Star Wars Lightsaber Hockey Sticks

My son plays hockey and loves Star Wars. For fun, I did this simple modification to a couple of old hockey sticks, painting them to represent Luke Skywalker's two lightsabers from the original Star Wars trilogy.

Old wooden hockey stick (or two, or three...)

Saw (to cut stick to proper length)

Sander or sand paper

Paint primer

Latex paint (whatever colors you like) - I used sample sizes of blue, green, silver, and gold from Home Depot

Paintbrush(es)

Paint pens or Sharpie markers

Finish spray (I used Krylon)

Hockey tape, whatever color compliments your lightsaber design. I used a neon green that matched the green of Luke's second lightsaber.

The first step may be the hardest - get yourself some old, wooden hockey sticks. If you are a hockey family, you probably have them laying around. In our case, I was able to grab some for free from the local "swap shop" at our town's recycling and transfer station. Other good options might be picking up cheap sticks at a used sports shop or checking with a local hockey rink for discarded materials.

Note, not all hockey sticks are made from wood, but those are generally cheapest and easiest to work with. I have no idea how well this would work with composite or aluminum sticks. I'd be curious to hear if you try it.

You can also see from the photos that I used two different types of sticks - one was an ice hockey stick with a wooden blade. The other was a street hockey stick with a plastic blade. One for winter, one for summer.

Cut the sticks down to the correct length if they are too long. In my case, I wanted them for my young son, so needed to shorten the sticks. You can find guidance online on how long a stick should be, but general rule of thumb is that it should come up to about the player's chin.

I then used an orbital sander to remove the old finish & paint and cleaned the sticks down to bare wood.

Give the sticks a coat of primer to allow the paint to better adhere.

At this point, you also need to determine your design. There are a million images of lightsabers online if you want to model the lightsabers after those used by particular characters in specific Star Wars movies. As a child of the '70s and a huge fan of the original trilogy, I knew I wanted to make Luke's first blue lightsaber (give to him by Obi-Wan Kenobi, who had taken it from Luke's father, Anakin years before) and his second green lightsaber, which he built himself between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

You'll want to find decent close-ups of the hilt in order to see detail you'll want to include and then get paint (and hockey tape for the blade, if you want) that matches the blade of the lightsaber and the hilt design.

Determine how long you want the hilt to be (in my case, both were about 9 inches long) and wrap tape around the shaft to mark where the hilts end. Paint the hilts the base color (in my case, one was silver, the other gold). I recommend two coats in order to ensure the paint is uniform and make the paint job more durable.

Once hilts are dry, remove the tape and place another band of tape around the hilt where the blade hould begin. Also tape at the blade wherever you want the lightsaber blade to end.

Paint the blades the color of the lightsaber you are making. (In my case, one green, one blue). Again, two coats are best. You can see in this photo that I had just applied the first coat of green and some of the primer could still be seen through it.

Using photos as reference, use a black Sharpie marker (or perhaps a paint pen or, if you're a skilled painter, a small paintbrush) to illustrate the hilts. This part is just about your own creativity.

You may want to personalize the hilts a bit, as I did by adding my son's initials. You can also note that I put two little touches of green/red on the gold hilt, using colored Sharpies. Have fun with it.

Note: make sure your paint is not just dry to the touch but fairly cured, or the oil-based Sharpie may not adhere well. I let the lightsabers dry for several days before adding the hilt designs.

After drawing/painting the hilts, again let the sticks dry for several days. You want to ensure the marker is fully dry before applying any finish or it could cause the design to run or smudge.

I used several light coats of spray finish (Kyron) to seal and protect the hilt and blade. Since the blades didn't need to have finish on them, I wrapped them in newsprint and painter's tape, tied a string to each blade, and hung the sticks from a branch of a tree in my yard. Then, I could apply the spray outdoors and cover the entire length of the stick. It could dry in the air before I applied my next coating.

Once dry, I used green hockey tape to wrap the ice hockey blade. I left the black, plastic street hockey blade alone.

Note that I originally made these back in 2018, although this picture was taken this summer. They have gotten pretty beat up after 4 years of use (the hilts could use a touch-up), but generally have lasted pretty well.

It's unclear whether the Force will be with you as you use these sticks, but I figure it can't hurt. However, you need to live with the consequences if you go to the Dark Side and model your hockey sticks after lightsabers used by Darth Vader or Emperor Palpatine. Still, I'd love to see those - please share your designs if you give it a try.