I would try to do as much as I could out of metal, if I made this saber.
I think the hardest part is finding aluminum tubes of the right sizes. You could use a
tube of real metal to line the wood wall on the inside.
I am designing guts for my Obi-Wan lightsaber, so I have some thoughts and finds that I could share.
Design
I'm thinking the reason for having a handwheel as a pommel is to allow it to unscrew easily - The handwheel would hide a slot for a replacable power cell.
I think most of the electronics should be located at the "clamp" section. The electronics modulate the energy that is fed into the primary crystal.
The hero prop had a circuit board inside the control box. There is a picture of it at
Parts of Star Wars.
In the
Visual Dictionary, you can see what looks like silver metal rings as part of the "Cycling field energizers".
I think it would be cool if these were lined up with the ribs in the ribbed handgrip.
Another interpretation would be that the brass "neck" and "wind vane" is the field energizer.
You could put a cone inside the emitter, like people believe that Obi-Wan's saber has.
Other sources of inspiration:
Mechanismo
Clone Wars
Wookiepedia entry on "Lightsaber" (see also related pages)
Parts
You can get tiny brass and copper tubes in hobby stores that have RC models.
You can get tiny gold-plated brass tubes and gold wire in some jewelry stores, such as those that sell beads and crystals. They are actually not as expensive as you would think at first, and you will not need much of it. You don't have much space which to put it in anyway.
I found brass cogwheels in old 70's 80's toy cars (but first do a web search to check that the toy is not a collector's item
).
Small circuit boards packed with components can be found in more recently built toys.
I found pieces looking like "cycling field energizers" on throwing darts, although they were much smaller than in the VD.
Brass lamp parts are also nice.
Good luck, and don't forget to share pics of your progress.
/ Johan
