Lightsaber From Old Bagpipes

A few nights ago found me fondling my old cruddy bagpipes. I took the top drone part off and realized that, when held a certain way, it looked a lot like a double-handed sword handle. Or actually, it didn't have any horizontal parts sticking out the sides, so it would have to be a either Samurai sword or its close cousin the lightsaber. And someone threw away all our lightsabers because she thought they were too broken, so...

Here is the bagpipe drone lightsaber! It's 100% upcycled (I spent nothing on it). Please note: I don't think the PVC (CPVC, actually) would scrape the inside of the drone too terribly so as to make it unusable for musical purposes, but I haven't really checked it out. Please do this at your [bagpipe's] own risk. But if you are in the unusual situation of having cheap pipes just gathering dust, why not put them to good use?

- the top part of an old bagpipe bass drone (see the picture)

- 3/4 in CPVC, about 3 ft in length

- 1/2 in CPVC, at least a foot in length

- duct tape (I used Gorilla tape)

- paint, the color color you want your saber

- vice (not pictured)

- hacksaw

- mask for keeping the pvc dust out of you (not pictured)

-sandpaper

Cut at least a 12'' piece of 1/2 in CPVC, cut a 3 ft piece of 3/4 in CPVC, and sand the edges.

Now you can begin painting! I did 3 coats of red on the 3/4 in piece of CPVC (you won't be painting the 1/2 in piece). I also added 2 coats of glow paint, but it didn't turn out well on the dark lightsaber. If you use the colored kind of glow paint, that might work better. A lot of people here on Instructables have good ideas for glowing lightsabers, too.

Note: the vice scraped my paint. You might want to cover the vice in some soft stuff when painting it.

Put some of the tape on the smaller piece as shown in the pictures. Slide it into the bigger piece. Put some more tape on the smaller piece and slide it in to the drone. (The tape is to make the joints stable.) Collapse it enough so the white smaller piece is invisible.

Congratulations, my young Jedi, you have built your own lightsaber. And a very special one at that.

Cheers!

The Phantom Chemist