Anakin's Sabres

Episode II: Attack of the Clones

When Episode I: The Phantom Menace came ot, many sabre enthusiasts wondered "Why don't any of the sabres look like they did in they original trilogy?" For Episode II, Anakin's sabre bore more than a passing resemblance to the sabre he would eventually wield as a Sith Lord.

Like the sabres in Episode III, some details curiously departed from it's original inspiration. Most notably, the emitter shroud is silver instead of black, and rather than the "ports" on the body of the sabre, it features a recessed stripe with inlaid LEDs. Also, the body of the sabre was smaller in both length and diameter.

The top sabre in the picture is an abandoned first attempt at the Anakin AOTC sabre, which actually started out as the ROTS version. Below it is an in progress version made out of PVC and plastic. It's slightly larger and hopefully will turn out better.

All that remains to be added is the emitter shroud, "bulb release", cell phone button, and the side stripe/LED details.

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith This is a prequelized version of the lightsabre that Obi Wan will eventually hand down to Luke and set him on the path to his destiny. The details are loosely based on the only intact Graflex based version of Luke Skywalker's lightsabre in the Lucasfilm archives, often refered to as the "Ranch Sabre".

Here's my progress so far on my third, and most accurate, version of Anakin's Graflex inspired Episode III sabre. It's built on a 1 1/2" chrome plated brass pipe. The "ears", red button (actually, copper) assembly and shoulder, activation box, and the knurled inset on the clamp came from a Hasbro "basic" lightsaber.

I still need to drill a few more holes in the pipe, fabricate the emitter and a copper dome (which goes where the "glass eye" normally would), and mount the remainder of the scavenged sabre parts. I think it should turn out well.

Anakin Redux

After being sidetracked by an attempt at building an all plastic version, which didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, I decided to revive the original metal tube based Anakin sabre project. This picture shows the ears which came from the Hasbro "light and sounds" electronic sabre. It still needs a bit of work, but it's progressing nicely.

Well, it's done. It's got the usual "errors in tooling" and isn't 100% accurate, but I'm satisfied. The "red button" assembly is little big as it's a knob from an old clock radio but it is CHROME. I've decided to go with a Graflex style clamp, and at the moment have made no attempt to replicate the knurling on the band, though the activation circuit board turned out well. Actually, this is probably the best clamp I've made so far. It is fully removable, so should I ever become motivated to fabricate something more accurate, it's possible.

Plastic fantastic!

Here's another version of the Anakin ROTS sabre. While it looks like metal, there's actually very little on this sabre. Apart from four brass nails, three screws, and a finish washer, it's all plastic (covered in chrome mylar film).