Small Yoda-esque Lightsaber

[Gibraltor]

So I will be building my own lightsaber that's normal size, but my 3-year old son REALLY LOVES sword fighting and lightsabers, so in the near future I want to take MHS parts and build a smaller hilt for his hand size with a smaller blade. So that being said, it would obviously work without electronics, but would a 5 inch-ish hilt work work with electronics as long as I observe internal tube size? Would I just get color? Would I get sound as well?

And no a Hasbro Yoda FX lightsaber will not be considered, because my goal is to grow this lightsaber with him as he grows older (thought that'd be cool!)

I did browse through the search, but maybe I searched wrong. If this topic exists, I will go to that one rather.

[Forgetful Jedi Knight]

5" is a bit small. I think 7-8" would be more realistic. You could do a simple NB build in that.

[Gibraltor]

Nano Biscotte? And ya I quickly found out that threads were everywhere at that size haha. I got an 8.5" one that I think should be good!

[BZWingZero]

5" would be a serious case of cram-fu. Especially if you're doing sound. About the smallest you can reasonably make a MHS hilt is 9" (main body+pommel+blade holder). The diameter of a MHS v1 might also be a bit big for a youngling. MHS v2 is has a smaller diameter, but that increases the cram-fu by an order of magnitude.

For a 3 year old, you may want to think about starting him with a PVC saber, with no sound. It'll be significantly lighter as well. Jay-Gon has an awesome tutorial for them. The PVC saber will probably be a bit more durable for your son. Consider it a padawan saber.

[Gibraltor]

Thank you tons for all that info! I will say that I do own a cheap saber from "thoust site which shallt notst be namethed" and he can hold it and swing it around, not fantastic but eh. THat's why I think just cutting down overall length to 8.5" plus like an 18" blade should suffice.

I will say though, not sure if you have a kid, or adult kids or whatever, but in any case, if my son sees that my saber glows and makes noise and his doesn't, he WILL make me give him my lightsaber lol. So maybe it's not about super functionality at this point. Here's the parts I'm using if you guys want to plug it in.

MHS gear next to pommel
4" double female threaded connector
Pommel Style 2
Blade Holder Style 12

[nathanielreykun]

I'm getting ready to work on a similar thing for my own son, and he's only one right now. The plan is to give it to him for his second birthday, but it may end up sooner, because he does the same thing as your son. Personally, I'm looking into the "cram-fu" game, because while difficult, it's not out of the question. I'm personally going to go ahead and try for a Yoda replica with MHSV2 and some accessories I have, but it will certainly not be easy.

[jbkuma]

If you make it any smaller than 6" you'd have to give up an 18650 for a 14500 at least, unless you are giving less than 2" for blade insertion. That's just math. I think my concern is that I wouldn't give an LED hilt kid that isn't capable of wielding a hilt that small. I'd definitely look into a string or pixel blade, for safety sake. Alternatively make the LED removable or part of the blade. (I've got a setup like this in the works)

[hapki]

Cool.

[nathanielreykun]

If you make it any smaller than 6" you'd have to give up an 18650 for a 14500 at least, unless you are giving less than 2" for blade insertion. That's just math. I think my concern is that I wouldn't give an LED hilt kid that isn't capable of wielding a hilt that small. I'd definitely look into a string or pixel blade, for safety sake. Alternatively make the LED removable or part of the blade. (I've got a setup like this in the works)

I was planning on a 16" blade, probably only in there an inch or so, to keep with the Yoda look, and so he could actually wield it. He can pick up our full-size hilts with 24" and 32" blades, but it is pretty heavy for him, and rather awkward, so I figure a saber with a total length around 21" would be fine. Plus I'll definitely keep close watch on him while he uses it, to keeo both him and the saber safe.

[DarthSkummelavsky]

Are you using prefabbed battery and speaker holder or a series of chassis disk? recharge port or removable battery? Solid wiring or quick disconnects? While JST connectors are very cool, I tend to shy away from them if the saber is going to have a recharge port. The smallest chassis I've been able to build using TCSS chassis parts was ~2.75 in. and most of that was for the 18650 cell I used. Cram-fu was not bad but there was some creative wire routing that had to take place.