Hi all, I'm pretty new to all this stuff, and I just received my first saber. I decided to post a review, at least of the initial impressions and all that. I've only had it for a short time. I also took a few pics w/ my cellphone camera, didn't touch them up other than to crop and resize them.
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I was anxiously awaiting my first ultra-sabers order today, of the Phantom V2 I had ordered just a week ago (nice delivery time). I finally received it this afternoon.
The delivery box was very beat up, and ripped open in the middle, with foam peanuts leaking out and the saber blades clearly visible. Good old UPS, they handle packages with such care. I was pretty worried about possible damage or theft, but everything seemed to be there, and there were only some minor scuff marks that I noticed on one of the blades. Not bad, considered the savaged condition of the box.
I proceeded to assemble the blades, 1st noting that they had come with free batteries, though they had popped out of the holders during transport. I put them back in place, and stuffed a bit of bubble wrap on one side of each holder to secure it for now. I'd heard velcro being recommended for this purpose on the boards, so I resolved to get some later.
I switched each blade on, seemed normal enough. It wasn't the brightest, but looked nice in a darkened room, and was clearly the color I'd chosen: Orange. After that, it was a simple matter to unscrew the individual pommels, and screw on the threaded coupler to form the Phantom hilt.
I ordered the full-sized Phantom, but ordered the blades as the 24" initiate size, but with the heavy-grade and ultra-edge options. I understood that it would have been about 7' long altogether if I'd gotten the full 32" blades, and I'd been afraid that would be too long for me, since I'm under 6' tall (5'8"). The total length of this one was about my height. The blades on this one don't look very impressive individually, and I was momentarily concerned that I'd made a poor choice in that regard, but after getting a look at the fully assembled saber I decided it was a pretty good choice of first saber.
The metal Dominix hilts felt nice, pretty cool looking too. I was thinking it might be a good effect if I painted or colored in some of the grooves with a silver color, might do that later on when I determine the best way to do so. The blades seemed to fit snugly in the hilts. I guess they are removable, but I decided to leave them alone for now, but was nice that the option was there. I'd explore that when I got some blades of different sizes down the road, to try out different configurations. I liked the modular nature of these things, and the fact that I could separate them and wield them as a dual pair of Dominix sabers if I wanted to.
Overall, I was pleased with my purchase, and with its timely arrival, and am looking forward to exploring all of this in greater detail when I have time. I also have some martial arts experience (mostly unarmed, but with a small amount of training in double sword and double stick fighting), and I am looking forward to learning some cool spins and other moves with these things, I'm sure it will help encourage me to get back into training too.
Here are the pics:
edit: Hmm, I am new to this pic posting thing. I have them in a public set on my flickr acct, and did the "insert image" thing, and copy/pasted the links to the pics. Not sure what I did wrong, but they're not showing up.
For now, here's a direct link to the 1st pic in the set on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/s_dunmer/5304735878/in/set-72157625576334333/edit 2: added a pic showing the separated Dominix hilts, one on the right has new batteries in it.
edit 3: added a comedic shot.
