Has anyone here ever ordered from Ultrasabers.com? I'm wondering what others' e xp erience is with these folks, as I've recently purchased a saber from them and have dealt with them minimally.

Anyone have input?

Back when I was in sabers I knew the guy. I actually had one of his Darth Maul conversions, it was pretty sweet! He is pretty much a straight shooter. What did you order?

Well since I've never owned a saber of any kind, I kind of wanted to try a cheaper one, so I ordered one of the 'E Series' sabers, which is their custom builds that are fairly low cost.

From what I can tell, they seem like up front fellows, but I feel like every time I contact them I get ruder and ruder responses. I get that their busy -making- the orders, but I have to say I really feel alienated as a customer. Which is REALLY not good when it's not a brand name shop.

I have to say that I'm really second-guessing my decision to purchase one, and really considering not buying anything else from them (even though I really want to).

I was just curious if anyone else had had e xp erience with these folks and could give me an idea if this is the standard or if I'm just reaching them at bad times.

it is not that,i wont to be some betternowing ashole guy,but whit my e xp eience ,over here.
i do make alot of quest before i buy eny items .from eny dealers.
as it seems to me being a little courubt over here.
i give you an exaple .after some long and hard searce ,i finnely found the cenurion knife/half sword of gill hibben .it was 550$ bucks (over here) .NO way im going to pay thise cind of money ,for a regular version knife.

il say get the hell away ,from thougs rude retailers .and stik to reliable souses.

sabers are in my apinion, a verry interresting histoical weapon.so ,stik to the reliable retreilers ,uselly also have the best quality on there swords.

plees ceab up whit your info on this matter GW.

Um, am, pal.... they're talking about lightsaber replicas. And these guys generally sell what they meke themselves. I heard they were pretty reliable but that was a few years ago. Haven't kept up on the info these days.

From what I gathered before ordering, is that the guys who run it are completely trustworthy. It's custom made stuff, so obviously it'll take a while. They're very up front about that.

My main concern is entirely with my correspondence with them. I search through the forums and FAQ's they have, and if I still can't find an answer to my question (or an answer I understand), I shoot them an e-mail. I usually just get an annoyed response with a link to pages I've already read through, or completely being ignored.

It makes me a little uneasy, is all. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to give you guys a positive review. But right now, it's looking to be a little rough at best.

So tell them just that... Their website doesnt provide adequate information. Tell them you're not getting the answer you require, and ask for a refund. There's no harm in that. They'll probably do a 180 and answer your questions then.

I'm giving them one last chance to be decent about it. Asked them for a specific estimate on when my purchase would ship.

If I get anything besides a specific date, I'm going to seek a refund. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

UPDATE: Instead of double posting, I'll just tack on to this one. I got a VERY fast response concerning this from a different fellow at the site (names withheld) and he was very polite and helpful. It's a little disturbing how HUGE a difference these small shops have in service from one rep to another.

Anyways, he assured me that it will probably be shipping out within the next week or so, and let me know their process for what their order statuses mean, how it will be shipped, and how/when I'll be contacted about the shipment.

I think after all of this, I'll post a nice long review on the product, as well as the site itself.

My Review

So my saber finally came in and I've had enough time with it to give it a good review.

The thing you should keep in mind with this review is that I'm not an electrician. I'm not much of a craftsman when it comes to electronic devices. Thus, I don't really know the difficulty or e xp ense of a project like a lightsaber. But I plan to find out.

First, as most of this post is related to, I'll let you know about my service e xp erience. Since this is a custom job, I feel that this is very important. As my e xp erience states above (but to reiterate) the folks at Ultrasabers are incredibly varied. Whereas one individual was quite rude and not at all helpful, the other was incredibly kind and informative. Rest assured if I ever order from them again, I will be asking to deal with only the latter. While the site states that a product will ship in 2-3 weeks, this isn't updated. I placed my order at the end of July and it shipped almost a full month later.

The shipping was fairly decent. A bit pricey for the awkward size (obviously) but quick. Shipping out of Arizona to me over in Massachusetts took a little over a week. They use the USPS though, so be prepared to have no idea where your package is, when it will be in, and have it sitting around in random places for days at a time...

But the service isn't what I have in my hands right now. So I'd say the service is only a minimal part of this review.

The sabers on Ultrasabers vary from insanely high quality ($200+) to economy quality ($50). Mine was the economy quality at $50. After shipping it was $70. It is an E-series Malice with a 'Blazing Red' colored blade.

Now, I've never owned a lightsaber, so my opinion might be skewed. The blade is plenty bright, any brighter and I might be turned off to it, in fact. From what I understand the official replicas are made up of blades that have lines of LED's up and down the blade. This gives it a 'power up' and 'retract' feature. Ultrasabers do not have this. However, the blades are EXTREMELY durable, and ine xp ensive to replace if they ever do break.

The handle is constructed out of (unless I'm completely oblivious) PVC pipe with a black painted finish. It has a very simple design, which is nice, as it allows you to completely customize it. A simple on off button turns the blade on and off. There is no sound for this model.

The bottom is capped off with rubber, inside is a simple 2-AA battery holder. After a little inspection, beyond the battery holder is the on off button, followed by the LED.

So, that being the case, here's the good and bad.

The Good? I got pretty much exactly what I was e xp ecting. I was not disappointed, nor was I overly impressed. It's certainly durable and bright as advertised.

The Bad? Well...I may be being a little overly critical here, however this is just warnings to some folks out there.

I paid $50 for the saber. While I'm sure it takes a fairly decent bit of know-how to build it, I don't know that I'm completely happy with the cost. According to their site, the blade itself sells for $30. Past that, I'm not certain the rest of the pieces are worth the $20. However, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if their cost of construction total was about $25-30, making a $20 profit for them.

Further, some portions of the construction lack a bit in quality. The paint finish is a bit awkward and flawed in some places (including some paint that is on the blade, and the cuts in the pvc are a bit rough. Despite being a custom piece, it certainly has a manufactured feeling to them.

While I realize I ordered the 'economy' priced version, $50 and a month wait time is still a little much for what I got.

So my overall feelings? I'd give them a 3 out of 5.

PROS

• Bright, durable, ine xp ensive-to-replace blade
• Lower cost than brand-name sabers
• Highly customizable (if you're handy)

CONS

• Service for the site is pretty poor
• E-series sabers have fairly low quality for the cost
• Handle is a bit long, but this may have a lot to do with balance

So at the end of the day, if you're interested in sabers, I'd say pick up the cheapest E-saber you can get (there are some cheaper than $50. From there take a look at the basic construction and do what I'm doing. Building my own. I'm fairly certain I can get all the parts I need at the local Radio Shack.

You are partially correct. I dealt with US for a few years and know some of their people quite well.

The 'official' replicas contain a string of LED's which does run the length of the blade. The good and the bad --- good, even lighting throughout the blade; bad, one LED goes out you have a dead spot; good, you get the e xp and/retract function; bad, the blades are less durable and very susceptable to the afore mentioned LED burnout. The ones made by Master Replicas were a wonder, the newer ones made by Hasbro are pieces of junk. If you want an 'official' one, find yourself a Master Replicas one; it's well worth it.

On to US. Now, US uses (or at least used to) a thicker polycarbonate tube for the blade, a diffuser to spread the light effect, a Luxeon 3W LED, and a small mirror in the blade. At the time I dealt with them, they were using the MR hilts with soundboards and altering the blades. The work was done quite well. I never got to play with any of their custom ones.

As for the cost, most PVC in 10' segments is between 5-10$, a polycarbonate tube is about $30 for an 8 foot segment, battery holders are fairly cheap at radioshack at around 2$ ea, the LED's are about $5 ea, figure $5 for misc stuff per sabre also. This means, if your saber is 1' in length, the production cost is around $16 per unit; and of course this excludes labor, packaging supplies, and batteries.

Thanks for the detailed comparison and price break-down, Justin. I should have included that in my original review (which I thought I did... )

In any case, I'm satisfied with the product, less so with the service. Figured some people on the boards here could benefit from the heads-up.