Thought for the Day
15 Replies
Category Archives: Announcements
This Party’s Over, Count.
Like heck it is. It’s after midnight, so I can show off my birthday present:
Seems appropriate, since I feel about as old as Dooku anymore, lol. Still, this party is just getting started, despite Mace’s protests. 😀
I got this thing over a month ago also, but had to be good and keep it boxed up until today. Unless you are one, you have NO idea what it’s like asking a redhead to be good that long, lol. It was ordered before it sold out or the price went up though. My Mace Windu one has already gone up $50 in value since I got it. Oh, and YES, I took it out of the box:
Running gag now I know, LOL. As I said last time, a true fan HAS to take it out of the box.
As with the Mace Windu saber behind it, the detailing and construction are fairly nice. With the shape of the hilt requiring the speaker and battery pack to be in the butt end though, the balance is not as nice as the other saber. It’s tail heavy… alot.
The blade isn’t as vibrant a red as I’d like either, BUT it’s better than the Windu’s lavender, trying to be purple blade, lol:
I’m going to have to find a different place to display it. The stand does have tabs in the back to wall mount it, so that’s a possibility.
The iPhone 11’s camera night optics made for a funky darkened room picture also:
NOW, that despite the blade looking perfectly red to the naked eye, LOL. In “Star Wars: The Old Republic” that would be a ‘hot orange or fire orange’ kyber crystal. My Sith Assassin uses one in her double bladed lightsaber:
One of my favorite blade colors also, BUT definitely not authentic Dooku.
Overall, it’s an awesome new toy / display piece. I just wish the balance was better. Dooku’s hilt is designed after a modern competition fencing foil (which has actually evolved even further into a ‘pistol grip’):
While that may look awkward, it actually provides less wrist strain and quicker reaction times than a traditional straight handle. Between that and Christopher Lee’s lightsaber style as Dooku being very crisp and smooth, I had high hopes for this lightsaber. It’s still very nice, it just didn’t quite meet my very high expectations. It’ll still be a wonderful addition to the collection however. 😀
OH yes… For those of you who wondered why Anakin REALLY killed Dooku:
As for the rest of the day… Garth said it best:
Time to Take Up Arms!!!
Well, that ought to scare the hell out of the people monitoring the internet, LOL.
Nothing sinister or violent planned here however. The shell for my first lightsaber finally arrived from Ultrasabers.com today.
Any good Star Wars geek should recognize this as Jaro Topal‘s lightsaber that was inherited by his apprentice Cal Kestis, protagonist of the game Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order. Well, technically the restored version from about 2/3 of the way through the game. 🙂
“A Thing of Beauty is a Joy For Ever” – John Keats
I only ordered the shell at this point because the things are pretty pricey if you buy a nice hilt and quality electronics. Anywhere from $500 to $1000. Hilt designs tend to sell out quick and then half the time the companies will just move on to different designs.
Long story short, I wanted this hilt while it was still around, AND I’m going to have to build mine piecemeal since money is limited.
I did, however, get the plug for the emitter array that you can use when you don’t have the polycarbonate “blade” installed. I got the belt clip as well.
So, now I need the L.E.D. emitter array, the polycarbonate blade, the sound board, power switch and battery pack. Also to find my soldering equipment to put them all together when the time comes.
For those of you who are curious, the thing is fairly beefy, as the second picture shows. It’s made of aircraft grade aluminum and is 1/8″ thick (or about 1/2 cm thick). What caught me more by surprise is the overall size. Granted, by lore, this thing was created and carried by a Lasat originally, but… The thing is 16 inches long and as thick as one of the old mag light flashlights carried by police that used D Cell batteries.
It looks even larger in the picture since it’s sitting higher up than the tape measure in the picture. At any rate, it’s big enough to be the hilt for a Zweihänder. I was thinking of getting two of them, connecting them together and making a dual bladed lightsaber staff; something along the lines of my final lightsaber for Jedi: Fallen Order:
Between the handles and blades, I’d have a saber over 8 feet long if I did though, LOL. That gets just a little unwield-able. Clearly an alternative design will have to be found for such a staff.
Now, for those like Joanne (how can you not love somebody who names her blog ‘JediGirlBlog’? 😀 ) and Master Mandalorian who may be drooling over this goodie… Let me give you all a brief education.
Buying a Lightsaber:
There are three major companies that make these mock ups (as well as a few others who are really small and/or dying out). All three make models designed for rigorous dueling. There are hobby dueling leagues out there too! All three manufacturers have various blade color options, OR you can buy a multi-L.E.D. emitter that will let you change your blade color. Changing colors also takes one of the higher end sound boards, as those control the L.E.D. emitter also.
The three major companies are:
In terms of durability, they all seem to be fairly comparable. There’s a lightsabers reddit where you’ll find fans of all three. The general consensus is that they rank in other details of quality in the reverse of the order I have them in.
Ultrasabers: makes good sabers overall, and their premium sound board may be the best on the market currently. They get knocked on reddit for being heavy and unwieldy by duelists, and occasional quality issues as well. They’re also the most affordable, particularly for their very plain style hilts.
Note here: If you might be interested in dueling for fun, weight and balance make a HUGE difference. I’ve taken traditional fencing classes myself and learned this first hand. The sabers that the school had for student use were very low end. When I bought my own from Leon Paul in England, it made a massive difference. I was suddenly much faster and more accurate. Angled handles on foils (like Count Dooku had on his lightsaber) help even more.
SaberForge: Makes sabers that are said to be a little lighter, thinner so as to be easier to grip, and better balanced. They cost on average about $100 more for something comparable from Ultrasabers.
Vader’s Vault: These are the Rolls Royce of lightsabers. Everything is top of the line with serious attention paid to every detail. You pay for it also. Some of the features they offer, like removable covers to display the lightsaber crystal chamber, just can’t be found anywhere else.
OK, well, Disney does THAT at Galaxy’s Edge, BUT those sabers are Toys R Us quality compared to what’s offered by any of these three companies.
Styles:
All three companies offer designs based on lightsabers seen in various parts of the Star Wars franchise. Everything from various movie lightsabers, and sabers from The Clone Wars and Rebels, to styles used in the game Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Kyle Katarn’s saber from the Dark Forces / Jedi Knight games. Some custom designs as well. You may have to shop around between the three to find exactly the style you like. Saberforge had the saber I bought, for example, but only the damaged hilt version used early in Jedi: Fallen Order.
Overall, after doing some pretty extensive research, I’d recommend SaberForge as a first choice. The way you can get leather wraps and powder coating as well as the slightly better balanced hilts just make them a slightly better option than UltraSabers. I like that if you want to build your own, that SaberForge has a wide array of individual hilt parts also. They are who I’ll be using to build a custom saber staff.
Of course, if money is no object, shop Vader’s Vault, lol.
As an added note, both SaberForge and Ultrasabers offer individual parts to kit bash your own unique blade together. I do *NOT* know how cross compatible their parts are however. Some of UltraSabers’ entry level models have hilts that won’t accommodate their own mix and match parts also.
One last thing: These companies all pretty much hand craft to order. Even my empty shell took 3 weeks to get. Patience is a virtue. I’ve heard of some orders taking months to be completed, with Saberforge and Ultrasabers both having iffy reputations for their customer service departments. Depending upon who you talk to, they either both stink or are amazing there. Forewarned is fore-armed.
And even if you’re just buying a piece at a time like me, it looks excellent sitting at the Silk Cords command center:
Memorial Day
Personal stories await, but first there’s an important national holiday that needs to be acknowledged. 🙂
Memorial Day marks the traditional start of summer here in the United States. The last Monday in May is about so much more than picnics. Memorial Day was originally created as “Decoration Day” to honor the fallen soldiers on both sides after the U.S. Civil War.
The Civil War remains the war with the most U.S. casualties to this day, at 755,000. That’s more than the totals for the rest of the top 12 U.S. wars casualty list combined, which includes WW2, WW1, Korea and Vietnam. Sadly, most of those deaths came about not due to combat directly, but due to disease, wound infections and similar “co-morbidity factors”.
As time passed, the day’s name was changed to Memorial Day, and it was expanded as a day of remembrance for the fallen of all wars. It was finally made an official holiday in 1971, over 100 years after the end of the Civil War.
Veteran’s or Armistice Day vs Memorial Day
Most folks don’t know the difference. Veteran’s Day here in the U.S. or Armistice Day in much of the rest of the world, commemorates the end of World War 1 on November 11th. At the time, it was the bloodiest, largest war in human history and there were hopes that it would be the “War to End All Wars”.
While Veterans or Armistice Day is a day to remember the service and sacrifice of all service members, Memorial Day is specifically dedicated to those service members who paid the ultimate price.
So, as we go about the day, running from sale to sale, and picnicking, stop for a moment and remember the fallen members of our armed forces who have paid the ultimate price.
Silk Chatters 