still pass through.
Another modification I made was to the light of the flashlights themselves, by ordering some red filters sized for maglites, so that they wouldn’t interfere with people’s vision at night. Apparently the lenses are a bit vulnerable to heatwarping from the LEDs, but I didn’t think it was a significant enough issue to warrant leaving them out.
Since I knew these walking sticks would also be brought and stored indoors a lot, and I didn’t want to get parents angry at me for damaging their floors, I added little rubbery caps to the end of the walking sticks. Usually these are meant for chairs, but by boiling them and zip-tying them on, I think they were able to stay on well enough.
With that done, I had my semi-final products.
I say semi-final, because these were rather tall for the kids. I got some help from the rest of the family to figure out what height they needed to be, and then cut them down to their final heights for the kids.
I did find out quickly some modifications I may need to make for future versions. With all the lockdown times this year, I realized I still had leftover parts from making them, and started working on a variant for myself, incorporating what I had learned from the originals.
I still have work to do on it, but I think I like it. I need to reprint a couple parts with adjusted tolerances, then paint, glue, and assemble. I’m also thinking of making a connector to hang just this top portion from my belt if I feel like it, as a belt greeblie for cyberpunk costuming.
The tack at the bottom is holding a piece of metal in that positively retains the end cap of the maglite without just relying on the glue, which was a failing of the originals.
If at first you don’t succeed, iterate, iterate, iterate!
If anyone is interested in making their own (of the original design, I’m not sure if my personal one will be posted), the files are located here:
Technomancer's Sanctum 