Storage & organisation Furniture Textiles Kitchenware & tableware Kitchens Lighting Decoration Rugs, mats & flooring Beds & mattresses Baby & children Smart home Bathroom products Laundry & cleaning Plants & plant pots Home electronics Home improvement Outdoor living Food & beverages Christmas Shop Shop by room The tape will force the silicone to form weird grid patterns unless you really push it into the gaps. To get a cleaner boundaries, I pushed the silicone from the centre of the mound outwards. More tape Hook: Hanging heavy things from electrical cable is not idea. Use hooks to take the weight. A threaded tube and nuts would have been better but I couldn't find any locally.

After searching for some reference pictures for Death Star 2 from Star Wars Episode VI, I sketched out with a sharpie where the damaged sections should be. There's a line of damage that runs across the entire front (below the super-laser) and the whole top-right and bottom-right sections are deeply damaged, concave and exposed. The edge of these damaged areas show the lattice structure of the space station but the middle be indented. Deep damage sectionsIt'd be great if we can cement the optical fibres into the Death Star. However, fibre optic cables (even the plastic ones) snap, break and pull out easily. It might not matter if I used an actual mold (e.g. a ball within a ball) and poured the concrete in...but I was going to be slapping a concrete mix onto the inside of a ball. So I pre-drill the holes and use craft foam to cover them. Then I'll remake the holes with pins after the concrete has been added. For the super-laser a ring of foam the size of the circle was cut and attached. For the inner piece, I pushed various circular objects (bottle caps, cups, etc) into a disc of foam to make marks. I then cut random shapes out along the arc segments and glued it in place. Sealing the foam Winter holidays Furniture Storage & organization Beds & mattresses Kitchen & appliances Home textiles Lighting Baby & kids Home décor Kitchenware & tableware Rugs, mats & flooring Bathroom Outdoor Plants & planters Home electronics Pet accessories Home improvement Laundry & cleaning Smart home IKEA Food & Swedish restaurant Home Accessories Paint the ball completely or work in segments — it all depends on your taste. Lastly, they peeled the masking tape not long after painting.

Transparent Plastic Sphere: To use as the mould. I found a cheap ball for hamsters (~16cm diameter) that splits in half and has a handy access hole. You can usually find plastic balls - I had a similar size one that was briefly full of chocolate pieces... She’s provided a scanned template of the laser in 3 versions. The template was drawn by hand so it was hard to get a clear scan. But you may still be able to use it as a starting point for a template. It fits on a sheet of A4 paper and is meant for the 52 cm diameter version — for the smaller ones you’ll need to size it down.I wanted to have transparent sections in the lamp that let out some light as well as representing the damaged parts of the death star. I thought about using hot glue for its strength but the heat would've damaged and fused the craft foam. It might be possible to use lower temperature glue but I didn't have any to hand. Let me know if you can think of other materials that could be used! I used a 1.5mm drill bit to drill a bunch of holes on the sphere. The grid markings on the surface of the sphere was handy to follow. Since the fibres are around 0.5mm, this hole should be big enough. I kept drilling until I got bored - which wasn't long. Add trench / panels It's easier to work on the inside of the sphere if it's in halves. So first I split the ball...well actually, I dropped it accidentally and it fell apart. I took the opportunity to rip off the plastic tabs holding the sphere together otherwise it would've been annoying to take it apart later. My shell came with handy grid lines on the shell - you can always draw them if they're missing to help with the layout. Super-laser

Plastic Fibre Optic Cable: I got this from a cheap light toy. If the lengths are short and straight, you can use clear fishing line too although it won't be as bright. I drilled the big hole a little above the equator for the super-laser. I duct-taped both inside and outside to stop the plastic from shattering/splitting. Using a hole-saw bit means that you can reuse the circle of plastic as the super-laser. This circular offcut was flipped over and hot-glued into place. Sketching the damage outlines Drill & Bit (1.5mm) & Hole-saw bit (54mm): To make holes. Also to cut out a circle to make the super-laser part. PVA glue & mold release: To seal the foam. For the release, I used a bike chain lubricant spray though some other oils should be fine. The closer the tape is to the surface of the shell, the more visible it will be when the light shines through it. I didn't cover the deep-damages sections (areas with the hot-glue mounds) with tape yet.I cut a bunch of optical fibres (from a cheap led lamp thing) into lengths of around 4cm - longer is better because we can trim them later. I've read that some glues (e.g. super glue) can heat the fibres and damage them. I added a dab of wood glue on the each hole and pushed the fibres through. Having a light inside the sphere can help see where the unfilled holes are. Note: This would've been a really good time to fit a threaded tube where the electrical cable can pass through. I couldn't source these tubes locally so decided to leave it for later. Filling the walls Who hasn't dreamed of owning a half-destroyed battle station made of concrete that functions as a light? Anyone? Okay, so it's not exactly practical but it was fun to try to something new.