Nightwing's Staff

        This very simple project is a can-do for all fans of DC Comics. In some stories, Batman's sidekick is not the well-known superhero Robin, but is instead Dick Grayson. Known by night as the superhero Nightwing, his weapons of choice are a pair of shock-sticks used as both kali sticks and tasers. The inspiration for this particular project came from the weapon model used in the video game Injustice: Gods Among Us. My reference can be seen here.

Materials Used

• 2 pieces of PVC piping (2' long, 3/4 inch diameter)
• 3 PVC couplings (3/4 inch)
• 2 PVC end caps (3/4 inch)
• Black electrical tape
• Blue electrical tape

Tools Needed

• Pencil
• Tape Measure
• Sandpaper
• Painters Tape (optional)
• Palm Sander (optional)
• Hack Saw (or some other saw to cut the PVC)

First, add the end caps to your two pieces of  PVC. Then measure down 5.5 inches from the base of the cap and mark your PVC with tape (painters tape works great).

Place your marked pipe in a vice clamp with a glove wrapped around it. Doing this prevents the clamp from making marks on your PVC. Make a straight cut with your hack saw at the 5.5 inch mark.

Measure 5.5 inches off of the end capon the second stick. Compare this mark with the length of your already-cut piece of PVC. This is to ensure that both pieces are identical.

Sand down all imperfections and stamps on your couplings and end caps. The pieces should be consistently white. You could paint these if you wanted, but painting PVC is tricky and doesn't work most of the time.

Piece all of your parts together like you see below. Wrap the longer section of the PVC pipe with the black electrical tape. Follow this by wrapping the smaller sections with blue electrical tape. I suggest making these wrappings the same as the taping on drumsticks. For proper instructions on how to do this, you can watch an instructional video here. 

Make sure to take your time, or your wrappings will look more like the front staff compared to the tight wrappings of the back stick in the picture below. Your patience will pay off, as the tighter wrap will give your staff a better grip and feel to it. For the blue tape it doesn't matter as much how you wrap it. I personally just straight layered it with 3 strips of tape.

Now if you are wondering what the point of the third coupling is, it is to join the two sticks together into a staff. This is a characteristic of the video game weapon model, but most versions of Nightwing's shock-sticks are just the two individual sticks.

To create the staff, simply combine your two halves together with the PVC coupling.

Enjoy!

MODIFICATION

I added a second coupling with a small section of PVC to the end of the second stick so that the both of them looked more identical. This was my personal preference, it is not required by any means.