How to make Jedi food capsules

A key part a prequels and Old Republic Jedi utility belt are the food capsules. They are never really discussed in the films, but the small metallic cylinders clipped to the belt are meant to hold food and energy capsules. These are pretty easy to replicate using pens, but I tried slightly different method using the stylus pens. They have the advantage of already being aluminum tubes, and in some cases you don't need to apply much paint.


Materials
-Stylus pens
-Metallic spray paints (gold, silver, copper, bronze)
-Enamel clear coat spray paint

Tools
-Dremel with cutting wheel
-Sandpaper

1. Gather the materials
The materials for this project are pretty easy to come by. I found these stylus pens at Five Below, $5 for a pack of ten. Although I've done this project with normal pen caps, I think these stylus pens are closer to the shape seen on-screen, and the clips are less likely to slip off the belt. I already had these paints and the Dremel.


2. Cut down stylus
Although the general shape is correct, these stylus pens are of course much too long for a Jedi food capsule. I used my Dremel's cutting wheel attachment to cut the stylus down to size, using the length of the clip as my guide. This makes the capsule about 1.75 inches long. I used a scrap of sandpaper to remove any roughness leftover from cutting.


3. Emplace stylus points
Next carefully remove the rubber points from the ends of the pens and place them in the ends of the capsules. They seemed to fit well enough, but if not you can always use a bit of superglue to ensure they stay.


4. Paint
Using metallic spray paints of gold, silver, bronze, and/or copper paint the capsules. I hung them on some string so I could paint from different angles and avoid having it stick to the painting surface. Use multiple light, sweeping coats to ensure all sides are covered.


5. Finishing touches
Once the paint is dry finish it with clear coat enamel to protect the paint.


And there you have it, another way to create easy and pretty accurate Jedi food capsules for the utility belt.

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