Ok, this is for those of you in the trade outlet who asked for a tutorial on how some of us were making the shaft covers out of the colored aluminum straws they sell at 7-11. These things are awesome and very sturdy and very vibrant and frankly, friggin amazing shaft covers!
So far I know they work on JLF’s and LS-56 and LS-56-01 shafts… Others were using them for JLF’s and I bought some to try out on my ls-56’s and they work like a charm.
So first off head to your local 7-11 and pick up some of these:
Second if you don’t already have a Dremel tool or something else that can make straight cuts into metal then you are going to need to go buy something that will… I for one have a little dremel tool set that I bought at a local hardware shop for only like 6 to 10 bucks, I cannot remember exactly. But it came with all the tool bits you would need for LOTS of jobs, not just this. So it is a good tool for any stick modder to own. Here is what mine looks like:
Here is the bit that you should be using to cut through the straws, be patient and try to cut as straight as possible.
Now take your existing shaft cover if yo u have one and line it up on the straw with the area you want to use and either mark it or just remember the spot, cut a tiny bit below that mark or spot to make sure you have the proper size. The area you cut out disappears into tiny metal flakes so you need to compensate
Cut is done, now use the flat surface of the tool to kind of smooth it out to a perfect flat surface, not sure if this is the proper way, but hell it works for me.
The finished product:
The colors 7-11 has this summer are: Purple, Pink, Blue, Green, and Orange. I believe last year they had black and red but they don’t seem to this year I guess. So head out to your local 7-11 and stock up because once summer is gone they won’t be around anymore. It is an easy mod and very well worth the 99 cents per straw. You can easily make 8 shaft covers from one straw if you don’t mind the Slurpee text and copyright text on just a few of them… Others will be completely text free though.
Have fun with this and enjoy awesome looking shaft covers! Peace. Also thanks Fireatwill for throwing this idea out there.
Was thinking about it, don’t know if people would be interested enough though to warrant going through the trouble, I’m sure a lot of you over seas people might since I’m assuming you don’t have 7-11’s there?
With the bat top in place its pretty snug the thing stays in place while the shaft spins, but I think with a ball top it will have a bit of play, it slips right over the ls-56 shaft very nicely… Its basically a PERFECT fit to be honest.
By the way man I absolutely love your sticks and the cab you are building! I was going to ask you if you wanted to be a part of an article I have coming up for Kombo.com and possibly the front page here and I would feature one of your cases in it that I will build for the article to give you exposure etc. Actually it would be nice to have someone who builds sticks over seas in the article as well… If you would be interested at all PM me or something and maybe we can work something out? Basically its an article about SRK and you guys the modding community and all the cool stuff a multitude of people on here offer others. I’ll be featuring a lot of peoples awesome work and letting the world know where to go to buy the stuff You can also email me at caseyjones(at)kombo.com
I just tested out a ball top on the shaft I cut earlier and it does indeed have some play in it, it spins freely around the shaft but does not move around at all, so its a perfect fit for a ls-56 shaft at least, I don’t have a JLF so I couldn’t tell you about that but others say it fits perfect on a JLF as well so I’m assuming they have the same type of shaft.
I would be happy to be part of the article you are going to be preparing. Please send me a pm as to what information you need from me and I can send it over.
I was thinking about doing this. However, I let the cat out of the bag too soon. I have 16 straws sitting next to me, about to go cut them down.
I don’t think these can be made to fit the LS-32 shaft. According to this tutorial, the LS-32 shaft is 10mm in diameter. The 7-11 straw’s outside diameter is slightly smaller than 11mm, and the material is 1mm thick.
Kind of a dumb question, but is there a practical reason for a shaft cover? Is it just for aesthetics? Also, do they fit over Happ/IL joysticks, I only have Eurosticks in my boxes.
I can’t see any practical reasons for having a shaft cover. I have a stick that doesn’t have one and another that has one and I can’t really tell any practical difference. They are pretty much there to look nice.
