[Review] SaberForge Arbiter aka Woooohoooooo

[Etherealicer]

REVIEW FURTHER DOWN

What can I say... the girly pink one is mine

Full combat ready, awesome (but painful*) fun


*we immediately started fighting, before putting protective gear on

[JP]

Often in Muay Thai it is the most respected fighter in the club that wears the pink shorts.

It must be the same in the light sabre arena.
😃

[Etherealicer]

Often in Muay Thai it is the most respected fighter in the club that wears the pink shorts.

It must be the same in the light sabre arena.
😃

Well, Samuel L. Mothersmurfer Mace Windu Jackson has a purple saber, that is all I'm saying.

Also, turns out for fighting in the dark purple works really well, you get the least distracted by your own blade.

[Monrogue]

Those are so cool

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[derekmac]

If I get laid off, I might become a Jedi.


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[Poncho65]

Those are so cool

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what he said

[derekmac]

Protective gear and light sabers reminds me of a certain condom commercial...


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[styx]

so you're having fun at work

[Etherealicer]

so you're having fun at work

Working for the EMPIRE has its perks

[firiki]

For some strange reason, my wife has had a hankering for a lightsaber all the years I've known her.

She actually looked at me morosely when I showed her the gif.

Where I'm getting at is, where could I get her one, please?

Totally surreal way to practice fencing, I reckon

[Gareth]

Very cool mate.   There does seem to be a lot of "combat ready" lightsabers out there, which one do you recommend?

[pfrsantos]

For some strange reason, my wife has had a hankering for a lightsaber all the years I've known her.

She actually looked at me morosely when I showed her the gif.

Where I'm getting at is, where could I get her one, please?

Totally surreal way to practice fencing, I reckon

How sturdy are those? Enough to hit with some force without peril of breaking them/ruining the light?

[firiki]

For some strange reason, my wife has had a hankering for a lightsaber all the years I've known her.

She actually looked at me morosely when I showed her the gif.

Where I'm getting at is, where could I get her one, please?

Totally surreal way to practice fencing, I reckon

How sturdy are those? Enough to hit with some force without peril of breaking them/ruining the light?

I have no idea but I doubt the wifey will use it hard enough to damage it if it's not made of cheese. As I said, strange 

[styx]

so you're having fun at work

Working for the EMPIRE has its perks

i'm gonna guess that you're a lousy shot

[Poncho65]

so you're having fun at work

Working for the EMPIRE has its perks

i'm gonna guess that you're a lousy shot

 

[Etherealicer]

so you're having fun at work

Working for the EMPIRE has its perks

i'm gonna guess that you're a lousy shot

 

I am... but then in the Swiss Military we train at 300m and with my eyes... I know... excuses...

[Etherealicer]

The SaberForge Arbiter is a combat ready "light saber", meaning you can really use it to bash at each other. With a basic configuration hilt / blade / 6W light / No sound it is running at 145$ and you get a really nice basic "light saber".


Pretty little thing

Delivery & Customer Service: Lets kick of with the company itself. When we ordered the sabers back in February the website read "delivery in 6-8 weeks". So after about 10 weeks we inquired on the status and the company reply was "it is still within the 8-12 weeks announced on the website" (indeed that is, what is now on their website), pretty rude reply. Anyway, it finally shipped after more than 14 weeks (it was stuck for 2 weeks in "ready to be shipped" until it finally got shipped).
Considering it is pay upon order, that is just no way to do business. SaberForge is currently the market leader for combat ready lightsabers, with this kind of service attitude I cannot see them to hold on to this position.

Blade & Illumination: We chose a 6W illumination, which is plenty bright (brighter would only irritate more when fighting in the dark). The blade is nice and seems to be able to whitstand a bit of beating. Thanks to a foil on the inside the illuminaiton is pretty even.
After a night of Combat you can see some smudges and scratches on the blade. Even a steel blade will show wear, so that is really nothing to worry about.


Bit of wear on the blade...

Hilt: As you can see, the hilts are quite pretty. They seem solid enough but the finish is a bit rough with lots of sharp points on the handle. Those grips are clearly looks (guided by the movies) over functionality. Not really that much of a problem, as you are supposed to add your own touch to it, so no two look the same.
The arbiter handle measures 265mm in length which is a bit too short to comfortably wield two-handed (especially with sparring gloves, which is highly recommended). However the sabers are so light it is best wielded one-handed.


Pretty...


This is why you should wear sparring gloves... And I got off lightly.

PRO
- Pretty and fun to play with
- Solid constructed with nicely even illumination
- Great price performance ratio

CON
- Long delivery time
- Snotty customer service
- Hilt was designed for looks and has some sharp corners

What can I say... still having a hard time wiping that smirk of my face. Probably one of my best investments in a long time, this is so much fun. Don't bother buying one with sound, you can do this yourself even better

[Etherealicer]

For some strange reason, my wife has had a hankering for a lightsaber all the years I've known her.

She actually looked at me morosely when I showed her the gif.

Where I'm getting at is, where could I get her one, please?

Totally surreal way to practice fencing, I reckon

We got ours from SaberForge

The offer pretty good quality at reasonable price and unreasonable shipping times...

The darkness with the bright lights make it a bit irritating... also for show effect it is better to swing the blade wide and a lot, but balance is good enough for decent fighting techniques.

[Sea Monster]

Using the term "combat ready" is debatable, but anyway.

What is the "blade" material? How would it how up against strikes to other surfaces, or is it only suitable for whacking other Arbiters (and tender flesh)

[Etherealicer]

Using the term "combat ready" is debatable, but anyway.

The term "combat ready" is widely recognized as meaning: Can be used for training-/sport- combat, in contrast to being just ornamental. It also implies that the weapon is blunt for safety reasons.
Think of it like "HD ready", its not really HD but it can be used with a HD signal.
Also every combat sport uses blunted-weapons for sparring, they still can hurt you though. So, it is combat in the sense of "combat sport" and not "kill your enemy combat".

What is the "blade" material? How would it how up against strikes to other surfaces, or is it only suitable for whacking other Arbiters (and tender flesh)

The blade material is polycarbonate . The blade is durable and there are videos where people whack at trees and other hard surfaces. However, they are made to hack at each other you train against a metal blade it won't last very long.
But this is the thing, every melee weapon degrades. Our metal feathers (training swords with a flexible tip) last about 1-2 years, before you have to replace it. Even the stiff blades (if you would sharpen them you could use it in real, to the death, combat) degrade, the edge needs to be smoothed and such.

[pfrsantos]

Using the term "combat ready" is debatable, but anyway.

The term "combat ready" is widely recognized as meaning: Can be used for training-/sport- combat, in contrast to being just ornamental. It also implies that the weapon is blunt for safety reasons.
Think of it like "HD ready", its not really HD but it can be used with a HD signal.
Also every combat sport uses blunted-weapons for sparring, they still can hurt you though. So, it is combat in the sense of "combat sport" and not "kill your enemy combat".

What is the "blade" material? How would it how up against strikes to other surfaces, or is it only suitable for whacking other Arbiters (and tender flesh)

The blade material is polycarbonate . The blade is durable and there are videos where people whack at trees and other hard surfaces. However, they are made to hack at each other you train against a metal blade it won't last very long.
But this is the thing, every melee weapon degrades. Our metal feathers (training swords with a flexible tip) last about 1-2 years, before you have to replace it. Even the stiff blades (if you would sharpen them you could use it in real, to the death, combat) degrade, the edge needs to be smoothed and such.

That explains the flexible material used by Jon Snow in his blade. It'll last longer...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEz1z5Daxmo

[Sea Monster]

But this is the thing, every melee weapon degrades. Our metal feathers (training swords with a flexible tip) last about 1-2 years, before you have to replace it. Even the stiff blades (if you would sharpen them you could use it in real, to the death, combat) degrade, the edge needs to be smoothed and such.

My understanding is that Melee weapons only degrade if you miss 
When they discovered Iron was harder than squishy people, it was a great day for warfare (rocks, copper, depleted uranium, it varies)

Metal, for all it's flaws, is also fairly easy to "touch up" when it gets burs or what-have-you (with a bit of extra effort, if can even be straightened, re tempered, or welded)

I don't know a great deal about polymers, but I imagine there's not much that can be done to "maintain" a polycarbonate "blade"?

[I'm not knocking it, I'm as big a Star Wars fan as you'll find, I'm just holding out for something closer to the real thing (and hover boards)]

[Etherealicer]

But this is the thing, every melee weapon degrades. Our metal feathers (training swords with a flexible tip) last about 1-2 years, before you have to replace it. Even the stiff blades (if you would sharpen them you could use it in real, to the death, combat) degrade, the edge needs to be smoothed and such.

My understanding is that Melee weapons only degrade if you miss 
When they discovered Iron was harder than squishy people, it was a great day for warfare (rocks, copper, depleted uranium, it varies)

Metal, for all it's flaws, is also fairly easy to "touch up" when it gets burs or what-have-you (with a bit of extra effort, if can even be straightened, re tempered, or welded)

I don't know a great deal about polymers, but I imagine there's not much that can be done to "maintain" a polycarbonate "blade"?

[I'm not knocking it, I'm as big a Star Wars fan as you'll find, I'm just holding out for something closer to the real thing (and hover boards)]

Yeah, but if your opponent know what he is doing, it gets fairly hard to avoid clashing steel.

In an ideal world you don't block your opponents sword with your own but you glide in. Basically, you catch your opponents blade close to your tip and let it scratch along your blade to dissipate force. However, that is really hard to do, more often the blades simply block each other. It is true that a nick in a metal blade can be fixed and so a traditional sword is by far the longest lasting. With our fencing feathers (see image) are far less durable, they are spring steel so they bend when thrusting. Commonly, what happens is that they get bent, if the kink is bad enough you have to heat them to get them back in shape... that ruins the tempering... and increases the risk of breakage. As you can imagine if a feather breaks that is rather dangerous.

It is probably better to compare polycarbonate blades to wooden sticks. Both are fairly cheap* and once they have a crack you cannot fix them anymore. How durable those polycarbonate tubes really are has to be seen, but with their light weight and flexibility I project that they last longer than wooden sticks. We have broken ash staffs within an hour of training.


* We are currently looking at options but it appears that we can get replacement blades at about $2.50... a feather goes at about $150 and a real longsword blade at about $200 (prices for the blade without hilt).

[Etherealicer]

Using the term "combat ready" is debatable, but anyway.

The term "combat ready" is widely recognized as meaning: Can be used for training-/sport- combat, in contrast to being just ornamental. It also implies that the weapon is blunt for safety reasons.
Think of it like "HD ready", its not really HD but it can be used with a HD signal.
Also every combat sport uses blunted-weapons for sparring, they still can hurt you though. So, it is combat in the sense of "combat sport" and not "kill your enemy combat".

What is the "blade" material? How would it how up against strikes to other surfaces, or is it only suitable for whacking other Arbiters (and tender flesh)

The blade material is polycarbonate . The blade is durable and there are videos where people whack at trees and other hard surfaces. However, they are made to hack at each other you train against a metal blade it won't last very long.
But this is the thing, every melee weapon degrades. Our metal feathers (training swords with a flexible tip) last about 1-2 years, before you have to replace it. Even the stiff blades (if you would sharpen them you could use it in real, to the death, combat) degrade, the edge needs to be smoothed and such.

That explains the flexible material used by Jon Snow in his blade. It'll last longer...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEz1z5Daxmo

That is too floppy even for a latex sword... probably only a hilt on an empty sheath

[Etherealicer]

Damage to metal blades:


Section of my feather (I know not the best picture), but you can easily spot the nicks.


Here you can see how much punishment the unhardened guard takes. A sword blow, even from a blunt sword, can bite quite deep. The edge is still pretty good (my sword is by far the toughest in the group)

[Etherealicer]

But this is the thing, every melee weapon degrades. Our metal feathers (training swords with a flexible tip) last about 1-2 years, before you have to replace it. Even the stiff blades (if you would sharpen them you could use it in real, to the death, combat) degrade, the edge needs to be smoothed and such.

My understanding is that Melee weapons only degrade if you miss 
When they discovered Iron was harder than squishy people, it was a great day for warfare (rocks, copper, depleted uranium, it varies)

Metal, for all it's flaws, is also fairly easy to "touch up" when it gets burs or what-have-you (with a bit of extra effort, if can even be straightened, re tempered, or welded)

I don't know a great deal about polymers, but I imagine there's not much that can be done to "maintain" a polycarbonate "blade"?

[I'm not knocking it, I'm as big a Star Wars fan as you'll find, I'm just holding out for something closer to the real thing (and hover boards)]

Yeah, but if your opponent know what he is doing, it gets fairly hard to avoid clashing steel.

In an ideal world you don't block your opponents sword with your own but you glide in. Basically, you catch your opponents blade close to your tip and let it scratch along your blade to dissipate force. However, that is really hard to do, more often the blades simply block each other. It is true that a nick in a metal blade can be fixed and so a traditional sword is by far the longest lasting. With our fencing feathers (see image) are far less durable, they are spring steel so they bend when thrusting. Commonly, what happens is that they get bent, if the kink is bad enough you have to heat them to get them back in shape... that ruins the tempering... and increases the risk of breakage. As you can imagine if a feather breaks that is rather dangerous.

It is probably better to compare polycarbonate blades to wooden sticks. Both are fairly cheap* and once they have a crack you cannot fix them anymore. How durable those polycarbonate tubes really are has to be seen, but with their light weight and flexibility I project that they last longer than wooden sticks. We have broken ash staffs within an hour of training.


* We are currently looking at options but it appears that we can get replacement blades at about $2.50... a feather goes at about $150 and a real longsword blade at about $200 (prices for the blade without hilt).

Oh and I forgot:

SaberForge offers 1 year warranty on the blade

So, they seem to be confident in their product.

[Monrogue]

Interesting stuff Big E  

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[firiki]

For some strange reason, my wife has had a hankering for a lightsaber all the years I've known her.

She actually looked at me morosely when I showed her the gif.

Where I'm getting at is, where could I get her one, please?

Totally surreal way to practice fencing, I reckon

We got ours from SaberForge

The offer pretty good quality at reasonable price and unreasonable shipping times...

The darkness with the bright lights make it a bit irritating... also for show effect it is better to swing the blade wide and a lot, but balance is good enough for decent fighting techniques.

Many thanks for the info

Funny thing happened, my wife no longer wants one (she probably realised that dropping 150$ on something she won't use is rather silly, despite the item's good quality  ) but now I do