Concave complexity

"After an evening of milling, drilling, and tapping, I got the three 4-40 support rods evenly spaced, the three LED holes set, and the channels for the wire. I also had to keyhole mill the slots for the crystal," Lewis says on his blog.

The "radiator fins" for the crystal chamber differ from those of Lewis' previous designs, which usually were kept circular. These domed fins closely resemble the internals of Obi-Wan's lightsaber, but creating each piece took a great deal of effort.

"It's a process that involves facing off the brass rod, using an end mill to cut my three-eighths internal hole, setting up the radius cutter, getting it in the right spot, making my concave radius, taking the radius cutter off the tool mount, setting up the part off tool, parting off the blank, facing off the back of the blank," Lewis says on his blog. "Rinse and repeat four times (or more) and then I have to transfer my hole pattern from the crystal mount to the blank. Once I am done with that, I have to flip them all over and cut the convex radius."

Lewis then cuts those circular pieces into half shapes as seen here.