Aww what a pity- I was looking forward to seeing that work out. Even my roommate, who does a lot of costuming electronics, is saying that that many LEDS shouldn't have been melted so easily- high temp hot melt shouldn't even be phased by 100+ LEDs, much less only 40. Maybe the LEDs were being given too much current?

Oh no it's the LED that were damaged as I applied the hotmelt glue

Since I was hopping for a more even pour over my first attempt whice was simply a lot of work with a glue gun I melted the glue in the oven.

And when I poured it onto the workings of the blade it seems to have damaged the LEDs

Ahh, I see now, and my roommate agrees. Sometimes it's better to do the holtmelt gluegun to 'encase' the wiring and LEDS so that there's a buffer zone for when you pour the rest with oven-speed stuff. It would be more dependable perhaps. And with resin, the only down point I see is that ALL resin yellows over time. You can, however, mix in some dye that will make, say, a lovely sinister 'blue' effect for the end product. Resin also has the issue of you having to 'suspect' the lights, which can be a pain with so much to 'flop' such as wiring and such. I'll have to experiment myself a little with your ideas on how it's done- I could make a nice 'power sword' for a 40k-ish display piece... Hmm.

Maybe if you'd use fiberglass resin instead of hot glue? Maybe it wouldn't bust your leds. But it's just an idea like that, I haven't tried it yet myself.

I'm planning on using clear cast resin next time. It's just a lot more expensive that way.

I'm just wondering if using resin would mean I could use far less Leds since I'm guesing light would flow through a resin blade better then a cloudy hot melt blade

The problem will be that the leds will be clearly visible as well. Maybe you'd like to color the resin a bit.

Actualy the oven was set to 500 degrees to melt down the hot glue

see thats the thing I'm wondering
I'm planning on getting some blue resin dye but I was also wondering if I should even bother imbeding as many leds as I did with this one I was thinking with the clear cast It might be better to set a line of leds to project down the blade rather then simply filling the blade with leds

Oh. Yeah, with resin you shouldn't need as much leds.

Yikes...well each mistake is a lesson learned ^_^

yeppers

I just wish I haddent lost the LEDs too

NOOOOOOO! Well least you can make a new one soon

Clearcast would definitely be a better choice, though as the resin and hardener do their thing, there IS some heat generated, though not the nearly 400 degrees of hot melt.