You can get plastic pipes that look real on eBay for £1.59, hollow out the stem but be careful as the plastic is brittle, slide an ego battery in and then screw on your cart, you can also get curved drip tips to reassemble the pipe, I did this before I bought my e-pipe, its not really a mod more an ego with pipe end, but it did enough for me to go and buy an e-pipe, although I had a week used twice and thought its not for me so have it up for sale or swap
Maybe buy the really cheap plastic pipes to play with, then when you feel comfortable doing it buy one of the slightly more expensive really nice wooden ones to make a proper go of it?
I'd love one of those 7" long stem pipes as a epipe! I'd imagine with the long shaft it wouldn't be too tricky getting the wires/battery etc in place either..