How to Build a Lightsaber

Last Updated: 2026-06-11

This is not a precise tutorial. It’s a guide on where to start. I don’t know where you live or what is available to you. You’ll have to figure that out on your own. This guide walks you through the over arching pattern I’ve observed amongst all lightsaber builds.

Overview

1) Collect some reference material. 2) Wander the hardware store. 3) Roughly assemble the pieces. 4) Troubleshoot.

Collect Reference Material

Google images of DIY lightsabers and maybe even official lightsabers from the movies and shows. Watch some videos. Some sabers will seem really cool and others will seem kind of lame. Make a mental or physical note of which is which and how they’re made.

Don’t worry about the exact pieces they use; that leads to frustration when you can’t find it at your local store. Do focus on general shapes and techniques.

Some assembly methods will require tools you don’t have or techniques that, for whatever reason, you don’t like. I leave it up to you to decide what new skills you want to practice or tools you want to buy. Personally, I am a big fan of [following your tools] and working with what you already know or have. As you play with what you have, you will gradually learn new skills and the value of various tools.

At some point, you’ll get bored at looking at what others have done. At that point you are ready to move on to the next step.

Wander the Hardware Store

Remember that this is a creative endeavor and it’s all about your taste and preferences. You can try to recreate exactly what someone else has made, but then there is a right or wrong way depending on the accuracy of the final product and that leads to frustration. Frustration leads to giving up on creative pursuits. And giving up on creative pursuits is a dark place.

Much better to wander and wonder. See what your chosen store has to offer. Put different pieces in your hands. See how they sit next to each other. This may seem daunting at first, but you will have arrived armed with ideas of your own. Try to make exactly what sits in your mind, and when it doesn’t come together, let the pieces you can find suggest something new, something better. Much like how Jedi do not choose their kyber crystal but rather the crystal chooses them, let the parts you find guide you rather than forcing them to fit your own vision.

Flowing with the circumstances helps not just in lightsaber building, but in most aspects of life.

Roughly Assemble the Pieces

By the time you leave the hardware store, you should have a pretty solid idea of how everything will connect to everything else. When you start putting things together, you will find that some things don’t go together quite like you had imagined. Figure out why. Look closely. Decide if the parts are polar opposites and really shouldn’t be together or if they will just need a little bit of coaxing and negotiation.

Troubleshoot

You have by now watched several videos of sabers being assembled. You should have at a least a vague list of assembly techniques in the back of your head. If parts aren’t going together, flip through the list and see what seems doable. Pull from other experiences and don’t be afraid of experimenting. It may take multiple attempts to put something together in different ways before you settle one something you like.

Repeat these four steps and jump between them as necessary. Good luck.

All the best,

Akelas

References

lightsaber ergonomics. Robinswords is a cool guy mostly known for his HEMA knowledge i.e. european martial arts. Here he explains that lightsabers are not ergo at all, but that’s kind of the point.

Darran Robinson’s video (3 minutes). More of a proper tutorial on both assembly and weathering techniques.

Adam Savage’s video (advanced). If you haven’t heard of Adam Savage, he’s one of the guys from Mythbusters. He is a big name in the props and modeling communities. If he’s involved, it’s going to be good and he’s just plain fun to watch! He also has access to tools most do not. I’m listing his video here as something to aspire to. His other videos on prop building may include techniques useful to you. I encourage looking through them.

two dudes playing around in Home Depot. You only see the hilt for a moment. I’m including it here more to show that you might be able to find wooden dowels or PVC pipes to use as blades.

Speaking of blades, in a video I cannot find again, one guy put a string of blue LED christmas lights or similar inside a PVC pipe and it shined through pretty well. He also had a flashlight tucked inside his hilt. Just another option to experiment with.

a YouTube short demonstrating the threaded-rod method of assembly

Emily Tano’s Video (14 minutes). This video is less of a tutorial and more of a girl sharing her journey. She breaks the mold of most of the tutorials by not using the threaded-rod method, but rather uses tape to get a friction fit between pieces. She also demonstrates some weather techniques.

This is not meant to be an exhaustive list. These are just the videos I came across and liked, but they’re a good place to start. Good luck!