This is a lightsaber originally purchased from SaberForge as a "blank" (meaning no electronics inside).  While the saber is quite attractive, it wasn't the most comfortable, and I wanted to change a few things to add my own flare as well as functionality.  The saber was a single piece of aluminum making it difficult to work on, so it was cut in half in order to house an internal chassis and replicable Li-ion cell to power the saber.  After sanding the edges of the hilt for added comfort, a derlin tube was added to the back end to form a new grip.  This was shaped into an hourglass, and had linear grooves carved into it to appear as if it was made of ivory or bone.  An extra hole was drilled into the saber for a crystal reveal chamber, which is common for high end lightsabers.  The internal chassis was assembled out of nesting aluminum tubes and cut with appropriate grooves and windows.  The crystal chamber was made from brass and copper tubes encasing a real sapphire crystal, which is back-lit with an LED.  The saber is powered by a Nano-Biscotte, a mid range sound card which provides an adjustable sound bank for the saber as well as regulating power for the high power LED.

 

A full build log can be found here:

http://www.fx-sabers.com/forum/index.php?topic=43764.msg584798#msg584798