TOPIC: ASP Silver Juggernaut Review

I have just received my ASP Juggernaut, all silver finish. yellow blade.

As part of the stretch goal reward, I received a silver spear extension. So far, the spear extension is the only part that I have seen others had received as well. Anyone received some other parts besides the spear extension?

Firstly, the parts arrived all assembled, except for the electronics. I ordered a warrior tier. So I had to disassemble it. The body and pommel came off easily. But for the life of me, I couldn't separate the switch section from the emitter. I tried using the hair dryer to heat the switch section so that it would expand a little for disassembly but it would budge at all.

That means I had install the switch with the emitter in place. Initially I thought of screwing the switch nut in place to secure the switch but since it's beyond what my fingers could reach, i had to settle putting in the switch without the nut. The battery holder seems a tiny fraction too small for the battery but i managed to force it in.

After putting in the LED module, I tried to screw in the retention screw but no matter how i tried i just couldn't screw it in. When I had a closer look at the hole, i noticed the LED module is right up against the wall of the emitter. That metal wall looks like 2mm thick at the most. There's just too little metal there to form any thread at all, and so the retention screw just wouldn't go in. To me, the LED retention screw is no big deal because with the blade plug or the blade in, the LED module is sandwiched between the blade/blade plug and the switch, so it's not going anywhere. But there's an ugly hole there. I think will stick a red button there, which the juggernaut lacks.

My biggest disappointment is the finish of the metal itself. I have a venom, standard finish. Brushed metal or polish kind of finish which i like. I also have a reborn, which is all silver and the finish is satin, which i absolutely hate. So when the ASP was announced and we get to choose the parts, I consciously wanted to avoid something which has satin finish.

In the saber builder, when the parts were chosen, I was happy with my selection because they all show the parts as having a high polish brushed metal kind of finish, the kind i like. i am not a fan of weathered finish.

So, when i opened up the package, I noticed that all the parts were satin finished, the kind that i absolutely hated. To say that I was truly disappointed would be an understatement. After waiting for 8 long months, what I received was not what was shown in the saber builder. Now I am considering either to re-finish it or just to sell it off. The design of the parts are beautiful but the finishing is absolutely disappointing and the saber builder is downright misleading.

See the finishing in the saber builder and see the difference in the actual product.

Another thing that surprised me is how heavy the parts are. The juggernaught itself weighs 850g (without the blade, sorry I only have a metric scale). In comparison the venom is 440g and the reborn is 420g. That things weighs as much as 2 hilts combined.

Would i buy another ASP? Yes, but I have to make absolutely certain that i avoid those with satin finish. Can the saber builder be trusted to show the actual parts? No.

Can anyone give some suggestions how to turn the satin finished to a polished finish or brushed metal finish?

Update @ May 30.

I apologize for not visiting this thread after my initial post. Truth is i came back several times looking for this post after i posted it and it didn't appear. I concluded that my post wasn't approved due to the issue which wasn't flattering to SF. Then, a post appeared in FB today and i got a reply that my post was actually approved which made me come back and looked and i am pretty surprised there are some good discussions going on here.

I also apologize for the missing pictures. I have now uploaded it to photobucket and made a link here. i hope it will show.

Since my last post, I have made some minor upgrades like polishing the sides of the blades, adding a red button to where it was supposed to be, added some black O rings and accents.

I would have done the mods earlier except that 2 parties indicated their interest in acquiring my hilt but they drag the time and they eventually fizzled out. So now i think i will keep it and slowly customize it to my liking when i have some spare time. I expect it to be an evolution, rather than a revolution.

Sorry you had a bad experience, but your pictures aren't working and I wanna see it! And I'll note your advice and stay clear of silver parts if I ever do order an ASP saber, after the whole system launches of course.

Alan , you made a unboxing video, right? If so, I've seen your saber. Did you order as Standard finish or as a Silver. You'd mentioned your Staff extension was Silver, so I'm a little confused as to what you have that is the finish that you wanted. Are all the parts wrong? If so I would try an contact Customer Service to see if they will accommodate you, since you didn't get what you expected.

The "silver finish" is a silver anodized finish. The straight black finish is on the builder is anodized too. At the moment there is no way to differentiate on the builder what is the polished aluminum and what is the anodized aluminum.

There are some definite cons and a pro to anodized saber parts. The pro is that anodized metal won't weather or rust because of the protective layer of anodization. The cons are entirely aesthetic (which is a huge factor). Anodized parts can look like plastic and have an odd texture. What I've discovered is that ordering hilts/parts that are dual tone/standard (a mix of silver and black) typically minimizes the chance of getting anodized components. Ordering part/hilts that are 100% silver or black get you anodized parts (typically).

It is a bummer that things worked out this way and if you're still around alancheong (seeing as your post has been stuck in unmoderated purgatory for about a month) you should definitely reach out to customer service and see what can be done.

h2soy wrote:
Do you have a reference for this? I would've reasoned that "silver" was just raw aluminum, and the dull finish was due to the parts not needing the polish required for anodizing or the machining required for dual-tone, and perhaps a naturally-formed oxide layer.

If I recall, the dual-tone parts start out black anodized and are sanded down with 200-grit to make the standard brushed finish associated with SF hilts. This is done quickly by spinning the parts on a lathe and holding some 200-grit sandpaper up to the part while it spins, but it's entirely possible to replicate the process by hand, if Alan wants to give his Silver Juggernaut some shine. Can get a polished finish by then moving up to 400/600/1000-grit sandpaper and then some aluminum polish afterward.

Hi All,

I am afraid I can't advise alancheong about his issue, but a quick suggestion to SaberForge would be when they update the Builder, have a description of the finishes included. It would only need to be a couple of sentences to describe the finish, better communication - less confusion. I think a sticky post-it note for the developer is needed!

Or a disclaimer stating something along these lines "The designs and specifications of parts and/or components, including finishes and appearance are subject to change. The Builder shows a representation of your design and the actual product may differ slightly due to variances in materials" This will be more important when the ASP Builder is opened to the Worldwide Public but I'm sure they already know that.

kind regards,

For Tyeth

Over the past year I've seen SF move to a manufacturing practice where any component that is all "silver" is anodized with a silver finish. The shroud on the Guardian and the bodies of the Phoenix, Ka'Tano, Vigilant, and Silver Knight all receive anodization because they consists of large, unbroken by greeblies or detail lines, portions of silver. In some ways this is a time saving measure. What I've been told is that the saber components in their "raw" just manufactured state need to be polished. So to save time (since polishing irregular parts takes a lot of time) and protect the parts these components are ordered from the parts manufacturer with a silver anodized finish. This is accurate but only possible with components that fit on a lathe (which you sort of mention). The blades on the Juggernaut are highly irregular and you'll notice on the standard (non-ASP) build the blades are anodized black with the edges polished for the silver edge. It would be highly time consuming for a SF tech to polish the blades; it's much faster to anodize them. Some of the ASP components don't match their saber builder renders and these are typically the ones that have a standard (or dual-tone if you prefer) finish. The typical variations from the builder are usually expanded areas of black anodization that aren't receiving a time consuming non-lathe polish. I've grabbed some of the examples that MrSynergy noticed:









As you can see the highly irregular portions of the components haven't received a polish, only their flat regular surfaces have.

Does this address your thoughts Kouri?

Not really, no.

My issue being that anodizing itself doesn't affect the finish of the piece. It's a completely clear layer, and *if* there was a silver-anodizing, it would just be clear anodizing over raw aluminum - polished or otherwise. The black finish is just anodizing that's been soaked in black dye, since the anodized layer is susceptible to pigment - but it's still transparent, and takes whatever finish the metal underneath is. Gloss black is over polished metal, matte black over sandblasted metal. - either way it's the same process - clear anodizing with black dye. For pure silver, though, it's just the clear anodizing - and even that's pretty rare, since 6000-series alloys are pretty good about keeping their finish - and aluminum itself isn't a metal that rusts. Oxidation is just a natural, non-uniform anodizing that may darken the metal a bit

I'm also finding issue with your use of the Ka'Tano and Guardian shrouds as examples. Ka'Tano appears powder-coated or sand-blasted. It may be anodized over sandblasting, it may not - either way, the anodizing itself wouldn't affect the finish. The Guardian shroud, in the store pictures, appears nickel-plated - and checking the descriptions seems to confirm that.

I can't really say what's going on with this silver Juggernaut without pictures, but I'm fairly confident it's not an anodizing issue.

EDIT: Considering the goal of ASP is readily-available parts with quick turnaround, I'm actually going to guess components are being cast from a mold, and the slightly textured finish is a result of the casting process. I think end-users are going to need to do their own hand-polishing if they're not fond of the textured finish. The only exception is going to be on dual-toned parts that need the surface anodizing sanded off.

I think you've cleared up some of my misconceptions. My knowledge of SF's manufacturing processes is piecemeal from multiple sources such as customer service reps and Justin the custom saber guru. He told me that the Ka'Tano and the SK were anodized, your explanation of the casting process resulting in the "silvery satin" final product seems to jive with what I've seen. Also, the pic and description on the Guardian are either outdated or brand new. Let me explain: about five months ago people getting the Guardian reported that the shroud was now that satiny finish (along with the body of the SK). We were told by Knytiri that SF had switched part manufactures and some finishes were not available anymore. This is when more of that anodization-over-cast-parts finish started popping up. If they've moved over to a nickel plated Guardian shroud that is news to me.

Thanks for taking the time to talk this through Kouri!

Hey, I like having an excuse to chat. Also hoping I'm not coming across as harsh - I've got no hard feelings on this end. I'm just particular about accurate information and figured maybe I could offer something since my day-job has me machining aluminum all day.

Also totally willing to accept that some of the site descriptions may not be accurate.

I remember one of the black Bastions popping up with a matte/satin black anodized finish and the explanation being it went through media blasting before going through the anodizing process. So if the satin/matte finish on the Tano/Knight hilts isn't from powdercoating, it's either media-blasting or casting producing the fine texture, whether the silver parts are anodized or not. I won't give a final say on that, since I've not personally handled either hilt yet.

Kouri wrote:
I can't help but be a little disappointed if this is the case.

Given the view of their shop, I figure the asp parts will still be lathed. Doing molten metal injection is costly and can be dangerous.

schmots wrote:
That's the thing - my understanding is the ASP parts aren't produced in-house, but outsourced to another manufacturer. Mass-production casting wouldn't be an issue in a facility already setup for that process.

My best guess is parts come in as raw castings. They either arrive with threading or or put on the lathe for the ASP-threading to be machined in-house. From there, some are put away to be offered as "Silver" finish components, while the rest are sent out for black anodizing. When they come back, some are set aside for "Black" finish, while the rest are put on the lathe for "Standard" and "Weathered" finish.

There's also no feasible way to keep custom-machined parts in stock - TCSS' current lack of inventory is proof enough. Beyond that, the ASP parts h2soy posted above show no tooling marks in the black anodized sections.

Kouri wrote:
This is what I remember hearing from a couple of different sources.

I ordered an all silver finish. That is the type of finish i wanted but what came and what was shown in the saberbuilder is a different kind of silver finish. satin textured finish vs a brushed / polished metal finish. I contacted customer service, and the answer i got was computer renderings and actual products may differ, period. This disclaimer should have been prominently displayed in the saber builder prior to the build process and not after the customer received an unpleasant surprise.

1 reason i dislike the satin textured finish on the "silver" finish is because it looks like it's unfinished. Like it missed 1 last step of polishing or something.

This is also the default kind of finish that i get from cheap $25 sabers i bought from china. same texture same finish. makes the $250 saber look exactly like the $25 saber.

Sounds like the best/only thing you could do now to get that finish is some sanding with fine grit sandpaper and some buffing to get a more mirrored finish. Tedious, but about all I can think of.

I have already started sanding and polishing the sides of the blades by hand. The sanded and polished part looks much better than before

When I first saw your pics before I read the post, I thought, That was a bold and gutsy choice and I like it as it is different. However, I could see how you would be disappointed by the long wait coupled with something completely different than what you expected. I'm really sorry to hear that.

My humble opinion, I think a little detail on the claws / blades would help. It would be cool if you could somehow get a hamon line or something similar on the edge. Might look great with that finish.

As to how...I'm not going to be much help there.

This is how the polished side of the blades look like. much better (the way it's suppose to be) There is a big difference (to me) between the textured finish and the polished finish/ brushed finish

This hilt is supposed to be a lightside blade for malgus. If malgus were to turn to the lightside, this might be how his saber would look like.