TOPIC: Budget DIY Practice Saber

Some friends and I are planning to pre-order ASPs, but we only found out about them this week and we haven't got the funds yet. In the meantime, we went down to our local hardware store and bought some plumbing gear to make our own practice sabers.





The 'blade' is a 900mm section of 15mm plastic pipe threaded at both ends. The 'emitter' is a 15mmx25mm connector. The 'grip' is a 200mm section of 25mm metal pipe, also threaded at both ends. There were a couple of options for the 'pommel' - I opted for a 25mm bronze cap (pictured), my 2 friends went with plastic. The bronze moves the balance slightly closer to the hilt.







We also wrapped the grip sections in some material I had left over from another project, which aside from looking nicer than the steel pipe is much more comfortable.





The balance is surprisingly good, I've already learnt several spin techniques with it and it's working quite well. They're also reasonably tough, easily capable of light-medium strength dueling, which is enough for us because we don't really know what we're doing yet

All up they were about $20 each (plastic pommel, bronze was $25ish). Those prices are in AUD, as we live in Australia.

That's a great idea!

Learning/practicing those techniques with a practice saber would take some of the anxiety out of the process. I have had some close calls with mine, and the thought of a $400 saber hitting the ground because I was not being careful enough with it, or attempting a move that I had not yet perfected is downright terrifying!

G'day mate!

Great idea you got there! As Brax says, I'd be a lot more willing to give this a go at spinning than risking a beloved SF saber

Would you mind posting a step by step DIY process? If you could, that'd be fantastic!

Thanks!

Heh, this is the main reason my saber stable is mostly warrior tier.

Great idea Darth Seelius, thanks for sharing!

Maybe I'm just crazy using my Champion tier for practicing basic spins and typical combat kata. For some reason I feel less silly with the thing outside if it makes all the sounds

So far I only dropped it once in the grass when my arm was lower so I was lucky on that!

Thanks guys, glad to be helping

Step by step guide is pretty simple, as all the pieces are threaded and simply screw together. I did list them above but here they are again anyway.

Blade: 900mm length of 15mm diameter poly-pipe threaded at both ends
Emitter: 15mm to 25mm connector
Grip: 200mm length of 25mm diameter steel pipe also threaded at both ends
Pommel: Threaded cap of some sort. Plastic works, I prefer brass as it is a little heavier, which moves the balance point a little closer to the grip. You could go without a cap at all if you prefer the balance further away from the grip.

Also optional (but recommended) is wrapping the grip, as the bare steel pipe isn't the most comfortable thing to hold. That being said, I've never done any spinning before, so if you have you might find your hands are tough enough it doesn't bother you. At first we just did a couple of layers of pvc electrical tape, duct tape would work just as well. I happened to have some left over material from another project lying around, so I wrapped a strip of that over the tape. Do a practice wrap first so you know what kind of angle you want, then unwrap and rewrap, gluing the start and putting in dabs of glue every now and then. Then glue the ends and trim. I also put some electrical tape around the end I finished the wrap just to make sure it stays on. The material makes it hugely more comfortable to hold and spin, and also looks much nicer.

I didn't need to do any cutting or anything, it was just buy and screw together. That being said, some of those measurements probably don't translate exactly to imperial, so if you're working off of the equivalent products measured in inches things might be a little off, which could affect the balance (e.g. you might not get a grip exactly 200mm long).

Also optional (but recommended) is wrapping the grip, as the bare steel pipe isn't the most comfortable thing to hold. That being said, I've never done any spinning before, so if you have you might find your hands are tough enough it doesn't bother you. At first we just did a couple of layers of pvc electrical tape, duct tape would work just as well. I happened to have some left over material from another project lying around, so I wrapped a strip of that over the tape. Do a practice wrap first so you know what kind of angle you want, then unwrap and rewrap, gluing the start and putting in dabs of glue every now and then. Then glue the end and trim. I also put some electrical tape around the end I finished the wrap just to make sure it stays on. The material makes it hugely more comfortable to hold and spin, and also looks much nicer.

That list should give you a bit of a guideline at least, it's easy enough to go into a hardware store and assemble a few variations to see what works for you before you buy. That's basically what my friends and I did.


I hope that's all clear enough for people, if there's anything you don't understand or something I've left out please let me know, I'm more than happy to help

Very clear!

I'll try that around Christmas, I'm afraid I won't have much time before then ...

I guess I technically didn't put a step by step guide in there, so if you really want one, here you are

Step 1: Buy parts as listed above, or as close as you can get/whatever balances the way you like

Step 2 - Optional: Wrap the grip as desired, see above for more detail.

Step 3: Screw the emitter onto the blade - This is actually much easier than assembling the hilt first and screwing that on.

Step 4: Screw the emitter onto the grip

Step 5: Screw the pommel onto the grip

Step 6: Spin!

On my way to home depot right now

One of my friends that also did it has been working on some more cosmetic modifications, hopefully he can post them up soon as well.

Personally cosmetics don't bother me a lot for this, it's just for practicing so it only needs to be functional for me.

Back from home depot

I think this is the best dueling hilt i have right now, first let me make a parts list

3/4 10'' nipple (all these are galvanized to prevent rust)
3/4 to 1/2 adapter
the smallest 1/2 nipple possible
1/2 cap
random key ring for my belt(any ideas for a better one would be appreciated)
3/4 to PEX pipe adapter
5 feet of PEX pipe (figures it comes in red and blue )
a 3/4 pex pipe plug
a small hose clamp
tennis wrap




I just started with duel ended pipe like seelius did, and i kept thinking about the blade when i saw this





its used for pools and stuff, but the push-fit design made it perfect for a blade

next was the pommel, i started with a plain 3/4 cap, but opted for the longer design for balance and the key ring





to secure the blade, and to make it look finished, i used a hose clamp on the base and a PEX plug in the end of the blade, which i thought would fly right out, but stayed in tight after i hammered it in.

Next was the wrap, its just standard black tennis racket wrap with electrical tape on the emitter (because it was too short, and the emitter was too sharp)



Thats pretty much it, fairly simple. thanks for the idea darth seelius, this will come in handy.

No worries, glad it works for you

I'm curious, did you cut your blade down to length at all? 5' is really long for a blade.

Yeah, 3 feet and 2 feet, perfect for a saber and shoto. for some reason it seems, people didnt like my post too much. I thought is was pretty cool, i can do aerial spins with this and not worry. but i guess this just isnt what the forum is about, maybe youtube is a better outlet.

I need to craft myself one of those ...
Can't wait! >

The total was $15 and it only took a few minutes to put together, i think i will try to make a shorter/fatter one some time soon with a red blade.

Nice! My first "saber" was just a 1.2m stick of leftover closet dowel, which I taped like a hockey stick. It's obviously blade weighted being all the same material, but it did help strengthen the wrists when learning to spin

I should try this. I was never really interested in the art of saber spinning except for just watching the videos. Now that I have my own saber, I'm leaning towards learning a few things but I don't want to practice with it. Problem solved.

Heck I just used stuff I had laying around a cardboard tube curtain rod and duct tape i'm cheap lol

Hi Dav,

There's nothing wrong with cheap!

A famous theatre director called Berthold Brecht and his producer Kasper Neyer(?) once said "THE MASTERS BUY CHEAP" cause they got most of their props from thrift stores/junkyards etc!

You're continuing a tradition!

My cheap around the house practice saber (i have yet to break anything)