Being a member of the Rebel Legion, and doing charity photobooths with the 501st. in my area, I decided to put together some inexpensive (so I thought!) saber props for use in the photo booth, rather than handing around my $150-plus sabers! I based the construction style off the two Ultrasaber's Initiates I have, and these are what I came up with:
I used some of the 1" curved elbows to build what I like to call "Lil' Tyrants", and added a coupler to simulate a blade emitter. The pommels are simple 1" caps. The writing on them is embedded in the plastic, and doesn't want to come off, so it's staying.
the others are made from straight 1" pvc conduit pipe with a coupler and a cap as a pommel as well:
The above hilts are aproximately 10" long, so they would good for a two-handed grip from a larger child.
I also made a couple for even bigger "kids" to use:
All of these little sabers use a Luxeon I Star led, a 15deg collimator, a Micropuck driver and either two AAA or two AA batteries. The blades are 1" thin-walled PolyC with a single wrap of Corbin film and 4-5 feet of another type of clear film for a "Dual Core Diffusion. " Blade tips are from TCSS, as well as the switches.
Here's how the electronics go together:
Here's how some of them look when lit:
And a group shot of the ones I currently have finished (or close to finished, I still have blades to make):