Star Wars: 10 Secrets Of The Lightsaber You Need To Know
4. What Are The Lightsaber Props Made Of?
In every Star Wars film, crew members had to build all sorts sets, animatronics, puppets, and props for spaceships and robots. By comparison, you'd think making a prop for a futuristic sword was a piece of cake.
But the construction of the lightsaber prop was more complex than you'd assume. The grip of the lightsabers in A New Hope consisted of the plastic of a sliding glass cabinet window. (Some sources say they were composed of the rubber of a windshield wiper but this is untrue.) Obi-Wan's weapon was, by far, the most complicated prop since it was assembled from parts of a machine gun booster, a British Rifle grenade, a jet engine balance pip, and a Armitage Shanks Starlite model hand wheel.
By the time the prequel trilogy came out, the crew thought it would be simpler to use steel and aluminium rods for the lightsabers. Despite being durable, these materials kept bending after being used excessively, forcing the crew to constantly adjust and replace them.
By the time Revenge if the Sith was being filmed, the crew realised that the lightsabers worked better if they were composed of carbon fibre rods laminated with plastic and glass.