Hey everyone. So this is my first post so I thought it would be appropriate for it to be a review of my first saber. My first saber I decided to go with the grab bag since I honestly cant pass up a mystery and I have a need to customize things. I received, less than a week later, my Standard Issue Blue Anodized Hilt with Fire Orange blade. I paid extra for the blade and also to pick the color since i was reeeealy wanting the FO. So begins my review!
HILT- 9/10
I will start off by saying this hilt it AWESOME. Although I am a guy who like my hilts to be in more of a silver variety, the quality in making this piece is great. The anodizing itself is really well done, it is colored on the inside as well. I am not so much a fan of the colored sabers (sorry guys) so I did end up taking a dremel and sandpaper to the hilt (I really felt bad about it) and I can tell you the anodizing is VERY well done. I received the version with vertical lines also so I think it adds a lot of detail to the hilt.
The length of the hilt is comfortable for one handed style but also long enough to pull off a two handed style (like me). The only 2 things I don't like about the hilt are the color (which i sanded off) and how smooth it was. And by that I mean that the hilt was one flush piece with lines carved out. This does work out well for me since I love attaching greeblies to my hilt and it will also work well with others who like adding wraps. I had initially planned on putting a wrap on my first saber until I saw the great looking vertical grooves in the hilt. Then I decided to switch up my plans so I didn't cover them up.
I had inititially thought that the button pertruded too far out of the hilt to be comfortable, since I have added some greeblies and my grip tape it fits quite well with the rest. I will say though if I were to keep the hilt as it came, I would like the button to fit in a bit smoother with the hilt.
BLADE- 8/10
Ok so I am combining the brightness of the blade and the blade review itself into this one section. Right off the bat I knew this blade was well constructed. I went with the Heavy Grade NON ultra-edge. I had heard from others on this forum that the Fire Orange looked better with the standard rather than ultra-edge style. The blade I received was very thick and sturdy looking and although I haven't quite bashed it too had yet, I believe this blade will stand up against anything you can do to it. Honestly anything short of taking a hacksaw to it wont affect this blade in my opinion. It seems that strong.
The color of the blade is very nice. Before I even heard of Ultrasabers I knew I wanted a Yellow-Orange type pf blade and it just so happened that they carried that exact color! I am in love with the color of this blade. Although it is not quite a standard color in the Star Wars universe it is a very well thought-out color.
The brightness of the blade is the only reason I am giving this an 8/10. Although in the right light the blade shine wonderfully, in any kind of sunlight the blade is sort of lackluster. Since I really don't have any other colors to compare to I can't make a completely honest judgement on it. The brightness issue might be solved with a switch to the Ultraedge blades but at this time I don't have any to check. I believe my next purchase will be either with the Guardian Blue or Violet Amethyst so I will go with the Ultraedge blades on that and I will have a more comparative opinion of the brightness. That being said, without the blade the saber make a HELL of a a good flashlight. DO NOT SHINE YOURSELF IN THE EYES, as I found out the hard way lol. The LED itself is very bright.
I will say that since I asked for the heavy grade blade I received the 36" blade. Now for a lot of people this would be perfect but for me it is a tad too long. even for the roughly 12" hilt. I prefer my blades to be a bit shorter and since I didn't know you could specifically request the blade to be cut shorter, I will be attempting to cut a few inches off my blade.
Overall I am extremely pleased with what I received. I think the Grab Bag is great for someone like myself who NEEDS to customize his hilts and a great deal for the price. I have owned this saber for roughly a week now and have done numerous modifications to it so I plan on posting my updates to the customizations page.
So to recap. ordered Grab Bag, received Standard Issue Blue Anodized, love it, great for customs! Now for a couple pics (since it was a basic hilt, I will only show a couple of pics of how I received it) and since I forgot to take pics of the blade color before I took the sandpaper to it that I can show in my customization post... ok at this point I realized pictures or kind of complicated to add so I will just add IMGUR links to the couple of pics I took (sorry to people like myself who are too lazy to click on things)
http://i.imgur.com/6eGxY.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/FMBGN.jpg
