Tesla's Walking Stick

[dime_novel_hero]

The original concept for my steampunk sword cane was as if Nicola Tesla built a steampunk lightsaber. I started with a cheap Executive Combo sword cane which had three sections.

First, I attempted to remove the smaller blade in the handle because I intended to cut the cane to add the "power plant." Unfortunately, I ended up snapping it off. It's was a $30 sword cane so I wasn't overly concerned with the loss.

I cut the handle and extended it a bit using threaded rod typically used to run electrical wires through lamps and epoxied to the cane with right-angle grease fittings. I cut the bottom off a plastic bottle to act as the containment area. This increased the overall length by about an inch, which also feels more comfortable when being used as a cane. A couple of bolt caps on the top act as the electrodes with some copper grounding wire wrapped and set in some split bolts. A piece of leather acts as a handle. I have yet to find an appropriately Victorian button or switch to go in the grip.

Last year, I received a Star Wars lightsaber keychain in my Christmas stocking. After stripping off all the extraneous pieces, I had a thin light rod that just fit inside the space vacated by the short blade. I would have preferred to have red but I'll take what I can get knowing that, if I really want to, I can drop a few bucks later for a red one.

The cane still has an 18" blade and while I'd like to replace that with some sort of Jacob's Ladder electrode thing like those seen in Phil Foglio's "Girl Genius", I probably won't be able to do so without snapping off the blade. I'd rather not do that so I may have to settle for keeping the blade.

All told, I think construction cost me around $60.

Comments

[pyrodice1.livejournal.com]

Whoops, I was writing a comment and I navigated off the page before I was sure it had sent.
I was saying: I'm in the proces of making a Steampunk "where's Waldo?" cosplay, and in searching for good steampunk canes, I ran across yours on google images. Since trueswords.com appears to have stopped carrying the model you reference, it's not really reproducible, at least not by me. Would you be willing to sell it, and the red saber bit if you still have both? I'm quite willing to make it worth your while. :D

[dergeis.livejournal.com]

In all honesty, the cane is a piece of junk I would be embarrassed to foist off on someone. The way the pieces are held together after cutting away any structural support in the middle is really a bad design and has come apart several times. Each time I put it back together it was weaker than before and now it is barely passable as a photographic prop let alone functional for walking around at a convention.

But if your really that intent on it, check out http://www.swordsplanet.com/executive-sword-cane-combo.html They seem to still have them.

[pyrodice1.livejournal.com]

Ah! Very nice.
Now I just have to figure out how to do the leather and wirework in a passable manner. :)
I've found the lightsabers now at Thinkgeek. Let's just see if I have the tools to do this job properly. :D
Thanks so much! :)

[dergeis.livejournal.com]

The leatherwork I did was a piece of scrap leather with some holes punched in it and a leather strip laced through like a shoelace. Nothing special there. The wire wrap was the ground wire pulled out of some surplus house wiring and simply wrapped around.

[pyrodice1.livejournal.com]

The buggers didn't stock the cane anymore, so I went a different route. I've posted it on dA:
http://pyrodice.deviantart.com/#/d3av9hn
and closer up as
http://pyrodice.deviantart.com/#/d3av9iu
I'm still happy with how it turned out though :)