Ok. I did sort of cheat with this one
Its mostly machined from some chromed steel tubing that 1.25" in diameter. All except the pommel area which is some aluminium tube I had lying around.
The curved section is from a precurved section of tube. It was from a Henry Vacuum cleaner replacement wand. The wand is 1.25" in diamter so matched the chrome tube almost perfectly. Only difference is it has a slightly thinner wall.
I cut the tube at the bend to give me 2 identical curved sections. You can do it from 1 replacement wand athough originally I bought 2 just in case. The 2 sections are placed on top of each other, with the top one having the slots cut into it. It gives a similar impression to the real dooku hilt.
The led is offset on its internal mounting heatsink to bring it into alignment with the blade holder/blade. It was tricky but worth it.
Everything else like the joining rings and blade holder was machined on my lathe and mill.
The rear bend was first milled out then a short length of straight tube inserted as I needed to pass wiring through there from the pommel. The area was then filled with 2 part epoxy putty to strengthen it and the recess filed in with a dremel.
The main stength comes from the bottom 'rib' which is why I made it thicker than the real one, I wanted to give it more strength. While I dont consider this a full on fighting sabre like most of mine its strong enough to twirl around and do some light fighting
The pommel contains both electronic boards, the tiny Konlux driver and the MR maul board. As I wasnt using the maul to power the led I removed the connector, the led drive transistors and resistors from the end of the board. I then chopped that section off completely. This was neccessary to allow it to fit in the pommel. Ive designed pcb's for a living before so doing that was pretty easy but its not for the fainthearted.
The batteries are located in the middle section between the 2 curve/bend areas.
Overall Id say the hilt is 5-10% oversized as the real thing is pretty thin. Its nowhere near as bad as most FX's and certainly not in the same oversize scale as the hasbro's. I made it primarily for trooping as Im putting the costume together and its close enough for that really.
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