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SF experience 2 days 9 hours ago #89431

  • Ser Arcturis
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Hello folks!
You guys prolly know that I am pretty fascinating by buying a saber with one of the next sales.
But before, I'd like to know your experiences with SF and their customer service. I have scrolled through Google and found quite a lot of bad reviews about sabers easily breaking, being poorly assembled.
But from the companies I know, SF is the one with the largest arsenal with the most innovative/aesthetically pleasing design.
I hope you all share your experiences!

MTFBWY!
Definition: 'Love' is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometres away using an aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope.
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SF experience 2 days 9 hours ago #89433

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I've only purchased one saber from them, but I had no issues with customer service. They always responded within 1-2 days (once in 20 minutes) to any questions I had. My MPP Mk2 is fantastic and I haven't had any issues with it. Build quality is great. After i convert my master replicas anakin saber I'm planning on buying quite a few more starting with the new Prodigal Son :lol:
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SF experience 2 days 9 hours ago #89434

  • wamphyri13
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Check the dates on those reviews. Some are from when SF was just starting out. At least the ones I've seen. Other than an incredibly stupid issue I'm dealing with right now, I've been extremely pleased with both the product and the service. All my sabers have been working perfectly since new and that hasn't changed.
"Hold on to 16 as long as you can, changes come around real soon make us women and men." - John Mellencamp
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SF experience 2 days 9 hours ago #89435

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My experience has been alright. Customer service has been prompt and helpful.

Downside, my only saber has been on preorder for about 10 months and havnt received it yet, but Ive seen SF has surperior build quality and detail over all other companies I have looked at. Cant wait to finally ger her and play with it.
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SF experience 2 days 9 hours ago #89436

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wamphyri13 wrote:
Check the dates on those reviews. Some are from when SF was just starting out. At least the ones I've seen. Other than an incredibly stupid issue I'm dealing with right now, I've been extremely pleased with both the product and the service. All my sabers have been working perfectly since new and that hasn't changed.
quite a few where from 2016-2017, some as recent as today.
I have become quite fond of SF but this LOAD of bad reviews made me sceptical.
I mean issues like a shelf queen not working suddenly, a thin neck saber where the thin neck wasn't glued in any way with no notch to stop it from being screwed into the adapter till it drops in etc
Definition: 'Love' is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometres away using an aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope.
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SF experience 2 days 9 hours ago #89437

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Just a minor warning. Threads like this, almost by nature, tend to devolve into a huge "bitch-fest". If that happens, it will be locked.

That said, so long as the discourse is of a constructive nature, I will keep an eye on it, and let it ride.

Here is my take.

Bad reviews of any entity are always easier to find, than positive. If someone has a problem, they are much more inclined to do a negative review, or lodge a complaint somehow, than those that have positive experiences are to post about theirs.

What I can tell you is absolutely true is this. No matter how long it might take (in the case of out of stock, or pre-order parts), you will get what you ordered. The hardest part is to have faith that it will happen, and not give into the despair that outside sources, and time itself might inspire. If there is a build problem, unless there is some outstanding circumstance, they will make it right. Perhaps not a quickly as you would hope, but they will. That has been my experience, and that of a lot of folks who are here now, and those that have come, and gone.

I am not gonna promise you that everything will always be sunshine, and roses. But, I can say that if you do your part, they will always do their part.
Imagine what you will know tomorrow....
Last Edit: 2 days 9 hours ago by Brax.
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SF experience 2 days 8 hours ago #89438

  • scifidude79
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I've placed six orders from SaberForge, four on the main site and two on the Etsy site. Four of my sabers have been sabers with electronics, two have been Initiate tier. Saberforge's build quality in terms of their hilts is high, at least on par with anyone else making parts out of 6160 aluminum. Are they perfect? Of course not. But, I've seen no big faults in their hilts. The quality of the work on the hilts seems fairly high, and they put a lot of detail into their hilts for the price point. Their anodizing is nice and consistent, unlike some other companies where you'll get color variations, even in black. All of my sabers have some black on them, and it's a good, dark black, no lighter shades. I have one thin neck, it's all glued up and solid, as it should be. (though, even if it wasn't, a few dabs of threadlock would take care of that) I'm going to be getting a Prodigal Son at some point, that's how I feel about SaberForge thin necks. As for the electronics, I have two standard Warrior tier sabers, and two crystal sabers. Of the crystal sabers, one has sound, the other doesn't. All of my preinstalled electronics are in great shape. Everything lights up like it should, the sound on the one with sound is good. Nothing rattles, everything is nice and tight in all of my sabers. SaberForge's LEDs are nice and bright, and the blades are really nice and light up evenly. I've contacted customer service a handful of times, and they've always been friendly and helpful. I usually get replies in short order, often the next day.

So, that's my experience, all positive. I'm not saying they're perfect, I know some people do have issues. However, I personally feel confident ordering from them again, and I will. As I said, a Prodigal Son is in my sights.
Last Edit: 2 days 8 hours ago by scifidude79.
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SF experience 2 days 8 hours ago #89440

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I have bought 3 complete ASP hilts from them and 3 ASP SaberCore3.0 kits, 1 ASP champion 2.0 kit, 1 ASP veteran USA kit.
Two of the SC3 kits, and the 1 2.0 had issues upon arrival, Customer Service quickly rectified the issue even paid shipping all 3 times.
The hilts are perfect, flawless beauties.
Every time I have contacted Customer Service they have replied within a couple of days, and turnaround with the issues stated were resolved within 2 weeks.
SaberForge's Variety, quality, Customer Service is IMO #1.

I will never buy any hilts or electronics from any company but Saberforge.
There is no Light, There is no Dark, There is only the Force!
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SF experience 2 days 8 hours ago #89441

  • Danielbs80
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I placed two ASP orders in Nov and got them around 3 months later. The shipping time seems typical if not more quick than others have experienced in the past so it was alright with me. However, the emitter on one of them was pretty scuffed up and scratched. It wasn't during shipment because everything was wrapped well. I had contacted customer service about it and I expected them to try to make it right for me as quickly as possible considering I had to wait so long in the first place but they said I would have to ship back the part for them to even start production on a new emitter, whatever that means since that emitter does not say backorder or preorder but I guess maybe what they mean is the materials to make it perhaps and maybe they make to order everything. So at any rate, they would not just start production of the emitter and ship me another one, I had to send the one out first which would mean I would not have a lightsaber again after waiting 3 months for it and I would have to potentially wait another couple months to get the new emitter. They don't trust me enough to just ship one to me first and then I send them the messed up one because I asked them that and they won't even start production while I still hold on to it so I can take a lightsaber with me to some events. The only thing they offered was to extend my return request so I can return it later. I don't know why they can't accommodate their customers especially when it is their fault and just either send them a new part right away or at least start production of the part they need replaced so when they do send it back the new part will be ready to ship out. You don't need to take this as hating on saberforge, it's just the facts and something I find very unsavory which I'm not accustomed to with other companies but what can you do? You just can't get around the wait for some reason, even when it's not your fault. But imagain what it would be like waiting and waiting for your order to get it scratched up or marked up in some way and they say you will need to send it back to them for them to begin production of a replacement? Come on. Being that the part was around 40 bucks, I'm sure it would be easier to just order another part and then send them back the other part once that order was coming if that is an option even but why would that even be necessary after we spend 600 dollars or so on an order you treat us like that? However, dispite that issue I'm overall satisfied. The construction of the peices are excellent minus my one emitter and the electronics assembly is just fine, even without a chassis. I only wish they wouldn't glue the parts of the ASP sections together but you may be able to request that when ordering which I did not do but I did about a week or so after my order and when I got an email back they said it's already in production and my order is locked in already or whatever and I was thinking that must mean it's almost going to ship then but nope, unless their production means a 1 month long or more long production so then I was thinking I bet when I sent that email they were no where near actually making it and probably could have make some notes or changes to my order but just didn't want to so I was annoyed. So just remember to know exactly what you want and submit all instructions at time or ordering in the notes part and be willing to wait at least 3 months and hope there is no issues where you would need to replace something which may be a rare occurrence anyway.
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SF experience 2 days 7 hours ago #89442

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My overall experience over the last fews years with SF has been pleasant.
At one time I owned 7 SF sabers all fully installed. I only ever had to return 1 saber for warranty repair and it ended up benefitting me as their custom shop just opened at that time, so was able to get my saber customized when in went in for repair. Another saber came in a completely wrong finish, but only because there was a slight miscommunication with my order notes. So I received the entire saber black and not just a certain section of it.
The lead time was difficult at first but after a few years in the hobby, I am now accustomed to it. Especially when you get in on pre-order run by one of the smiths. My longest wait for a saber ever (not by SF) was roughly 13 months.
I'm not keen on SF install qualities, but their hilts are machined well. The thing I dislike most is the switch holes already drilled in to everything. So I ended up selling my whole collection of SF and non-SF sabers (a couple of the non-SF I should have kept) and started my collection over again from scratch as I decided to get only a select set of sabers in the best quality I can get, rather than a bunch of good quality 'inspired by' sabers. Which there is nothing wrong with them, but just what I personally prefer and wanted for my own collection.
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SF experience 2 days 6 hours ago #89445

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Hmm... how to say this without getting in trouble....

Let's just say, I've been less than thrilled with my purchases and ordering experiences over the last year, whether it's been installed sabers, electronics kits, or empty hilts/parts. Nothing to go to Customer Service over, especially since any major issues arose after warranties were expired (and one installed saber was a secondhand purchase anyway) and any minor issues were easily fixed on my end.

The volume of complaints, especially considering that those who do so are the vocal minority anyway, are telling in and of themselves.

I'm hoping that the future endeavors of the pending chassis and ASP Wave 2 could help some of these issues. I've been hearing from people that pending orders are entering a "quality control check" for an unspecified period of time upon querying order status with Customer Service, so perhaps things coming out now or in the near future will be better than what has come out in the past.
Last Edit: 2 days 6 hours ago by KelbornX.
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SF experience 2 days 6 hours ago #89447

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You must understand it's a dirty and dangerous job supplying both the light side and the dark side with such powerful weapons.
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SF experience 2 days 5 hours ago #89449

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I've ordered 4 sabers over the past year. Only one of those four was returned for a full refund. the long and short of it is that it was ordered for a friend of mine who was shipping out for his second tour, and a group of us went in on the purchase. It was incredibly delayed, and the co-purchasers got extremely impatient. The hilt arrive the day before he was to leave. What arrived was nothing close to what was ordered. Now, had i bought it for myself, it would have been one thing. I'd have been disappointed for sure, but would have sent it back to be corrected. This however was a joint purchase, and the others wouldn't accept sending it back to be corrected. I'm relating all of this because SF stepped up and gave a full refund.

My other three hilts are a Crystal Prodigal Son, a Reborn, and an MPP MKII. Aside from the MKII wiring debacle mentioned in other posts, i've had fantastic experience with SF. My prodigal son is a work of art. My daughter got the reborn as a christmas present, and absolutely loves it. And even though my MKII had to go back less than 12 hours after receiving it, SF's CS has been great with communication.

I also wonder if (the majority of) the reviews aren't manufactured by other companies to try to put SF in a bad light.
Clarity of thought before rashness of action.
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SF experience 2 days 3 hours ago #89450

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DISCLAIMER: I am a private installer/builder and I have some pretty high standards for sabers.

I have only ever purchased one SF saber that was installed by SF, but I have gutted and repaired my fair share of them. I personally don't think it's correct or fair to judge SF negatively as a whole, even though I do acknowledge area's that could use improvement or general redesign. The vary nature of the business SF is in means that they don't have a single design or process that they can rely on repeating thousands of times a day with low skilled workers or automation. SF has done a a great job in my mind of trying to standardize their builds as much as possible even though differences in hilts, packages, and options necessitates nearly custom installs on most of their sabers. The sheer volume they are dealing in will of course generate a certain percentage of failures.

You can like or dislikes their hilts, there are some I love, some I can't stand, but that does nothing to reflect on the company, that's plain personal opinion. When it comes to the end product, it's about the user experience, and in the case of SF they have done some things right, and they have done some things wrong. And that is the case for every business, and certainly for all the other full service saber companies, big or small.

I give SF credit in that they have begun to make changes that in the saber community, especially among the installer/builders and smiths were over due or just plainly obvious. A perfect example is SF finally getting a real chassis. It is my belief that this simple change will solve a large portion of any installation related issues that have popped up. The SF install has never been a thing of beauty, functional yes, but behind the times and sometimes badly done. Addressing that issue shows some maturity on the part of SF and I hope they continue to display that.

There is still plenty of room for improvement for SF, it's a difficult thing to be as successful as they are in this field of business. We are a very picky and finicky lot, those of us who are in this hobby, people in hobbies tend to be. For us it isn't just a thing we do, or have, it's a passion and something we devote large swaths of our life and time to. In many ways we hold everything to the highest standards possible, sometimes unfairly and unrealistically, but that is the nature of any hobby driven by those who participate in it. We all own cars, but for the vast majority of us never become car enthusiasts, at least not to the point of building custom cars, racing them, rebuilding them, etc. To those folks who are, they can go pick a new Camry off the lot and tell you everything about why it's a garbage car and you should never buy it. Despite the fact that the extreme vast majority of people in the world could care less what the transmission is, or where the leather came from, or how the fuel injection ratios should be this or that. To most of us, if we sat in one or drove it, we'd be like, "Yeah it's a car, its nice". The same holds true for SF, in a lot of ways they are a Toyota getting picked apart by custom car builders, super car owners, and a host of other snobish car enthusiasts. Only in this case it's a saber for the masses being picked over by custom saber builders, people who own collections of thousand dollar+ sabers, and a whole flock of hobbyists who hold everyone to nearly impossible standards.

SF serves multiple niches in the hobby. For many people they are an entry point. They also have a very large selection of hilts that you can get empty and in turn serve a huge part of the third party installers market. I would never expect SF to put out saber that all said and done runs in the thousands, that's just not who they are. but I do expect them to continue to improve and adopt new methods and technologies as they become feasible. If there is any knock I would make it would be their slowness to have made certain changes and improvements, but we are finally starting to see some of those and hopefully they continue to do so.
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SF experience 2 days 3 hours ago #89452

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Just wanted to add how "the other guys" forum will actively delete any even slightly negative reviews. So it is not that they don't have any complaints threads, its that they get suppressed with a quickness and erased from history.
“Your focus determines your reality.” – Qui-Gon Jinn
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SF experience 2 days 1 hour ago #89456

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I have yet to receive my full saber due to pre-order issues. I have however received the emitter, PnP LED switch battery and warrior kit, as well as a purple day blade. The emitter I have has no problems, no scratches or dings or anything else, and looks amazing. My experiences with customer service has been hit or miss. I went a few months straight receiving the same reply "3-4 more weeks" with nothing else in the message. On the other hand I have received full replies with updates and explanation as to why I have been waiting and when they expect an update. I sent in an email last week asking for a change to my Reborn body as I assume they haven't started production yet, and they replied just today telling me that they are unsure they will be able to make the change, but will send it down and see if they can fulfill the request.

So I would say, overall, my experience, other than the extremely long wait time, has been a good one, and I would still recommend them to any one of my friends looking to purchase a saber of their own.
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SF experience 2 days 43 minutes ago #89457

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Okay. Thanks. Keep posting :)
I don't want this to turn into an angry rant, it was just that I was kind of overwhelmed by the seemingly huge amount of negative experiences I saw yesterday evening scrolling through Google and watching some YT videos on SF.

I have not yet ordered but want to order a Count on the next sale and an ASP saber later on.
Definition: 'Love' is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometres away using an aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope.
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SF experience 1 day 23 hours ago #89459

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Since November 2017, I've bought a champion tier Vengeance and a champion tier Exalted from the Etsy site, and a plug and play sabercore 3.0 and several plug-and-play LED's from the main site.

The Vengeance arrived after 3 weeks and it worked for 1 week before the soundboard died. I shipped it back for warranty repair. Customer service was wonderful, but it took 6 weeks to come back. When I received it, it was in perfect condition (no damage from rework), and it has been working great since (it's been about a month). It's a beautiful saber and I love it, but the shipping back and forth and the wait time was frustrating at the time.

The Exhalted arrived after maybe 4 weeks (I forget) and it worked for a mere 4 hours before the soundboard died, just like the first saber. I shipped it back for warranty repair. Again, customer service was wonderful, and this time they returned it within 3 weeks. Again, I received it a second time in perfect condition, and it has also been working perfectly since (also about a month).

Naturally after both of my sabers died shortly after receiving them, I wanted to know if I was doing anything abnormal to kill them. They both died after charging, and then disconnecting, the supplied wall charger. I was also plugging them in even when fully charged so that they would always be fully charged (I read that there is a circuit on the sabercore 3.0 that is supposed to protect the board from overcharging). After talking to customer service and folks on this forum, the unanimous opinion was "don't do that". The consensus was to only charge the sabers from the PC, only charge them when they needed to be charged, and unplug them when they finished charging. I've been following that advice since receiving both sabers back from warranty repair and haven't had any further issues.

The plug-and-play sabercore 3.0 has been working great since receiving it, although it is not as loud as the two sabercore 3.0 soundboards in the installed sabers mentioned above. I've installed it into two different empty hilts, both with plenty of space for resonance, and it doesn't sound quite as good as the installed sabers. But my "testing" hasn't been fair because I've been comparing apples to oranges, so please take this with a grain of salt. In any case, the plug-and-play board has been working great, and I'm pleased with it even if there is a perceived difference between it and the other two. So no complaints.

In summary, my experience has been this: gorgeous hilts, physically robust as hell, electrically fragile as hell (in my limited experience), slow wait times, great customer service. In my opinion, when you roll up the pros with the cons, it's a net win. I love love love the sabers and plan to buy more from SF.
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SF experience 1 day 23 hours ago #89460

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Yawn. I probably own more SF hilts than most SF customers on average. Enough said. :P
Saberforge lightsabers are cool :P
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEma1xhFlAneJcgIrT6nJtg
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SF experience 1 day 22 hours ago #89461

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So, to conclude your experiences:
Saberforge is pretty reliable, but there's a reasonable rate of bad apples, e.g. parts badly aligned and other things like that.

They are physically robust, but the electronics are prone to malfunction when charged with the wall charger (especially when they are already full).

Wait times (as we all know) can get pretty long due to the amount of orders but repairs etc are reliable.
Definition: 'Love' is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometres away using an aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope.
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