New member - A few projects

Hello. I'm Al.
About 10 years ago you couldn't go to a garage sale or thrift store without seeing a few old film cameras that had once been very expensive, but we're now unsold at $5.
At one such garage sale I found a Heiland Strobonar three D-cell flash-gun. I haggled the lady down from $10 to $3 because it was Saturday afternoon. I managed not to cackle until I was back in the car.
I kept meaning to make a saber out of it, but never really got around to it until recently when my kid, who will soon be the age I was when Star Wars came out, started to show interest.
So, I hopped on the web and found a lot of great advice and products on this (and a few other) sites.
I just finished three sabers. My Heiland, a plain vanilla PVC for my youngest and a slightly fancier PVC-and-3D-printed-parts saber for my older kid. I'll do a post about each one in this thread soon.
Thank yous to the several years' worth of posters and threads. Things went pretty smoothly overall, even though I used a few of my own ideas.

I started by ordering the 1"OD blade tubes with tips, a nice switch, and a baggie of color chips. My intent was to eventually order the LED assemblies later on, using some cheap ($1) 1"OD 3xAAA 6LED flashlights for testing purposes. http://drive.google.com/uc?export=vi...W02TkdmSHc2NGM
I went to Home Depot and bought the shortest length of 1"ID PVC tube they had (8'), some end caps and couplers, some black and nickel hammered finish spray paint, and the most expensive individual part of these builds so far - a really nice PVC tube-cutting tool.
I brought everything home and cut one end of each coupler at a 30 degree angle with my chop saw, carefully so that the ends wouldn't be sharp.
I drilled the holes I thought I'd need and hung all the parts on wires from a tree in the backyard. The black hammered finish looks great and authentic. The hammered nickel just looks like I polished the grey PVC. I'll go chrome if I upgrade these, or make new ones.
I used my tube-cutter to separate the light assembly from the cheap flashlight and soldered the switch between the battery pack and the light. I now remember how much and why I hate soldering. I have never had enough practice or the right high-quality tools to make it anything but frustrating and literally painful when I invariably burn blisters into my fingers. I dribbled and fumbled decent enough connections somehow, and got it to work. My kid is Yoda sized, so the blade is fairly short, and coincidentally green.
For a basic first PVC build, I'm pretty satisfied.
Youngest kid is also fairly thrilled with it.
http://drive.google.com/uc?export=vi...1ZlNENMaUZ4VHM

While fiddling with the PVC to make the first saber, I noticed that it was almost the right diameter to fill the Heiland handle. A few wraps-around of masking tape proved perfect for making a nice snug fit.
I really didn't want to be the guy who destroyed a nice vintage flashgun just to make an imperfect Vader-saber clone, so I carefully removed the mechanism (which is a very cool brass, steel, rubber, and bakelite affair) carefully and set it and any other parts I didn't use off to the side. I decided not to do anything destructive or permanent to the flashgun, so everything I did uses existing holes or new parts. For instance, I wound up not using the end cap because I would've needed to modify it to work with my lighting solution. Luckily lots of household items come with threaded 1.5" lids. My nearly empty jug of canola oil's lid, painted black, works perfectly for its purpose of holding the ($4, one-inch OD,1xAA, 200-lumen, Cree LED) flashlight in place with the switch mounted to it.
Rather than glue grips to the hilt I wrapped the lower third in leather. Feels and looks great, I think.
The original flashgun mounting hardware is two conical screw-clamp thinggies with penny slots in the heads of the screws. I just moved them close together and offset them 90 degrees from the flat part of the emitter end. I think they're great greeblies, and make as much sense as the MPP box clamp. They kind of look like miniature nuclear power plant cooling towers to me. I love 'em. I will continue to try to figure out a way to make them the switch that ignites the blade.
The picture hanging D-ring happened to have two screw holes the same distance apart as the horizontal cut-outs in the handle, so several birds were slain with one stone. The bolts hold on the D-ring belt-clip, hold the metal and PVC together, and tension the blade inside the PVC. A very useful detail piece.
I am researching how to get Kenner sound into this set up. If I can't I'll survive forever with this custom very use-worn looking saber.
http://drive.google.com/uc?export=vi...FpBdGF5eFVGeWs
http://drive.google.com/uc?export=vi...DNoZ2RCTThobzQ

So the other kid needed a saber too. It started out pretty much like a slightly different paint job on an identical PVC saber with a longer blade for the taller kid. But coincidentally my bosses put a MakerBot Replicator in my work area and told me to mess with it and see what I could get it to do.
So, I got it to make detail and functional pieces for the second saber.
http://drive.google.com/uc?export=vi...01Td1FRb2NkQTg

The parts I made were:
The collar for the PVC coupler that makes it look like an MPP/Vader's emitter end, and a similar but original (non-functional) button panel - https://tinkercad.com/things/5EI6GNyoifk
http://drive.google.com/uc?export=vi...l9lTkZJclVkNm8
The big knob/thumb screw on the flat face is an old black-anodized case screw for a slick gaming PC I never got around to building in the early 2000s.

An MPP/Vader style "switch" box and clamp wrap - https://tinkercad.com/things/10QDGH7apEn
http://drive.google.com/uc?export=vi...nhLVzhuVndSY1k
This box is actually completely hollow and is big enough that it could house interesting electronics if someone was so inclined.

And a plug for the bottom end with a functional button-stud for actuating the flashlight inside - https://tinkercad.com/things/ht9UVE4lqzd
http://drive.google.com/uc?export=vi...jhscm4zdVJjNW8
The plug actually fits better than it looks in the pic. I had to adjust the blade in about 1/8" to account for the color chips, and hadn't put the end back in all the way yet.

Feel free to use or tinker with these 3D models.

I think I like this one as much as my Heiland one, just because of the experience of making the parts myself.

I went to Home Depot and bought some aluminum tape (actual for-ducts duct tape), took all the greeblies off and wrapped the two PVC sabers. It's not perfect, but the real metal looks 100% better than the painted plastic did.