I’m thinking of building Luke’s RotJ Hero lightsaber once I finish my ANH Skywalker, and I wondered whether anyone else has attempted either a hardware store or scratch build of the ROTJ (Hero, V2 or V3) and how they tackled the black/silver grip?
I think Ryan Nagata made on by stacking a bunch of washers together & stuff. It was pretty convincing, honestly. You might be able to find some reference of it floating around on here.
Corrugated washing machine drain hose over a metal tube or pvc core, with either auto pinstriping or metal hvac tape (cut into thin strips) to cover the rings.
I have seen several sabers made from stacks of washers. You could put some kind of putty in-between the rings and finish off with a triangular file.
I too made one like that many years ago but what I used was black Sculpey and baked the entire stack in the oven.
One downside is that a stack of steel washers is quite heavy. Maybe you could sculpt and mould a single ring. Then cast in black resin (or Sculpey baked in heat-resistant silicone mould) and make the metal rings with aluminium tape.