Saber Forum

Sorry if this has been covered, but I couldn't find it using the search.
I've seen plenty of videos testing the durability of midgrade blades. It seems they are fairly stout and can take a beating from light sparring.
Certainly not heavy dueling like Heavy grades as they seem to be more bendy.

But is that as true for a shorter blade? Less length should mean less leverage and thus less pressure causing it to bend.
I don't plan on heavy dueling at all, but I'll be sparring with my teen sons, so the occasional hard hit may occur.
My Jedi character uses paired shoto-style sabers that can couple as a short staff and aesthetics are a bit more important to me. I use Consular green and want UE blades for the fullest color, but UEHG seems like it would dim.

If I don't use the HG, will the shorter length of my blades make them more durable than full length blades?

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HG doesn’t dim appreciably, at least not to my eyes. 

The only HG blade I've seen to be noticeably dimmer was a 40". And not by a lot.

Interesting. I've seen a few vids in which the HG, specifically UE wasn't the ideal choice for brightness.  My current pending order has regular HG already, but I plan on making an order later this month (hopefully as soon as my first order arrives) in which I plan on getting and UE midgrade to compare for myself.

If there's noticable difference in brightness between the standard HG and UE midgrade, the brightness will win for my purposes (wish I had ordered Tri-Cree but I was penny pinching at the time)
I'm just wondering if I'd be sacrificing too much durability. Again I do not intend to do heavy dueling, just light sparring and spinning. But i know drops and accidentally hard hits will occur.

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It’s polycarbonate... the same stuff that likely protects your car’s headlights, assuming a post-2000 date of manufacture.  Even at 1/8” thickness, the likelihood of you BREAKING a 1”-diameter tube is pretty small.  Of course it’s possible, and it has been done, but it’s more likely to happen from repeated stresses, strains, strikes, and blows, rather than a single massive hit.

24" Mid-Grade will flex. I have 16" ones that flex.

That said, unless you're actively trying to break them, durability won't be an issue.

I will give my standard warning thought: Do NOT, under any circumstances, use acetone on polycarbonate.

Well now I have to see what that does. Maybe it we ever do break one I'll try it out.
But good heads up.

If you really want to see what it does, take an old CD, put some deep scratches into it, and put some acetone on it.