Welcome.
It's always good to see a new member with a decent amount of common sense making a saber for such a great reason.
I personally haven't used the reflector, as i'm quite a fan of the 5deg dispersion from the optics. I'm sure you could come up with something that would work, even as a temporary measure that could be upgraded later when the cash flow is a bit better.

I did have a comparison shot of EL vs LED, but I can't find it at the moment.
The closest I can do is MR FX Vader vs Lux3 LED, but it's not too bad a comparison as the MR's are brighter that EL, & the Lux3's just mop the floor with even that!!!



They all had fresh batteries in, and you can barely see the red as being on. Hope that helps a little!