Jedi Herbert - Family Guy Star Wars

[KMIX]

Hey guys, was looking for some advice on creating my Jedi Herbert light saber from the Family Guy Star Wars series.

The "limp" light saber I want to be lighted, and I'm trying to find material for it. The base is pretty easy, as there's plenty of replicas of this, but making the light saber part, and having it lighted is proving more difficult than i thought.

I have some clear PVC tubing, that's the perfect "material", however I can't figure a way to make the capped end, as it's just a straight cut. I would prefer this be a smoked color too, so the LED strip i am going to run inside it wouldn't show, but I can try to paint the tubing.

If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. I'm a pretty newbie to construction like this.

A couple images are attached....

 

[James Kenobi 1138]

I would use the same end caps sold for regular LED acrylic blades in a size to fit your tubing. You could light it with LEDs, string lights, or EL wire.

 

[DizzyStrmtroopr]

or wait til chris walks in and itll straighten back out - just in time! ;P

 

[hansolo2504]

Ha, Giggity!

 

[WhillB]

This is hilarious. I can't wait to see what you come up with :lol

 

[KMIX]

Thanks for the help guys, working on it and should have something in a couple weeks.

 

[Katscan]

I would suggest looking into El-wire as it will provide a more even distribution of light and it is flexible! They also provide a variety of colors so you wouldnt need to paint the tube.

 

[KMIX]

Hey Thanks Katscan, I checked out the el-wire and it's pretty cool! I can only find the very thin diameter though, so I'm not sure how to make it work for something with as large of a diameter as a lightsaber. My tubing now is 1" diameter. So far I've found some paint to use, and I'm still debating as to whether I am going to need the LED's inside, although it would be much cooler if it has them.

 

[Katscan]

KMIX,

So, I found another possible alternative. Its called 'Side Glow Fiber Optic' and they come in a variety of thicknesses. From 2mm to 5mm, well at least the site I did find. Maybe that might help!

 

[ARKM]

For this type of saber blade, you pretty much need to go with EL Wire, side-emitting fiber optic cable or a flexible LED "string". You also need a way to diffuse the light in the blade. Normally this is done with either "blade film" (usually combined with some clear polypropylene gift wrap), a rigid white polystyrene tube that has about a 1/32" thick wall, a white foam tube (like in the Master Replicas FX and Hasbro FX saber blades), transwhite polycarbonate tube or a combination of some of these things. However, since your blade is bent, it might be very hard to diffuse it. As such, you might see if you can find a similar product to what you already have, that is white instead of clear but that will also light up well.

 

[KMIX]

Thanks for all the additional tips guys, I kind of ran out of time for this years event (DragonCon) so had to go without a lighted saber! I'm going to work on this using the side-emitting fiber optic cable ARKM and Katscan talked about, I think that will do the trick. Thanks again guys! Here's what we ended up with. Jedi Herbert and Gordon the Snowtrooper.