Greetings, fellow enthusiasts! I hope someone out there can help me with a vexing question I have.

I recently acquired two Qui-Gon hilts on eBay, both supposedly made by HK Larbel. One is solid aluminum and has a socket for a blade, but no room for electonics. The second one I bid on precisely because it was billed as "EL-ready." The black shaft of the hilt is made of a hard plastic and can be disassembled. There is a little room in the upper end of the hilt for electronics, but the red button is just a plastic screw, and the lower portion of the grip (the scalloped "energy cell" section) is solid.

Does anybody out there have experience in mounting an EL blade in one of these hilts? I've never seen one with a working blade. I own a Larbel-like Obi-Wan Ep I & II with an EL blade, but I can't figure out how anybody would mount the works for an EL blade in the Qui-Gon grip. The space available is small and the red button is actually in the solid part of the handle, so replacing it with a switch would be tough. Has anybody attempted this? Would it be possible to perform "radical surgery" by drilling a channel in the solid half of the lower, scalloped part of the grip? [?] [?]

Thanks for any help or advice anybody can provide. I'd love to have a working Qui-Gon, but have very little idea how to modify the Qui-Gon hilt.

--SteveWindu, Jedi Arms Master