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Description
I've managed to acquire a few more interesting pieces in my growing collection of nerdy odds n' ends since the last time I posted on this account, and these include two high-quality sparring lightsabers. Both of them are made by local sabersmith Steve Hill of Steve's Sith Side Sabers, based in Aiken, South Carolina, whose page can be found here:

www.facebook.com/ssssabers/pos…

I got my first one, a completely custom piece, at the Agamacon Mini-Con held at Cardboard Castle Games in Augusta, GA on February 3rd, 2018, and since my fencing instructor already has a lightsaber of his own, we quickly began to use our lightsabers for HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) sparring on occasion at my local club, where we basically wield them using the exact same techniques that we'd use when practicing late medieval/16th century German longsword fighting.

However, people kept trying to borrow my lightsaber and since I got it because I felt a very strong personal affinity for the shape, weight and handling characteristics of that specific hilt, I started to get increasingly annoyed by this and started to consider getting a second custom lightsaber built, a simple, sturdy lightsaber that I could specifically hand out to other people during practice as a loaner so that they'd stop trying to use mine all the time.

I managed to find an empty, bare aluminum Ultrasabers Sentinel ver.4 hilt on eBay. This is one of their basic dueling lightsaber hilts, so it's a no-nonsense, simplistic design, 12 inches in length with two choke points for an easy, ergonomic two-handed grip and an existing hole for a single guarded or A/V switch, limiting its utility to single-button lightsaber sound boards like the Pico Crumble or Nano Biscotti. I bought the hilt for about $68-69.00 and it was quickly shipped to me within a week, and I then turned it over to Steve to be worked on. I also purchased a custom lightsaber bag to be a "presentation/carry bag" for the hilt - just because this was meant to be a loaner didn't mean I didn't want it to be pretty.

www.ultrasabers.com/product-p/…

For the electronics, this lightsaber features a light-up anti-vandal ignition switch and a tri-cree RGB LED lighting system, and was originally powered by a basic Pico Crumble ver.1 "Dark Side" sound board that Steve just happened to have lying on hand. But after we eventually discovered that the sound board was faulty and kept producing a glitch where the A/V switch would activate and light up but nothing else would work (and it wouldn't go back into deep sleep mode by itself either), Steve managed to get his hands on the updated ver.2 version of the Pico Crumble sound board and replaced it.

The Pico Crumble is designed to be a simple, inexpensive sound board. It has no SD card so the sound font - Dark Meat by Lord Blako in this version - cannot be changed. It is RICE-compatible, but I chose not to have a RICE port installed on this lightsaber as I don't see the need to adjust the sound font on a saber meant entirely for fencing. In its current from with the ver.2 PIco Crumble sound board, the lightsaber has fifteen different blade colors, four swing sounds, four clash sounds, and a magenta-colored flash-on-clash and a whirring boot noise. The A/V switch is illuminated when the lightsaber is idle or active, allowing me to tell at a glance when it's in Deep Sleep mode.

www.thecustomsabershop.com/Pic…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiDro6…

It has no mounted recharge port, and therefore, no need for an external kill key. Instead, the lightsaber's internal 3D-printed chassis (something stock Ultrasabers don't have) mounts a single 18650 lithium ion battery that I use an external charger to keep powered. I was given a charger and two batteries.

The saber also originally featured a bass speaker that necessitated a ring of polycarbonate supported by a rubber O-ring to be placed in the pommel to keep its powerful vibrations from unintentionally triggering the Pico Crumble sound board's motion sensors and causing "phantom swings," but after this speaker was damaged in combat, Steve got his hands on a different speaker made by another manufacturer that was long enough to jut against the pommel when the pommel cap was screwed int the lightsaber, making this modification unnecessary.

The lightsaber features a new pommel that isn't the stock one that I got with the original Ultrasabers hilt. That one was a stunt pommel and wasn't vented for sound, but the new one is. Steve also created a custom blade plug for the lightsaber that was created using 1" polycarbonate blade stock fitted with a brass cog and what was originally the motor from a CD player to represent the "emitter." He also put a styrofoam packing peanut inside the blade plug that acts as a light diffuser so that when the lightsaber is activated with the blade plug inside the emitter, it won't unintentionally blind anyone that looks directly at it.

Finally, I had the saber exquisitely decorated. The intention was to represent an older lightsaber design from another era, specifically the Republic period. It could possibly even be a lightsaber from the Old Republic, but I was mainly thinking of making the lightsaber appear to be an antique from, say, the Clone Wars period or just before. Steve did some acid etching on the segment with the switch opposite the switch itself, featuring the Clone Wars-era Jedi emblem and Aurebesh text citing the Jedi Code: "there is no chaos/there is harmony." Then, to give the lightsaber a rich, distinctive antique look, Steve powder-coated sections of the lightsaber in black and metallic copper. Sadly, the powder coating, while making the saber a beautiful and elegant piece, is not invulnerable to being chipped off in battle, so someday I will probably have to get it redone to restore the saber to its full glory now that it's seen about a month of active fighting.

I got this lightsaber on the 23rd of March with its original Pico Crumble ver.1 sound board installed and despite my quick discovery afterward that this sound board was defective and glitching, which (along with the later damage to the speaker) caused the lightsaber to be constantly in and out of Steve's house for repair work, I immediately deployed it into active combat at the Loyal Order of the Sword for fencing. It did indeed serve its purpose and almost everyone - including myself - has used it at some point. I normally have it fitted with a 40" Ultrasabers heavy grade polycarbonate blade that I've been borrowing from my instructor, but sometimes I have a shorter 36" blade mounted on it instead during fencing classes.

Here is some footage I've put on YouTube of this lightsaber in combat. I'm the fencer in black and again, I am using the "Kunst des Fechtens"/German longsword fighting style as taught by Joachim Meyer in his 1570 manual, "The Art of Combat."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=--HiNO…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSroI5…

I am facing my convention buddy and fellow fencer Stephen, who is using a heavily modified Ultrasabers Aeon ver.4 w/ Catalyst pommel that he also had Steve Hill reconstruct for him.

Description
I've managed to acquire a few more interesting pieces in my growing collection of nerdy odds n' ends since the last time I posted on this account, and these include two high-quality sparring lightsabers. Both of them are made by local sabersmith Steve Hill of Steve's Sith Side Sabers, based in Aiken, South Carolina, whose page can be found here:

www.facebook.com/ssssabers/pos…

I got my first one, a completely custom piece, at the Agamacon Mini-Con held at Cardboard Castle Games in Augusta, GA on February 3rd, 2018, and since my fencing instructor already has a lightsaber of his own, we quickly began to use our lightsabers for HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) sparring on occasion at my local club, where we basically wield them using the exact same techniques that we'd use when practicing late medieval/16th century German longsword fighting.

However, people kept trying to borrow my lightsaber and since I got it because I felt a very strong personal affinity for the shape, weight and handling characteristics of that specific hilt, I started to get increasingly annoyed by this and started to consider getting a second custom lightsaber built, a simple, sturdy lightsaber that I could specifically hand out to other people during practice as a loaner so that they'd stop trying to use mine all the time.

I managed to find an empty, bare aluminum Ultrasabers Sentinel ver.4 hilt on eBay. This is one of their basic dueling lightsaber hilts, so it's a no-nonsense, simplistic design, 12 inches in length with two choke points for an easy, ergonomic two-handed grip and an existing hole for a single guarded or A/V switch, limiting its utility to single-button lightsaber sound boards like the Pico Crumble or Nano Biscotti. I bought the hilt for about $68-69.00 and it was quickly shipped to me within a week, and I then turned it over to Steve to be worked on. I also purchased a custom lightsaber bag to be a "presentation/carry bag" for the hilt - just because this was meant to be a loaner didn't mean I didn't want it to be pretty.

www.ultrasabers.com/product-p/…

For the electronics, this lightsaber features a light-up anti-vandal ignition switch and a tri-cree RGB LED lighting system, and was originally powered by a basic Pico Crumble ver.1 "Dark Side" sound board that Steve just happened to have lying on hand. But after we eventually discovered that the sound board was faulty and kept producing a glitch where the A/V switch would activate and light up but nothing else would work (and it wouldn't go back into deep sleep mode by itself either), Steve managed to get his hands on the updated ver.2 version of the Pico Crumble sound board and replaced it.

The Pico Crumble is designed to be a simple, inexpensive sound board. It has no SD card so the sound font - Dark Meat by Lord Blako in this version - cannot be changed. It is RICE-compatible, but I chose not to have a RICE port installed on this lightsaber as I don't see the need to adjust the sound font on a saber meant entirely for fencing. In its current from with the ver.2 PIco Crumble sound board, the lightsaber has fifteen different blade colors, four swing sounds, four clash sounds, and a magenta-colored flash-on-clash and a whirring boot noise. The A/V switch is illuminated when the lightsaber is idle or active, allowing me to tell at a glance when it's in Deep Sleep mode.

www.thecustomsabershop.com/Pic…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiDro6…

It has no mounted recharge port, and therefore, no need for an external kill key. Instead, the lightsaber's internal 3D-printed chassis (something stock Ultrasabers don't have) mounts a single 18650 lithium ion battery that I use an external charger to keep powered. I was given a charger and two batteries.

The saber also originally featured a bass speaker that necessitated a ring of polycarbonate supported by a rubber O-ring to be placed in the pommel to keep its powerful vibrations from unintentionally triggering the Pico Crumble sound board's motion sensors and causing "phantom swings," but after this speaker was damaged in combat, Steve got his hands on a different speaker made by another manufacturer that was long enough to jut against the pommel when the pommel cap was screwed int the lightsaber, making this modification unnecessary.

The lightsaber features a new pommel that isn't the stock one that I got with the original Ultrasabers hilt. That one was a stunt pommel and wasn't vented for sound, but the new one is. Steve also created a custom blade plug for the lightsaber that was created using 1" polycarbonate blade stock fitted with a brass cog and what was originally the motor from a CD player to represent the "emitter." He also put a styrofoam packing peanut inside the blade plug that acts as a light diffuser so that when the lightsaber is activated with the blade plug inside the emitter, it won't unintentionally blind anyone that looks directly at it.

Finally, I had the saber exquisitely decorated. The intention was to represent an older lightsaber design from another era, specifically the Republic period. It could possibly even be a lightsaber from the Old Republic, but I was mainly thinking of making the lightsaber appear to be an antique from, say, the Clone Wars period or just before. Steve did some acid etching on the segment with the switch opposite the switch itself, featuring the Clone Wars-era Jedi emblem and Aurebesh text citing the Jedi Code: "there is no chaos/there is harmony." Then, to give the lightsaber a rich, distinctive antique look, Steve powder-coated sections of the lightsaber in black and metallic copper. Sadly, the powder coating, while making the saber a beautiful and elegant piece, is not invulnerable to being chipped off in battle, so someday I will probably have to get it redone to restore the saber to its full glory now that it's seen about a month of active fighting.

I got this lightsaber on the 23rd of March with its original Pico Crumble ver.1 sound board installed and despite my quick discovery afterward that this sound board was defective and glitching, which (along with the later damage to the speaker) caused the lightsaber to be constantly in and out of Steve's house for repair work, I immediately deployed it into active combat at the Loyal Order of the Sword for fencing. It did indeed serve its purpose and almost everyone - including myself - has used it at some point. I normally have it fitted with a 40" Ultrasabers heavy grade polycarbonate blade that I've been borrowing from my instructor, but sometimes I have a shorter 36" blade mounted on it instead during fencing classes.

Here is some footage I've put on YouTube of this lightsaber in combat. I'm the fencer in black and again, I am using the "Kunst des Fechtens"/German longsword fighting style as taught by Joachim Meyer in his 1570 manual, "The Art of Combat."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=--HiNO…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSroI5…

I am facing my convention buddy and fellow fencer Stephen, who is using a heavily modified Ultrasabers Aeon ver.4 w/ Catalyst pommel that he also had Steve Hill reconstruct for him.