Finding a lightsaber for a jedi costume

I feel very wishy-washy right now when it comes to costume projects. I'm slowly working on Daisy, planning a new start on the 1520's court gown, and now I'm looking for lightsabers for my future jedi. The reason why I'm looking for lightsabers is that a friend of mine is getting ready to order one for his costume, and it would be nice if we could combine the shipping costs. I still haven't decided, but I am pretty sure what I want, but I have also discovered that there is really a jungle out there. Doing your research is important, but I would like to write down what I have found out so far, so that maybe prospective lightsaber buyers can skip the first steps I have taken to come to this conclusion. It's important to say though that with one exception I have not tried any of the lightsabers, I'm just going from what I can read online. I have also not contacted any of the creators, so I don't know their shipping costs or if they ship globally. I know at least for Sweden that after the shipping, import taxes and custom fees the end price is usually around double the price of the actual item.

So you want to buy a lightsaber?

The best source on information for anything about lightsabers, and where to buy them is Sabersourcing - a great website all about lightsabers. This post is just a little tidbit compared to the information you can find there.

First of all I will list a number of webshops where you can buy lightsabers. This in no way a complete or ranked list, but these are shops where it's easy to just go in, choose a lightsabre, pay and then wait for it to arrive. It is always a good idea to reach out if there is a local 501st garrison, Rebel Legion base or Saber Guild temple, since they probably know of more local producers that can make lightsabers. This is especially good if you are outside the US and want to avoid importing your lightsaber due to shipping and customs.

Ultrasabers
Saberforge
Parks Sabers
Korbanth Sabers
KR Sabers (UK)
Ultimate Works
Pachstore (Hong Kong)
Electrum Sabers (Canada)
Vader's Vault
Kyberlight
Sabertrio (Malaysia)

RebelChumps is a great youtube channel with reviews of different lightsabers. Here is their rundown of 7 of the above sellers. I highly recommend seeing this one first before researching more info.

1. Do you want an exact replica of a lightsaber from the films or games, or do you want your own personalized saber?

I'm personally looking for a personalized saber, so my experience here comes from helping a friend finding a saber for Qui-Gon Jinn. Sabers for identified characaters, not just generic background characters, tend to be more expensive than the most basic sabers. They are also usually more detailed than the cheapest models of basic lightsabers. Due to copyright reasons and other legalities the sabers that are modelled after specific characters are usually called something else. If it's actually called Luke Skywalker lightsaber, then the store is probably located in China. Darth Vader lightsabers are usually called something like the "graflex"; councillor or guardian can mean Obi-Wan or Qui-Gon Jinn, Starkiller can be Kylo Renn and so on. The biggest sellers all have variations on sabers that are inspired by specific characters, but they might not be exact replicas. It can also be a real challenge to find lightsabers for lesser characters, like Qui-Gon Jinn or Mace Windu. They are made in smaller batches, or runs, and when they are sold out you need to wait for the next production run.

2. What are you going to do with your lightsaber?

Do you want to hang it on the wall, just hold it up for photos or do you want to duel with other lightsaber users? Heavy duty duel sabers are usually less detailed and the blade can be dimmer, since the thicker walls of a heavy duty duel blade makes it less transparent so the light doesn't shine through as well. On the other hand it can really stand up to a beating. There is a lot of talk about stunt sabers, and they are just that. Simple hilts with blades that you can use for fighting,but no sound.

3. What is your budget?

Having looked around the different shops it seems as if you can get an empty hilt for around $60-100, a simple saber with blade but no sound for $120-150, a slightly more detailed saber with blade and simple sound for $200-250 and a detailed saber with a lot of sound from $300. A character saber usually starts at the $300 mark, and a lot of them are priced in the $400-800 range.

4. How much customization do you want?

Some manufacturers only offers a specific hilt, even if they can have a lot of different hilts to choose from. Kyberlight has a base hilt, and then you can buy a lot of sleeves, pommels and emitters that you can mount yourself to create a more unique saber. Saberforge has probably the largest inventory of lightsabers and parts that you can combine. They also have an ASP process, where you pick the parts you want to use and then have them combined into a unique saber. They also have the option of powder coat colours and wraps with a lot of textures and colours. As soon as you start adding more customization the price goes up though, a powder coat costs $75 for example. Of the mentioned manufacturers Parks Saber only do replicas of film sabers and Electrum sabers only do their own designs, but a with some options when it comes to colours and details of the sabers..

5. Do you want a specific blade colour and sound or be able to change?

Some of the producers, like Ultrasabers and Saberforge, let you pick a specific colour on your blade. Some, like Kyberlight, have a set of different colours in the blade and you can switch with a button on the hilt, and some like Electrum Sabers let you decide the colour yourself with the help of their app. The same goes for the sound of the saber, with options from none to very customizable. Some manufacturers also offers dayblades as an extra. Dayblades are coloured blades that makesit easier to see the lightsaber even in daylight.

6. LED or neo-pixel

Image from Sabersourcing

Now we are going into details, but here is a quote from Chris Anderson on the Rebel Legion forums.

The most affordable options have in-hilt LED modules where you insert a hollow blade with diffusion material inside to achieve a fully illuminated look.
Neopixel is currently top of the line for blades and being that it uses a flexible RGB LED strip inside the blade it offers the cool scrolling effect (as seen in the movies) and other awesome effect for blade lockup and blaster deflections. These blades are also sturdy enough to handle light to moderate dueling and choreography. Trooping with these blades is a breeze. And people love the brightness and the blade effects.

The LED are sturdier and cheaper than the neo-pixel blades, but the neo-pixels look the best.

To sum it all up

Before this post gets too long I'm going to give a quick rundown on some things that I have picked up about the different manufacturers. Once again I want to say that I have no personal experience with them, this is just what I've seen from their shops and some comments online.

Saberforge - largest selection, may start out cheap, but when you add sound and such they end up in the $300 range. Apparently a bit of hit and miss with quality of the electronics and customer service. The longest delivery times for items in stock.

Ultrasaber - great sabers for duelling. They have sacrificed some style over sturdiness and the Ultrasabers have the largest dimensions. Great if you have big hands and is tall, might feel unproportional if you are smaller. Don't use the cheapest sound option.

Kyberlight - Their base hilt is a bit boring, so you need to add some parts if you want to customize it. Lifetime guarantee on the blade. If you are going to order more than one saber they have packs with two or four sabers that are cheaper than if you buy them individually.

VadersVault - the producer that all other sabers are compared to. Really top class.

Electrum Sabercraft - they have some unique features like the touch switch, instead of a button, to turn the saber on, and that you can play around with sound and light through their app.