This is my first try at an accurate replica lightsaber. I attempted the Obi Wan ANH saber, because it was my favorite of all the sabers in the Star Wars universe. I used the licensed Master Replicas version as a guide for my weathering job.

The first build wasn't very accurate to the movie prop. I machined it mostly out of the wrong diameter parts and the wrong materials. I didn't know any better. The original prop was actually the most complex of the original trilogy sabers. The emitter was a Jet engine balance pipe out of a WW2 Derwent jet engine, the windvane and grenade was a WW1 British Mk3 rifle grenade. That was clamped in to a Graflex flash tube clamp, with a bubblestrip out of a TI Exactra 20 calculator. Behind the emitter was a Browning m1919 30 caliber machine gun booster, and behind that, was a british Armitage Shanks faucet knob with a D ring applied to one of the cubes. At this point, I had the Graflex clamp and a replica grenade section.

I couldn't machine the right windvane with the tools I had, so I made an approximation on the lathe, and it worked fine for a while. 

The emitter was also made from scrap, and too small a diameter to be accurate, but I would find more accurate parts soon.

Here's my cobbling of parts together to make the emitter as I had it. I had to machine most of what you see here, but it wasn't "quite" right.

Now At this point I had better parts, but the wrong colors/materials. I found a replica grenade, windvane and emitter, and found an extrusion of aluminum for the machinegun booster. Now on to weathering them to appropriate colors.

The grenade and windvane alternated between being rusted outside and burned in the fireplace.

A few good cycles of this built up enough corrosion and weathering that it started to get close to the aged material I wanted.

After the grenade, came the windvane, which I aged using Birchwood Casey Brass Black, and then the same on the steel emitter. Making sure to get the inner tube darker than the outer one.

I then machined a cone nut to tie it all together to the 3/8 threaded rod that tightened against the sink knob pommel at the base.

Looking at my licensed scaled replica, I am pretty close. The bubblestrip has too many bubbles, and the original had some extra brass screws in places to hold it all together that I am missing, but on the whole, I am pretty pleased with it. I did finally find a steel booster section to go between the pommel and the Graflex clamp, and had to machine a lot of internal spacers to get everything to line up correctly.

After years of tinkering and cobbling parts together and machining bits and pieces, I am finally 99% done with my Obi Wan lightsaber replica from A New Hope

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