How to make a Luke Skywalker replica lightsaber

As far as replicas go, this is pretty easy. It has a few parts and requires some patience, but it’s 3 sheets of paper and tape.

The finished prop (with electronics) will be around 1-meter-long and use an authentic-looking diatium power cell (although you can use anything from crayons to steel wool if you prefer).

Don’t let the lack of shiny parts put you off – this is an amazingly cool prop to show people. I have included several pictures taken at different angles so that hopefully, everyone can follow along with ease.

My replica lightsaber is also a bit unusual in that it can be taken apart into 3 pieces for storage or transportation (the bottom of the handle un-twists to reveal the battery compartment, the pommel unscrews to reveal the switch and LED mount, and finally, both halves of the handle can slide off – you need to remove these sections to install the electronics).

The hilt can be made from anything that looks like it might be metal – an old smoke alarm, an aluminum cooking pan, or even some aluminum tubing (not steel – see first note below). A few centimeters of insulation on the end of the tube are required for this to work.

Steel tubing doesn’t work – it has too much magnetic permeability, so you won’t get sparks.

The tube itself is not the most important part of this design, as you can see from the pictures. The insulation on end is – what you use for that depends on your personal preferences and how well it looks. You could use anything from an old kitchen utensil to a piece of electrical conduit or metal tubing with some saran wrap over the end.

The rest of this write-up will be based on a smoke alarm as the base since these are cheap and have a great front section that looks cool. The original Luke Skywalker saber used a silver-grey metal can with three protruding bolts (nice touch), or you could use any number of other designs.

The only specialized item is the diatium power cell. This is an AA battery, but it will run for several hours on one charge with a much larger capacity. Make sure you get one that takes AAA batteries; there are several different kinds.

Don’t use anything else – it will be too heavy and unwieldy or not run long enough. The diatium cells are very cheap (under $5 for a cell and charger) and available in most places that sell electronic components. Don’t worry if your saber doesn’t look like the one shown – as long as you use a power cell.

It’s best to put the paper together in two steps – firstly, cut out all the pieces and tape them together into their three sections (hilt, pommel bottom, pommel top) and then tape the three sections together.

The emitter section has been painted silver for photographic reasons – it will look better if left raw. The actual paint used is Metallic Silver by Testors (available in most good hobby shops). This section can be made from a few pieces of aluminium or steel, but the best thing to use is kitchen stainless steel. It has the right look, and you can get it at any supermarket for about $3.

If you do this, remember to make the emitter tube a little bit longer than 8cm – 4cm is not enough to allow you to screw it onto the saber properly.

The battery compartment of the smoke alarm I used is 9cm x 6cm, which is plenty big enough for an AA cell. The smoke alarm will need some minor modifications before it’s ready for the saber circuit.

Start by taking the front section off – it pulls away from the back with a bit of a tug, bends it outwards slightly to get it over the lip on the back panel. Once it’s free, you’ll be able to see inside. There will probably be four little metal straps holding the wires in place across the back of the speaker compartment – these need to be bent out, so they don’t interfere with the battery cover.

The front panel lifts off easily at this point, and you’ll see all the circuit components inside.

They will sit nicely on a shelf inside the smoke alarm, just a little loose – this is no problem. The cover for the smoke alarm compartment is attached with three small tabs around the edge, so it doesn’t have internal clips either. You can cut these off or bend them inwards – they don’t do anything anyway.

The speaker will need to be taken out – it should lift out quickly once the front panel is removed. Don’t remove the little round circuit board on its back – we can re-use this later to close up the compartment once everything else is finished.

The speaker compartment is the one on the right, without the front panel. You can see I’ve cut off two of the three tabs holding it in place. The little round circuit board on the speaker’s back will be used later to close off this compartment when everything else has been finished – don’t remove it!

The first thing you have to do is drill a hole in the smoke alarm for the emitter tube. This has to be done quite carefully, so you don’t damage any of the other components inside, and it can’t be too big – about 1mm diameter will do nicely. The best way I found this was with a sharpened paperclip that I heated in a flame and then pushed through the hole – this made a nice clean hole without damaging anything else. Finally, it’s a great idea to add a bit of hot glue around the emitter tube where it fits into the hole – this will ensure it doesn’t vibrate loose over time.

Once the tube has been inserted, it’s not a bad idea to go around the edge of it with hot glue to make sure it doesn’t wiggle loose over time. I used clear nail polish at first for this job but found that regular Krazy Glue works just as well, and you get larger quantities for less money.