My opinions on blade length and width

[Galef]

http://youtu.be/PtGS0CU1kAI

[SirLiftaLot]

Good info! I’m waiting on my saber staff, and I got handles that are ~24” together, and 24” blades, to make ~6’ total length, which is about my height, which is a good general rule of thumb from my martial arts background in terms of staff length, and also matches the advice from a martial arts review channel that got it in the standard blade length and said that the standard blade length was too long. I also think this can be a major issue for indoor use with standard ceilings, as it’s pretty easy to hit the ceiling with my normal 6’ wood staffs, forget staffs approaching 7’ in length. With a 6’  blade you can at least do SOME things indoors, but with a 6’-6” to 7’ blade I can’t imagine being able to do much indoors without being SUPER careful.

I guess if you’re going with shorter handles/hilts that are ~19” combined, then 28” blades brings you to 6’-3”, which is still within reasonable height for a 6’ tall person. Question for you, what handles/hits are you using for the saber staff? With longer hilt lengths you’d be pushing ~6’-8”? But I guess running 28” blades when you split it into 2 savers as opposed to 1 staff may look more “normal” than 2 24” blades I suppose.

But so far I’m only basin this on martial arts wooden staff experience, as I’m still waiting on my saber staff. And some disciplines of martial arts do admittedly use longer staffs, so I guess there’s no single definitive right one size fits all length.

Edit: I'm basing the general rules on the martial arts of Tae Kwon Do and Karate. No idea about others, but I have heard of some disciplines using 7-8' staffs, but they seem to be rarer.

[Galef]

Also keep in mind that the blade typically goes about 2" into the sabers.
So my Apprentice V4 staff is 22" when coupled, plus two 28" blades, minus ~4" blade insertion = ~74" or 6'4"

You 24" hilt with 24" blades will NOT be 6" because of the ~2" of blade insertion for each blade. So you're getting a total 5'8" saber, which isn't bad, but a bit short for my taste.

I forgot to mention in my video my golden ratio rule.
I like my blades to between 2-3x the length of the hilt after insertion. So a 10" hilt should be between 20-30" of blade from emitter to tip.
Any less is too short, and more is too long

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[SirLiftaLot]

Also keep in mind that the blade typically goes about 2" into the sabers.
So my Apprentice V4 staff is 22" when coupled, plus two 28" blades, minus ~4" blade insertion = ~74" or 6'4"

You 24" hilt with 24" blades will NOT be 6" because of the ~2" of blade insertion for each blade. So you're getting a total 5'8" saber, which isn't bad, but a bit short for my taste.

I forgot to mention in my video my golden ratio rule.
I like my blades to between 2-3x the length of the hilt after insertion. So a 10" hilt should be between 20-30" of blade from emitter to tip.
Any less is too short, and more is too long

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Ah, that makes sense about the part of the blades sitting in the hilt, thanks!

I’m 5’-10”, so 5’-8” would actually be perfect from a purely martial arts perspective, since a lot of top-level competitors use staffs a little shorter than themselves.

I also opted for the longer hilt just to maximize the area I can hold the staff, since some movements don’t want to hold the staff at the center.

So if I went with 32”, the staff would have been 7’, which is way too long IMO, and even with a ~20” hilt, 6’-8” is still super long.

US didn’t have 28” blades as a standard option, but 28” blades on the hilts I have would have been 6’-4”, which still would have been tall for my taste, although a 19” hilt with those blades would be 5’-11”, which is great, but I think I’ll appreciate the longer hilts from a functional perspective.

I do think that blades being 2x the length of the hilt as the lower end makes sense from an aesthetic perspective, but I’m sure the 24” blades on the 24” hilt will look fine as a staff, even if they’re functionally only 22” blades now that you mention it. And I guess having a slightly different look to my staff than normal ones is unique, and I like unique from a story/character perspective.

And I’ve seen some saber pike style weapons in EU-type material have long hilts and short blades, so I’m sure I’ll be happy with my choice.

[SirLiftaLot]

Also keep in mind that the blade typically goes about 2" into the sabers.
So my Apprentice V4 staff is 22" when coupled, plus two 28" blades, minus ~4" blade insertion = ~74" or 6'4"

You 24" hilt with 24" blades will NOT be 6" because of the ~2" of blade insertion for each blade. So you're getting a total 5'8" saber, which isn't bad, but a bit short for my taste.

I forgot to mention in my video my golden ratio rule.
I like my blades to between 2-3x the length of the hilt after insertion. So a 10" hilt should be between 20-30" of blade from emitter to tip.
Any less is too short, and more is too long

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US says that the Apprentice V4 staff is ~19” with a standard coupler. Is that dimension wrong, or are you running some long coupler?

[Galef]

US says that the Apprentice V4 staff is ~19” with a standard coupler. Is that dimension wrong, or are you running some long coupler?

Oh the 19" is correct for the standard coupler but I use the QR coupler which adds a few inches

Good reference on the longer hilt though. I wasn't even considering things like saber spikes which should naturally have a longer hilt relative to the blades.

Initiate that was what I was going for too and got 24" blades, but since I have a "average" length hilt, I decided to bump them up to 28" instead

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[SirLiftaLot]

Oh the 19" is correct for the standard coupler but I use the QR coupler which adds a few inches

Good reference on the longer hilt though. I wasn't even considering things like saber spikes which should naturally have a longer hilt relative to the blades.

Initiate that was what I was going for too and got 24" blades, but since I have a "average" length hilt, I decided to bump them up to 28" instead

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Thanks, that makes sense on the coupler! So if I wanted to push the overall length of my saber from the 5'-8" it's likely to be to closer to 6', and get the QR benefits, I could pick up a QR coupler I guess.

28" blades sound like a solid choice for the hilts you have! And I'd imagine they look more like normal sized sabers when uncoupled too.

[Galef]

Really any of the non standard couplers would work. Most of them add 2". Only the standard coupler adds nothing because it fits completely into both hilts.

I've done a review on some of the couplers US offers:
https://youtu.be/zXE4OLBn1vQ

[SirLiftaLot]

Really any of the non standard couplers would work. Most of them add 2". Only the standard coupler adds nothing because it fits completely into both hilts.

I've done a review on some of the couplers US offers:
https://youtu.be/zXE4OLBn1vQ

Good to know, thanks again! Definitely learned some new things here.

[SirLiftaLot]

Oh the 19" is correct for the standard coupler but I use the QR coupler which adds a few inches

Good reference on the longer hilt though. I wasn't even considering things like saber spikes which should naturally have a longer hilt relative to the blades.

Initiate that was what I was going for too and got 24" blades, but since I have a "average" length hilt, I decided to bump them up to 28" instead

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Just wanted to update. I got the sabers in, and they're awesome. The QR coupler is great, and makes detaching and reattaching the hilts much faster, which is also great for storing them in a smaller area than the entire staff. BUT I encountered a hiccup when using it with one hand. With two hands, each hand is slightly offset from the center, so the slightly larger diameter of the coupler isn't really a major deal, but when using the staff with one hand, that hand is in the exact center, mostly resting on the coupler, which can be a little awkward, but not necessarily a deal-breaker when just practicing lightly. But then when spinning a bit faster with one hand, I guess the gripping of the coupler and the quick rotation/movement of the staff resulted in the blades becoming decoupled, and one of the blades sort of went flying a bit. So for more serious practice, I think I'd stick with the standard coupler.

[DarthProdigal]

So if I went with 32”, the staff would have been 7’, which is way too long IMO, and even with a ~20” hilt, 6’-8” is still super long.

I'm pretty glad I checked back here, I glanced at this topic but never posted anything. I have the same type of double bladed lightsaber on order as Galef basically (just the Dark Side variant). Although I did opt for the 32" blades. I'm a little taller that SirLift and laughed when I read his calculations because it's spot on for what I did to myself. I'm sitting at a total weapon length of 6' 7". I decided to go longer initially for 2 reasons I hope pay off. 1st extra reach/not losing reach when sparring someone with "standard length" blades. 2nd I'm more comfortable using them separated anyway so I wanted my first set of blades to be longer for when I'm using them as independent lightsabers. It'll certainly mean getting used to holding my full weapon at a slightly higher point, and learning to use it in careful relation to the ground, but many people here also say you can cut blades down as desired (but I couldn't add length if I ordered shorter ones right off the bat.) So I guess time will tell if it works out as expected but happily I seem to fall on the high side of "Galef's Golden Rule" meaning I don't think I went too crazy with it. Having watched Sir's videos I always wondered why the blades seemed shorter than I thought at times... now it all makes sense. Really helpful topic. In retrospect I guess Darth Maul may have influenced my decision making more than I thought.

[SirLiftaLot]

I'm pretty glad I checked back here, I glanced at this topic but never posted anything. I have the same type of double bladed lightsaber on order as Galef basically (just the Dark Side variant). Although I did opt for the 32" blades. I'm a little taller that SirLift and laughed when I read his calculations because it's spot on for what I did to myself. I'm sitting at a total weapon length of 6' 7". I decided to go longer initially for 2 reasons I hope pay off. 1st extra reach/not losing reach when sparring someone with "standard length" blades. 2nd I'm more comfortable using them separated anyway so I wanted my first set of blades to be longer for when I'm using them as independent lightsabers. It'll certainly mean getting used to holding my full weapon at a slightly higher point, and learning to use it in careful relation to the ground, but many people here also say you can cut blades down as desired (but I couldn't add length if I ordered shorter ones right off the bat.) So I guess time will tell if it works out as expected but happily I seem to fall on the high side of "Galef's Golden Rule" meaning I don't think I went too crazy with it. Having watched Sir's videos I always wondered why the blades seemed shorter than I thought at times... now it all makes sense. Really helpful topic. In retrospect I guess Darth Maul may have influenced my decision making more than I thought.

Galef's video was very helpful and informative, as usual. Great minds think alike on the calculations I suppose. If you're taller than me, and plan on using the staff as separate blades a good portion of the time, I think you made a good decision. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for when you get it to see how you like it! I do have short blades AND a long hilt, so the blades can seem shorter than you'd typically expect, as each blade is more or less the same length as the total hilt length.

[DarthProdigal]

Galef's video was very helpful and informative, as usual. Great minds think alike on the calculations I suppose. If you're taller than me, and plan on using the staff as separate blades a good portion of the time, I think you made a good decision. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for when you get it to see how you like it! I do have short blades AND a long hilt, so the blades can seem shorter than you'd typically expect, as each blade is more or less the same length as the total hilt length.

I absolutely love my double bladed lightsaber as is. It is NOT easy to learn how to use by any means, and takes legitimate strength to wield for hours on end with it's overall weight. I did finally remove the blades and measure them to confirm they are 32". I doubted it only slightly because the initiate I received had a 36" blade, making them look puny in comparison. I say this simply because I ordered what is considered "longer than standard practice" saberstaff blades but then see my single blade lightsaber and it's just remarkably longer... too happy with that fact, but it always gnawed at my mind somewhat by doubting I got the proper blades originally. I think it's fun as heck to use the staff as is, and hope it proves as beneficial as I'd plan in sparring. But in my mind the up side is when I inevitably purchase a more "traditional" blade length staff for that 3 blade project in progress... it should feel light as a feather, and transition like butter after all this training. Everyone should try out a saberstaff at least a little at some point to get a feel for how different it is than a traditional lightsaber IMO. It's terribly enjoyable.