TOPIC: Quality is worth it

Hi everyone. I just wanted to share some thoughts about quality and time. I'm new to Saber Forge, but I'm not new to LED sabers. I've recently made a significant investment to upgrade our home movie fan film props to several Saber Forge hilts, and I wanted to share why I chose to update our hilts to Saber Forge hilts. I understand there is some explosive growth going on, and I know that can be a massive challenge to any business. I understand and accept there are queues and lead times could be a month, could be four months or five months depending on the scenario. I accept that as well. I wanted to share why I accept this.

I've worked with some amazing saber smiths. If I wanted something in a month or less, with sound, I would be looking at something pretty basic. Yes it might have sound, and yes it might have flash on clash and Tri cree set up or something similar, but to be honest. It looks rather plain. Or it looks bulky and unwieldy, and it just does not look like a movie quality prop.

If I want something that looks like a movie quality prop, I usually have to get into the saber smith's queue for the next run, or I have to wait for an auction and bid. I'm not going to diminish the fact that those high end custom sabers might look more like something you would see in a film, but often times they are shelf queens. Not always, but in my experience, there are so many whistles and bells, that it doesn't make fight choreography or plain old sparring and bashing blades together something I'm comfortable with. The prices for these types of sabers can get SUPER high. 1500, 2,000 or more.

Then I look at what Saber Forge is offering. These hilts look fantastic. All the video reviews showing the way they fit in the reviewers hands, the way they move, and their on screen studio prop like quality is unmatched at this price point. I can wait 5 or 6 months for a custom one off high end saber and spend $2000 dollars on it. OR I can look at what Saber Forge can offer me. For the same investment, I could get 4 fantastic screen quality hilts that not only look fantastic in close ups on camera, but I can bash the crap out of either in choreography or just plain old playtime fun.

So while I'm researching and investigating this, Saber Forge has answered EVERY one of my emails. They have responded to every one of my nagging questions, and they have treated me with respect. I like the direction they are headed. I like the way they treat me, and I am empathetic to their challenges in trying to provide something more for us. If it takes a week or two more, I'm okay with that. If it takes a month more, I'm okay with that too. I knew that up front. I am seriously impressed with how I've been treated given the explosive demand, Episode 7, ASP launch, and moving and expanding workshops and properties. They are working their butts off. Literally. I'm good with it. I appreciate it. And I can certainly sell a couple high end shelf queens and order a boatload of movie quality saber forge hilts that I can actually spar with.

What I get in return is so many more character creation options by having more film quality hilts to build characters around. And I can spar with them. And they certainly look better than the tubes I can get at the sub 400.00 price points elsewhere.

In my view, quality is worth the wait, and these guys have been working their butts off to keep up with all of us in our passion for what they are offering. Props to the team at Saber Forge.

Well that's one hell of a "thank / love you" note

@Knytiri: you should display that on the website

It's a very eloquent and thorough explanation of why you like the Forge over other sabersmiths. I'll just add what I said (several times) on this very forum.
Whenever you want something, either to buy, or to produce, there are 3 things to look at:

1. Cost
2. Quality
3. Delay

Only two can be chosen.

High quality and short delays mean high prices.
Affordable prices and short delays mean shitty quality. (do not excuse my French here, I am French)
High quality and affordable prices mean long delays.

We all know our beloved Forge is right there on the third situation.
Also, as one of our esteemed members once said:
In a world of instantaneousness, having to wait for something you really want and have been expecting for a while, only makes the reception of such a thing much more gratifying and pleasant!

I think part of the reason that people recoil so much from prices or the wait time is that they're not accustomed to the saber market.

It's a niche market.

Let me repeat that: it's a niche market.

15 years ago if you were in the market for a saber it was pretty much either Park Sabers or an artisan in their garage. Arguably Ultrasabers was the first saber manufacturer that effectively started to manufacture sabers on a large scale and effectively marketed their product to a wider audience. US did this by spending very little $ on hilt design development and instead focused on keeping costs low and fulfilling market demands for a cheap/quick turnaround hilt in a market devoid of choice. This has worked out very well for them so they've retained this business model.

Enter Saber Forge.

Saber Forge's unspoken mission statement is to create prop replicas. Mr. Isherwood (SF's founder) frequently references his love for scifi props and if you pay attention to his queries for props from Star Trek, vintage guns, etc., you get the sense that he's interested in doing more than saber hilts at some point in the future. This interest in small details also is reflected in SF's business model which focuses around the quality of the finished product and the iterative nature of a hilt's design cycle. For example: two designs, the Justicar and Arbiter, were fairly lackluster and unexciting. Recently the Justicar was discontinued but some of its design features made their way into the Arbiter 2.0. The Arbiter 2.0 is now one of the most talked about SF designs on various forum and community pages (*points at Knytiri's signature*). As many have pointed out this means that the quality of the finished sabers are high but the build process is slow.

My original point? The big two (US & SF) and the rest of the periphery saber manufacturers (Korbanth, Vader's Vault, Park Sabers, etc.) have developed in a very small market that has seen explosive growth over the past decade due to the mainstream appropriation of geek culture. As these companies gain more exposure they begin to serve customers that they aren't accustomed to the saber community which has been around for decades and have a distinct production cycle.

In the saber community prices and wait times have always been high. Even a decade or so ago a graflex or thin neck hilt might be produced in a run of fifty by an artisan in their garage which would cost upwards of a thousand dollar and would see a six month turnaround time. These new customers in the saber community are accustomed to... let's call it "Amazon culture" which has a very different set of expectations for a shopping experience. They're accustomed to instant gratification, established standards for turn around, and customer service that immediately responds to any request the patron makes. What we have is, essentially, the awkward adolescence of the saber community as it adapts to this new type of customer. Some companies will remain niche (Korbanth, Vader's Vault) because they're interested in their passion projects. SF is trying to retain its core values while meeting the demands of this new type of customers.

This has led to a number of "culture clashes" as new customers have a difficult time adjusting their expectations away from "Amazon culture." When these "Amazon culture" expectations aren't met the result is sometimes anger or confusion.

Personally, I'm thrilled by turnaround times less than six months and paying less than $300 dollars for a replica quality hilt because my expectations are VERY different from that of a "Amazon culture" shopper.

tl;dr- Saber markets are adjusting to a new type of customer whose expectations are sometimes not met. Market is adjusting.

Good points all my friends!

When you compare all that is out there, the mix of design strength, combat capability, lead time, quality, and customer support - SF will be your best "bang for the buck". I believe that!

You always have the choice to go more screen accurate, but you give up combat capability, and lead time. If you go faster turn around time you will give up design strength, and (to a certain extent) quality. BTW, the company that emphasizes their fast turn-around time (without mentioning names) attempts to make it seem like they are less expensive as well. However, anyone who has ever done a feature for feature comparison, knows that is just not true.

So, in the end, I think most folks who take the time to do the research, and compare the most important factors in obtaining a combat light saber, will come to the conclusion that SF is the way to go, and in the coming months I believe we will see even more reasons to feel that way!

I picked Saberforge for these main reasons:

-Quality of the hilt design/aesthetics
-Quality of the blades for dueling (Still haven't gotten to this part yet as I am the only one in my town with one, but soon...SOON...)
-Research for user feedback that was not over 2 years old (Not a whole lot of written reports on these things, but lots of youtube videos!)
-Customer Service

From what I read and from what I've seen, Saberforge and Vader's Vault have the best looking hilts by far that are combat capable. Ultrasabers' hilts were too plain looking for my tastes. Yes, I can get the fancy choose your colour effects a bit cheaper than saberforge, but I wanted a hilt that looked crazy awesome because my saber is not on all the time. It's sitting on a shelf or just in my hand most of the time without the blade. I wanted a hilt that looked like an actual lightsaber hilt, that had the details in them that made them look authentic. Ultrasaber ones didn't have that. Vader's Vault I had issues finding comments on easily (again, niche community and I am still very new to this).

Started browsing SaberForge and their range of hilt designs was astounding. I had a very hard time on the main site deciding which one I liked more as there were five I liked.

My wife started msging them with all kinds of questions she could hear me muttering about while I poked around youtube (I have a hard time spending money on myself) All questions were answered within a day, typically within a matter of hours. I am very impressed with that.

When my wife told me she ordered it, I was pretty stoked as I spent a few weeks reading up on these, watching videos and seeing that a geeky child dream of having a lightsaber can actually happen.

I didn't mind the wait. Yes, I had questions about the shipping thing (as most do) but once I understood how that worked I was perfectly happy. I am willing to wait if it means a job is done right the first time. I was excited about getting it, and got a bit antsy, sure. Who hasn't? But I was never upset with the wait. I will wait, oh how I will wait to be sure it matches my expectations. But I will get all excited and maybe posts rants about excitement.

The price didn't bother me at all for what I knew I would be getting. I'm willing to pay for quality, that wasn't a concern.

And it was. I am still very happy with my lightsaber and I am hoping to order another one after the holidays from Saberforge. Maybe two as my wife needs one!

I couldn't agree more with most of what you say. The quality will be worth the wait. I have a few from others but waiting on my first saberforge and really excited about, I knew I would have to wait a bit and super ok with that.

Just to follow up though, from my experience, most of the people complaining on facebook or other places aren't complaining necessarily about the wait times. It is more about what it posted as lead times and them having to wait longer than that. I think if Saberforge extended them out a little more just to cover delays, especially for the holiday/premier season, people would complain a little less. Just my two cents.