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TOPIC: Bastion in 12W+ Red

Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 week ago #70896

  • TheGrandAdmiral
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So here we are again, time for the 2nd part of my original order, from what is more than half a year ago now. Time does fly when you have a lot of work to do fun :P

As per always, starting off with a quick look video review:


It would appear to be a repeating theme that SaberForge hilts serve to constantly surprise me upon receipt of the product. Once again, I could not believe how small the saber was, despite at this point having already opened and played with 5 other SaberForge hilts. I will never be able to stop shouting the praises of the workmanship of these hilts, managing to fit so much detail into such a small tube of aluminium.

Now, I believe that this was my first hilt with a Red LED (the "original" red, since I think SF now have a few of them) and interestingly, right up until I came to ordering it, red was not a colour I had decided on. In fact, the pictures of the Bastion on the Champion Bastion purchase page was what made me choose. Up until then the site had not shown the standard weathering with a non "light side" colour, and I believed at that point that is what I would choose, yet upon seeing the pictures of the standard weathering with the Red LED, I knew that was the combination I needed for this hilt. I've stated before I usually prefer the unweathered look, even on "dark side" hilts, and it fits so perfectly here.

The Red plays perfectly with the silvery aluminium, as well as fitting oh so nicely into the emitter windows, that it feels incredibly at home in this hilt. Add to that the lovely Crimson soundboard, and we've got ourselves a winner. Speaking of the soundboard, I certainly prefer the Crimson to the Viridium. Deeper and growl-ier, than the Viridium, it certainly does present a darker sound than its less evil counterpart, yet it is in my opinion a far nicer idle hum, with the added bonus of having a better alternate sound. I, and others, have expressed that the blaster deflection sound of the Viridium is not the nicest, and the blade lock up sound present on the Crimson is certainly preferable, at least to me.

Moving onto the hilts design itself, as I mention in the video, a perfectly simplistic design, capable of extreme versatility in appearance, although perhaps not in use. Of all the apprentice hilts I own, it is probably the hardest to wield, due to the strong lack of a place to grip. The small indent above the switch does not present a large enough space to grip well, and does minorly get in the way when spinning, however, it is still more than usable, just not the easiest to perform spinning or quick movement with. I would certainly take my Disciples over this in terms of ease of use.

The ease of use problems do not however, lessen how incredible the look of the hilt is. Again, as mentioned in the video, the emitter windows provide the necessary detail to "round off" the simplistic look of the hilt, giving this saber a very striking appearance. In addition to this, the simplicity would support just about any LED colour, a rare aspect in saber hilts in my opinion. I could wholeheartedly recommend someone buy a Bastion in whatever colour they like, or even opt for a Hero Tier with RGBA colour changing, because as happy as I am with this hilt, being able to change to whatever colour I liked would really emphasize the qualities of the saber.

I'm well aware that once again I'm waffling on when there are pictures to be admired, so without further ado, I hope you all enjoyed the review and/or found it helpful, and enjoy the show:















Last Edit: 5 months 1 week ago by TheGrandAdmiral.
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Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 week ago #70899

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Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 week ago #70900

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Wonderful! Thanks for the review. The Bastion is one of my favorite Apprentice hilts by SF.
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Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 week ago #70901

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Execute66 wrote:
Wonderful! Thanks for the review. The Bastion is one of my favorite Apprentice hilts by SF.

Agreed! I wish it had a nicer place to grip it, but otherwise, its marvelous.
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Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 week ago #70902

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Blast from the past to see the old Red after everyone's been going nuts over Deep Red. Kinda nice.


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Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 week ago #70907

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Eddlyss64 wrote:
Blast from the past to see the old Red after everyone's been going nuts over Deep Red. Kinda nice.

Indeed. Bought before the new red even existed lol. I like it, although I have no real life comparison to the Deep Red.
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Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 week ago #70916

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Sweet Bastion! Looks great in standard red. Congrats! :cheer:
MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU
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Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 week ago #70931

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Excellent review! I love the Bastion hilt - streamlined yet detailed. Nice choice going with red, too. It looks stellar.
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Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 week ago #70933

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Greysider wrote:
Sweet Bastion! Looks great in standard red. Congrats! :cheer:

My thoughts exactly, glad you like it :)
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Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 week ago #70946

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I would recommend you trim down the blade and LED retention screws. They stick out a decent ways and do limit your grip. If you trim the flush, then you can use the section of the hilt just below the emitter windows for your grip. I've found this to be the best place to hold the hilt for any one handed use.
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Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 week ago #70950

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Jas-Ot wrote:
I would recommend you trim down the blade and LED retention screws. They stick out a decent ways and do limit your grip. If you trim the flush, then you can use the section of the hilt just below the emitter windows for your grip. I've found this to be the best place to hold the hilt for any one handed use.

Thanks for the advice. That does tend to be where I grip the hilt currently, although I haven't noticed the screws being a problem, my main issue is the lack of grip point for things such as spins, leading me to have a looser grip, and moving me toward using a two handed grip on this. I prefer being able to do spins and adpot a one handed grip usually.

Despite the problems the hilt is still great, and its more of a minor inconvenience than anything. Slightly annoys me more than totally stops me using it.
Last Edit: 5 months 1 week ago by TheGrandAdmiral.
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Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 week ago #70952

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Hi TGA,

Really sweet looking hilt, just can't stop thinking of the lift shaft in the Emperor's throne room in ROTJ. It's those windows with the red shine through!

Hope you don't mind I just linked to this thread to help NIGHTBRINGER out.

Thanks for sharing,

For Tyeth
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Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 week ago #70953

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For Tyeth wrote:
Hi TGA,

Really sweet looking hilt, just can't stop thinking of the lift shaft in the Emperor's throne room in ROTJ. It's those windows with the red shine through!

Hope you don't mind I just linked to this thread to help NIGHTBRINGER out.

Thanks for sharing,

For Tyeth

Ah, I had never linked it with that, but it does rather echo that look indeed. Of course, feel free to link anything if its likely to help someone out, always good if I can help someone make an informed decision.
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Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 week ago #70962

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TheGrandAdmiral wrote:
Jas-Ot wrote:
I would recommend you trim down the blade and LED retention screws. They stick out a decent ways and do limit your grip. If you trim the flush, then you can use the section of the hilt just below the emitter windows for your grip. I've found this to be the best place to hold the hilt for any one handed use.

Thanks for the advice. That does tend to be where I grip the hilt currently, although I haven't noticed the screws being a problem, my main issue is the lack of grip point for things such as spins, leading me to have a looser grip, and moving me toward using a two handed grip on this. I prefer being able to do spins and adpot a one handed grip usually.

Despite the problems the hilt is still great, and its more of a minor inconvenience than anything. Slightly annoys me more than totally stops me using it.

Clean up the retention screws and sand down some of the sharp edges and it handles nicely as a one handed saber and spins well.

This is me doing a little light practice with my Bastion. Thick walled 37" blade on it in this video, so this is with a heavy blade...

Last Edit: 5 months 1 week ago by Jas-Ot.
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Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 week ago #70980

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Oops, reposting this since I managed to hit the delete button when re-reading it:

Oh I was never denying it could be spun, just that the hilts with proper indented grip points work better. While it can spin, having an indented grip point allows for loosening the grip when your hand reaches a direction in which it naturally opens up, while still maintaining full control over the blade in your hands.

Not only this, but I'm reviewing the hilt without modification, I want these things to be comprehensive buyers guide for people without any desire to put work into the hilt themselves. Just because the hilt can be spun well with modification, it does not justify me telling people it can be spun well, and I still believe the factory fresh bastion is the worst of the apprentice hilts I own for spinning around. I do not notice the screws as an issue when spinning, so sanding them down would do nothing, and holding it as you suggest still presents the issue of a lack of true grip point. Spinning this hilt quickly I do not feel as if I have a solid grip on it, the hilt is in general too smooth for that sort of thing.

However, I do appreciate this little addition to the review, that with modification it can function better for spinning, yet even so, I would personally still argue for the hilts with indented grip sections.
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Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 week ago #71030

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This has all be interesting to read. I just bought my first saber (Bastion Hero) and have been curious to know what everyone else thought of it.

Jas-Ot wrote:
I would recommend you trim down the blade and LED retention screws. They stick out a decent ways and do limit your grip. If you trim the flush, then you can use the section of the hilt just below the emitter windows for your grip. I've found this to be the best place to hold the hilt for any one handed use.
What exactly did you do to grind down the screws? If I decided to do it in the future, I'd like to not mess up an expensive saber!
Thanks again.
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Last Edit: 5 months 1 week ago by OvrcAHst. Reason: post approval and quote edit
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Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 week ago #71100

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Nice inclusion to your Collection TGA. I settled on the standard Red on mine also and to improve handling and grip, gave it a lick of paint for some extra resistance. Shinied-up the emitter vents for some highlighting too. :P

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Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 week ago #71106

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evo454 wrote:
This has all be interesting to read. I just bought my first saber (Bastion Hero) and have been curious to know what everyone else thought of it.

Jas-Ot wrote:
I would recommend you trim down the blade and LED retention screws. They stick out a decent ways and do limit your grip. If you trim the flush, then you can use the section of the hilt just below the emitter windows for your grip. I've found this to be the best place to hold the hilt for any one handed use.
What exactly did you do to grind down the screws? If I decided to do it in the future, I'd like to not mess up an expensive saber!
Thanks again.

Easiest way is to take the retention screws out, and use a Dremel with a cutting wheel and cut off the extra length. Alternately you could grind off the extra length with a rotary grinder.
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Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 week ago #71112

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OvrcAHst wrote:
Nice inclusion to your Collection TGA. I settled on the standard Red on mine also and to improve handling and grip, gave it a lick of paint for some extra resistance. Shinied-up the emitter vents for some highlighting too. :P

Very nice indeed, I'll be leaving mine in its standard colouring, but that is an impressive design.
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Bastion in 12W+ Red 5 months 1 day ago #71433

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Thanks man, I'll have to see what I can do when it comes in!
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