DIY Star Wars Windchimes

A few weeks ago we were watching the Return of the Jedi blu-ray, frame-by-frame (don’t ask. We are way too deep into this fandom to need to explain, right?). Anyway, we noticed some WIND CHIMES in Jabba’s Palace. Because he’s classy. So we too thought that we could class up the joint with some Star Wars windchimes. Thus…

Here’s a pic of the wind chimes, in Jabba’s Palace:

The chimes feature little Jabba silhouettes, which mostly resemble little mermaid manatee things.

Side note: While we were at it, we also noticed  that there’s a Taun-taun head on Jabba’s wall (how did the gangster get that from Hoth?!), extras who got dressed in sweet red pleather (budgetary reasons, we assume), and some pretty amazing low-rent background aliens. We of course now want to make a Taun-Taun head to go with our Wampa taxidermy, and cosplay as some of these random background guys.

The actual build time was less than an hour, but with all of the dry time, it took about a day total. What you’ll need:

– (2) 2 feet long PVC pipes
– (4) PVC pipe caps
– (4) 1″ screw eyes
– 8 feet of decorative chain
– 10 feet of Jack chain
– Needle nose pliers
– Sheet of 3/32″ balsa wood (we got it at Joann)
– X-acto knife
– Can of Rustoleum Universal spray paint (we used Flat Burnished Amber)
– Outdoor Mod Podge (optional)
– Scrap piece of wood (7″x7″)
– Dark paint or stain
– (8) picture hanging screw eyes
– Gorilla glue or E6000 or the like

Cut the PVC pipes. Ours were cut to 9″, but this will depend on how big you want your Star Wars windchimes. Also cut some scrap wood to the size you want for the part that the wind chimes hang from. We cut ours 7″x7″ square. Paint or stain the wood. Allow to dry.

Drill a hole in the top of some PVC caps. Screw 1″ screw eyes into the caps. Add a nut or some heavy duty glue to hold the screw eye in place.

Cut lengths of chain to however long you’d like your wind chimes to be. Each of the thinner jack chains will be about the same length, but the decorative chain that attaches the chimes to the wood should vary. To “cut” the chain, you can just pry a link open with needle nose pliers.

Draw a Jabba pattern and then trace onto balsa wood. Cut out the Jabba Mermaid with an X-acto knife.

Lay the PVC pipes, PVC caps with eye screws, and the Jabba wood pieces on some newspaper, to spray paint. Apply a few light coats and allow to dry. Use outdoor Rustoleum type paint.

Attach the jack chain to the bottom of the PVC cap by screwing one link onto the screw and adding a drop of strong glue to hold it in place. Drop the jack chain through one of the PVC pipes and attach the cap.

Screw picture hanging eye screws to the piece of wood. Four will go on the top near the corners. The other four will be attached to the bottom, a little further in from the corners.

Use shorter, even lengths of chain for the top. Attach the chain to the hooks by prying open the last links with needle nose pliers. Then attach all four corner chains together onto one link, forming the chain pyramid top. Later, attach a hanging hook. (sorry, no pic of this, but it’s literally just four chains attached to one link).

The decorative chain also attaches the PVC “chimes” to the piece of wood, so repeat how you attached the chains on top, opening and closing the links with needle-nose pliers. Mind the lengths of the chains on the bottom so the chimes alternate in length.

We wanted our wind chimes outside, so we coated them in outdoor Mod Podge to seal them. You could use any clear sealer. Or just use them inside.

Poke a hole in the top of the mermaids Jabba’s with a screw, and attach the last link of the jack chain (which you again open with pliers).

Hang your new Star Wars windchimes, and enjoy! They don’t make much noise, but they do look pretty cool. If you want more noise, you could adapt this tutorial to use bamboo instead of PVC.