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I know that, as part of their training, all Jedi were required to build their own lightsaber.

Did Yoda teach Luke on Dagobah before heading to Bespin?

Adamant
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It Grunt
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3 Answers3

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In the book Shadows of the Empire Luke goes to Obi-wan's old place on Tatooine and finds his lightsaber plans. Luke uses these plans to build his own lightsaber. If you compare Obi-wan's lightsaber and the one Luke made, there are some pretty major design similarities.

When Luke was training under Yoda, he already had a lightsaber, so it's not unreasonable that Yoda skipped the 'how to make your lightsaber' lesson.

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    Luke's first light saber was given to him by Obi-wan as an heirloom from his (presumed to be deceased) father. This is in one of the early scenes after Obi-wan rescues Luke, C3PO and R2D2 out in the desert on Tatooine.

    I think he loses that in the fight with Darth Vader, along with his hand. The next time they meet, Luke has turned himself in to Imperial forces and Darth Vader comments on his newly constructed light saber.

    Given the time lapses hinted at by the stories he could have learned the techniques at various points in his training.

     – Jim Dennis Apr 26 '11 at 02:29
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    Yup, Anakin's old lightsaber was in Luke's hand when it was chopped off. –  Apr 26 '11 at 03:12
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    In the Return of the Jedi radio play, Luke also builds his lightsaber in Kenobi's house on Tattooine before the story proper starts. – Goodbye Stack Exchange Apr 26 '11 at 05:01
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    @Keen: It has always bothered me that Vader can't recognize his own lightsaber. He did build it. It wasn't exactly common-looking. – DampeS8N Apr 26 '11 at 11:35
  • @Dampe ok, but if you go there then there is also the question: why didn't he recognize C3PO??? He built him, too (and I'm guessing that took a bit longer) – Sean Patrick Floyd Apr 26 '11 at 13:28
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    @Sean: I can forgive that some, only because Vader never actually sees C3PO for any real length of time where he isn't in 10 pieces. And he is in the shape of any other droid of the same type. It would be somewhat like seeing a car of the same model and color drive down the street, you might not realize it is your car being stolen. – DampeS8N Apr 26 '11 at 13:55
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    @Sean: He may have built C3-P0, but that construction resulted in a droid that was virtually identical (externally) to a standard Protocol Droid. He's even been refinished a bit since Anakin saw him last. @Dampe: It's not like he didn't realize Luke was his son from the start. He knew Kenobi had his saber, he knew Kenobi was there with the boy, he knew the boy's name, he shouldn't have been surprised to see Luke holding his old saber. – Jeff Apr 26 '11 at 14:03
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    If I remember well, Luke built his light saber a few days before the black sun leader tried and failed to kill him. – Johann Blais May 02 '11 at 19:59
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    @neilfein: Same for the novelization, he's done building the lightsaber and putting it in R2 before sending the droids off as gifts to Jabba. – Thom Brannan Jan 06 '13 at 01:55
  • At the end of the Phantom Menace, Obi-Wan uses Qui-Gon's lightsaber to finish Darth Maul. I always liked to think that when Luke goes to Obi-Wan's home on Tatooine to build his saber, he may have found Qui-Gon's old saber there and took the green crystal from it to use in his own. – Mykewlname Nov 01 '16 at 16:21
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There is a deleted scene from The Return of the Jedi where Luke completes his lightsaber on Tatooine.

This was also addressed on the old "Ask the Jedi Council" website.

While Force intuition did play a great role in the construction of Luke Skywalker's new blade, all the necessary technical information was contained in the place where he built it: Obi-Wan Kenobi's hut on Tatooine.

Ask the Jedi Council - Madame Jocastu Nu.

DavidW
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Partly Obi-Wan and Yoda, but mainly the Force

Luke had some basic background on lightsaber building from Obi-Wan and Yoda, but he was mainly guided by his intuition, which of course was a product of the Force:

Luke’s teachers, Obi-Wan and Yoda, had told him only a little of the way a Jedi must use the Force to build a lightsaber.

And yet he seemed to know exactly what he needed to know. Reaching out with his mind, he found the right pieces—some easily purchased, some much harder to acquire.

After leaving Obi-Wan's hut, he knew he had at last collected everything he needed. While our other heroes bustled about preparing for the rescue, Luke retreated into the solitude of a desert cave and puzzled over the pieces... In the end it took not just physical tools but also the Force to put it all together and bring the crystal inside to life.

Beware the Power of the Dark Side!

Of course, intuitive mechanical aptitude is one of the markers of a strong Jedi. Anakin was able to build a fully sentient droid from spare parts, with little formal knowledge of droid design. Ahsoka, during her time hiding from the Empire on Raada, not only fixed a heavily broken machine, but rebuilt it with many of the required parts missing, and then used those parts to help build a new lightsaber. Being almost supernaturally good at mechanical stuff is what Jedi do. Undoubtedly one still needs some background knowledge, but Luke had whatever (probably considerable) general mechanical knowledge he had acquired in his childhood, and an outline of the general theory of lightsaber design from Obi-Wan and Yoda.

He also had many of the parts needed for lightsaber construction, which he found in Obi-Wan's hut:

There, in his master’s lonely hermit hut deep in the Juntland wastes, he found a few things Obi-Wan had left behind that were useful to him... including the missing parts he needed for the construction of his own lightsaber—the weapon of a true Jedi Knight.

Beware the Power of the Dark Side!

It might have been obvious how many of the essential parts fit together from their shape—even more so, with the aid of the Force.

DavidW
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