I did not make the Sith Acolyte lightsaber shown in this thread, but instead purchased the hilt from a shop called “Holocron” on Etsy here. At the time of purchase, this was the only Sith Acolyte saber being offered by any sabersmith, and right out of the box it was a nice-looking hilt. As sabers go, however, this is a project saber in need of some serious upgrading if you want to use it for anything other than static display.
Here’s why I say that. The hilt comes with an LED powered by two AAA batteries, which looks decent when going blade-less with a blade plug (shown in photo below, but sold separately elsewhere)…
… but is way too dim for any sort of life-like lightsaber effect when used with a polycarbonate blade. It does not come equipped with a sound board, and does not include a blade, so battling Jedi out of the box is not an option.
The maker’s attention to detail is spot on as far as accuracy and aesthetics go, with all the right accents, hilt features, and weathering effects in all the right places. One thing that surprised me however, is that the black stripes running horizontally from the middle ridge towards the pommel, as well as the band going around the middle ring are not grooves cut into the hilt as I had thought from the maker’s photos, but are actually decals made from a material suspiciously similar to black electrical tape. While something like this is not a deal-breaker for me, it does take something away from the elegance of this piece.
The cap with the D-ring on the pommel ...
… is entirely for aesthetics It can be popped off to expose an activator switch located awkwardly inside the removable pommel fitting (the metal activator switch on the hilt itself is actually a dummy), and can then be loosened with an allen key (provided) and removed to allow access to the saber’s innards.
Without permanently epoxying the cap into the pommel insert like I did, however…
...you cannot hang the saber off a belt on its D-ring as it will not support the weight of the hilt.There is plenty of room inside the hilt, so sound and LED upgrades are definitely possible as we shall see shortly.
At the other end, about 2 inches into the emitter sits a red LED module (not sure what make or model), which is as previously mentioned, powered by 2 x AAA batteries. I purchased a blade plug from The Custom Saber Shop to cover this up, as I wanted to keep this saber a blade-less configuration for display purposes.
Shortly after getting my hands on this saber hilt, I went ahead and purchased another one from Holocron with intent on turning this copy into a fully functional combat saber. When the new hilt arrived, I noticed that it was an inch longer than the previous version, with slightly different overall component proportions than its predecessor. This was not an issue at all, and more of an observation, really.
I removed the dummy metal activator switch, which is epoxied on and can therefore be easily be twisted off with pliers…
...and drilled a hole large enough to accommodate a screen-accurate red button switch.
I purchased a V3 Super Plus red 2xLED string blade/sound module from Makoto Tsai - an extremely talented bladesmith from Thailand who makes the brightest sabers in the world, and installed this into the saber. I then drilled a hole into the middle of the hilt for the recharge port which comes with the Makoto setup...
…and installed the Makoto guts into the holocron hilt. The two LED strings cannot be detached from the main board in this particular saber, so this saber would feature a non-removable blade. The LED strings slide into a white open-cell foam tube, which is then fit into a clear polycarbonate tube. Makoto’s blades actually come with 1.25” blades; the foam included is quite thick, and completely diffuses the light to a beautiful uniform blade glow. However, since I wanted to use the LED strings in my 1” saber Holocron hilt, I ordered an 1” foam tube from Makoto, and an opaque blade from The Custom Saber Shop to reduce the so-called “corn on the cob” effect that was now visible due to the thinner foam.
The combination of new opaque tube and foam diffused the light sufficiently to make the blade look great, albeit slightly dimmer than it would have looked in Makoto’s original clear blade tube.
Even though I love the Makoto V3 Super Plus sabers for their brightness, scrolling activation/deactivation and the gentle pulsation effects, I am less fond of their on-board sound. The sound effects triggered by blade motion can be slightly out of sync with actual movements, which can confuse the senses. Also, the sound board being monophonic, can only play one sound at a time. This means that any new sound that is triggered will cut off anything that may already be playing. On the V3 Super Plus board, the lightsaber idling sound is not mixed (or layered) into the cutting/buzzing/blaster deflect waveforms, so when each of these effects is triggered, the lightsaber hum loop literally cuts off, the new sound byte plays from start to finish (usually fading out to silence), which then re-triggers the idling sound loop. I couldn’t get used to this “stop/go”, “on/off” lightsaber humming issue, so chose to disable the speaker and go sound-less.
Check out my Sith Acolyte gallery section to see the saber in action.
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