Since getting Speedia 500 G2 Universe Road Rocket in-hand her IMHO under-arming has niggled me, sure, some 3Ps have put forward some repro pairs of sai in blue but not a one has taken a punt at a modernised homage to the original G2 "light saber weapon" (Robot Masters version pictured as example as the blue picks out the details better). I went on a LEGO parts hunt and discovered the TECHNIC Circular Saw Blade but in-hand that proved too massive... ...unless used as shield-shuriken. My search for circular saws had also thrown up THIS part: The Ninjago Techno-Blade, and I had initially dismissed it as being too small as I could tell it was scaled for LEGO minifigures. Seeing how the Circular Saw was just way too big for purpose, and as I was intending to try constructing something closer to the G2 weapon anyway, I thought why not use that rest of it's construction to expand upon a smaller part instead? I realised in even a relatively small Deluxe like Road Rocket's hands it would be quite short for a bladed weapon, dagger-ish at best, and something with more range would be better for a shorter/smaller combatant, and that's when it hit me - your classic 80s ninja action flicks weird blade on a chain weapons would do it! IF LEGO did an appropriate trans-light blue chain to match, that is. Luckily they do/did, and after a bit of research I decided to construct a weapon that hybridised the "Light Saber Weapon" with the kyoketsu-shoge for the full ninja affect! Of course I also tried it with the large blades too as I figured I could head-canon these "light/energon" weapons as a bit Green Lantern-y morphable. My initial plan was to mod one end of each LEGO chain from a lateral peg port to a linear one to have the blade in line with the chain instead of at a tangent to it, with the stock shuriken acting as the "iron ring" end, plus a 5mm 1/2 pin with a 3mm core as an optional handle grip. However after the first conversion I wasn't happy with how risky the conversion turned out to be (having lost the starting half-link to snapping during the mod). One Bricklink search later I found that the LEGO minifigure-scaled chainsaw blade came in trans-light blue, and created the lateral-to-linear shift entirely non-destructively! I wasn't sure it would work but I like the idea that with the chainsaw "handles" the whole weapon keeps the saw vibe going, and kinda implies that only Road Rocket can hold the pointy end meaning her energon weapons can't be easily used against her by an opponent skillful/powerful enough to catch them. I later realised I'd fixated on keeping the attachment 3mm peg cores for the techno-blades' handles the same size as the docked chainsaws to fit inside the friction pin 1/2 handles so, whilst they fit fine at first, after a wee smidge of superglue tightening topside (the open opposite end on the pins turned out to be a bit looser/spinny) the extra friction meant I needed a tool longer than the docked chainsaw posts to pop them out and in, so unnecessary extra faff had been created. Cue the sudden revelatory solution to clip down a wand to 3mm pegs again BUT this time use the actual pin length as the template, clip them to size match, and THEN the 3mm posts on the chainsaw bits automatically shove out enough for the Techno Blades to peg onto, making the weapons' full functionality totally self-contained. Why I didn't think of this earlier I have no idea but the elegance of the solution is enough to ameliorate the minor annoyance that I didn't! And when not being used as grips the blade handles have handy stowage 'round the back! NINJA!!! I was so chuffed with the results that I cross-posted the finalised Road Rocket chain blades on FB on the TFUK & Reprolabels group pages, as well as on the UK thread, and this weekend got a somewhat blunt "Pics in alt mode?" comment on the Reprolabels posting, and I didn't even deign to reply to it as it wasn't something I was at all bothered about - the design brief to myself was pure "Do a cool Ninja weapon, hang the stowage"! I mean, as I thought to myself, the multiple pegs in use just wouldn't fit on the four available 5mm ports on that alt. mode - only it turns out with the stock shuriken in play there are six ports that can be used in conjunction, and some 3mm posts to mess with, and that makes it entirely possible for one to fudge a rather Boudicca-ish "Attack Mode" for the lady bike ninja! The only issue I have now is: What do I call these things? Cyber-Shoge? Cyberigama? Answers on a postcard, please?
Dang. How much shopping around did you have to do in order to get all those parts? (in other words, how much of a pain in the ass would it be for me to get my own copy of the relevant LEGO bits?)
I spent about £18.00 between 4 sellers on the peer-to-peer LEGO site Bricklink, I'd advise looking there, it depends on where you're based, and how common the parts are in your nearest national "marketplace", given the scale of the US, if you're based there you might be able to rack everything up between less sellers? The £18.00 isn't strictly solely for the chain weapons here, as I bought some spares, as well as experimental buys like the huge shuriken and bits for other customs along with some of the necessary parts, it might be a cheaper construction in some markets if one just runs with 2 x Techno Blades, 1 x wand/lightsabre blade, 2 x or 4 x 21-link chains (2 is the minimum, 4 let's you extend them), and 4 x TECHNIC Pin 1/2s (again it might be more economical to get 4 of the same colour, say, the blue to best match the trans-light blue parts, instead of the mixed red & blue I have used here). Depending on availability one might find it easier/cheaper to go for a different trans LEGO colour depending on the availability in your region.
Not bad but AFAIK "Kama" actually means "Sickle" which doesn't sit quite right with the Techno blades' shape to me, however you sent me back to kusarigama "chain-sickle" but as they aren't sickles to me I thought I would take a note from the original "light saber", because ultimately etymologically "sabre/er" means "tool to cut with", I could run with 鎖セイバー Kusariseibā, "chain-sabre" with apologies to any Japanese speakers if that is not grammatically correct (I note that the combination of "chain-sickle" seems to change "Kama" to "Gama") I would gratefully receive any grammatical correction for the right way to spell/construct the term. I think I'm happy with "Energon/Laser/Light Chainsabre".
