We got the Archon as our Free Saber for the recent give away. It’s a PVC model and as such a little part of Ultra Sabers history that I was not a part of the first time around. Since I would not have ordered one as a grab bag I am happy to have gotten one for free. It’s really interesting to see where the company has been.
It’s much thicker than either of the aluminum models we have, the Prophecy and Initiate. As you can see from the pictures it was a little beat up, but since the destiny of any PVC saber we got for FREE was to go to my almost three year old that is actually a bonus. I know a guy who has keyed the last two new cars he’s purchased as soon as he got it home, “just to get it out of the way”. Ha!
My favorite part of the design is the emitter. I really like the big wide mouth. You can see in some of the pictures that the ring itself is on pretty wonky, which is probably the cause of its factory second, FreeSaber, fate. It’s also got some bubbling on the black coating right above the final ring, under the emitter. I bet I could cover that with just some acrylic, but like I said above, this thing is pre-keyed for a three year old. ;-)
The blade sits well down in the hilt, and comes out a definite angle. You can see that better below than above. I tried to line up the hilt parallel in the frame so you could see how much it diverges. Over a full 36” blade it travels out of line quite a bit. I'm sure there's plenty of ways to fix this, but, let's say I'm unmotivated given its family use niche. ;-)
The off center ring and the blade kink combine to give it sort of a 50’s sci-fi retro look which I kind of dig, like the Tomorrow Land rocket ride redux at Disney Land!
The blade is held in by a MUCH larger set screw than the modern hilts. It locks that thing in tight. Even with the 36” blade it goes nowhere. I actually sort of like the ultra positive feel of the grip you get with this huge screw. On the little ones since you’re sort of digging into the tube when you screw them in, there’s a lot more play as you tighten it. On this big boy, when you get it tight, you damn well know it. True, it’s massive and breaks the lines on the thing, and with all the fancy new gorgeous metal models they’re making now they just wouldn’t work. But, there’s something to be said for old fashioned utilitarian sturdiness! Below is a comparison of the set screws with Killian’s Initiate.
The Archon was sent to us red. I was left unsatisfied with how I wrote up a portion of
my Prophecy review. So, this time I’m breaking down the review of the “color” into Brightness and Hue. In my previous review I came off as somewhat contradictory trying to reconcile both facets of the blade in one concept, and it just doesn’t work. There’s two components to how the thing looks, and they need separate treatment. I’m going to back and rectify that on the Prophecy review as well. So:
Standard Edge, with and without flash:
Please pay special attention to how deep the red tone is on the standard edge compared to the ultra. It can’t really be overstated how beautiful this color is.
Ultra Edge, with and without flash:
All the pictures are with 24” blades as they show off the color best. This blade when lit is magnificent. The hue is a deep, dark bloody red. It destroys our MR Vader’s red. There’s nothing really to compare other than this one is an amazing burning red, and the other one sort of tries. A little.
I’ll sum up my subjective opinion thus:
HUEStandard Edge: 10/10
Ultra Edge: 8/10
BRIGHTNESSStandard Edge: 9.5/10 (I think the green might be the tiniest bit brighter, but, if at all, not by much.)
Ultra Edge: 8/10 (Fuller, but… duller? They just don’t do it for me.)
As a neat little side effect of the little rings cut in the material, you get a nice bright embellishment beneath the emitter showing off the blade’s color.
Finally, I want to show off my favorite thing about the hilt. The big wide mouth emitter, when combined with a standard edge blade, has a distinctly ‘realistic’ light sabery appearance to where it emerges from the hilt. The diameter of the emitter, combined with the perceived thinness of the blade looks wicked, sinister:
Cool huh?
So to sump up, I really like the hilt. There’s no mistake that Ultra Sabers has come a LONG way in terms of quality of construction. The new aluminum Initiates / Aeon / Dominix / Standards are just so awesome, I don’t really see anyone exactly preferring one of these old PVCs. You might expect it to be lighter and perhaps more maneuverable than say the Initiate, but it is actually noticeably heavier. However, as a grab bag, and certainly as a FreeSaber, you wouldn’t be disappointed. This guy sure as hell is not:
