Even tho these guys have a very mixed reputation, I gave em a shot. Big mistake! I own 11 other sabers. None of them are from SF tho, and I'm sure glad of that! I will never deal with this company again. Here's my experience with them...
Arrived broken in multiple ways, in a perfect undamaged box, over 6 weeks after I ordered it. Broken blade. Broken blade contacts in the saber. Broken power switch plate.
I put a spare borrowed blade in it and got it to light up half way. Looked inside and the wires are twisted and almost ripped from very bad installation.
Does not come in a protective hard case like most of the other brands, not even a nice box, just bubble wrap and cardboard. But they do try to upsell you a bag for 50 bucks to put only the hilt in! The blade I guess just gets beat around; and the accessories, if they even remember to send them, are in the bag scratching the saber, or they are left at home or they just get lost.
Arrived short several random items from my order, and some of the items I got were not what I ordered, but were close enough to suit them, I guess.
Beyond that, what isn't broken is shoddy and wonky, not even what it looks like it's supposed to be in the pics online. They are VERY misleading pics and description.
The square switch plate (power button) is held on by a tiny flat cheapo black 'plastic' magnet, like a fridge magnet. It falls off so easy I could blow on it and make it fall off. Seriously, the way it's made, it is almost impossible not to knock it off every time you simply hold the saber. Turning it on and off is impossible if your hands are sweaty or sticky, the switch plate sticks to your finger more than the magnet sticks to the power button! Using motion is worse, it flings the switch across the room, lol.
The glue fell off the soft magnet when the magnet fell off the saber. So now the switch plate is trash, and I have to turn it on and off by the ugly exposed cheapo plastic switch.
The Graflex clamp is not a real clamp, its just an immobile visual trick, it's a solid cast hunk of metal, not a collection of authentic working parts. The handle for it is also fake, and it is known to break off easily. Flimsy and very fakey looking, just enough that someone looking at your saber might just snap it off.
The finishes are not right. The fake graflex clamp part in the middle and the reveal piece inside are both cast in cheap metal, and then plated in shiny chrome-like metal. It looks plastic. Bad.
There are two pieces of black metal on this saber, the British grenade body and the Browning machine gun booster. They are treated with different finishes, so one looks rusty, and the other one looks like it was spray painted flat black and then sanded. Really weird decision, and it looks off. The same thing with the brass parts, it's not as glaringly obvious but their finishes don't match either. And rather than weathered, it all looks like it was sanded on a lathe.
The threading on the entire saber is all trash. This is a big deal! It is not good work, or clean work. Be careful of metal splinters! Be careful of cross-threading! It is just plain bad craftsmanship. It squeaks and catches as you unscrew it, like a rusty old flashlight from 1982. Grindy and gritty, not smooth.
Thing is, its a 'Crystal Reveal' saber, so you have to unscrew the thing apart, embarrassingly noisy and at length, in order to reveal it! Then you have to try hard not to cross thread the junk when you put it back together! It will not last long. (A real crystal reveal saber would have a working Graflex clamp to open the saber, like it's supposed to work. Instead they fool you, cheap tricks.)
The reveal feature itself is not especially great. The crystal isnt realistic looking at all, and the metal is obviously cheaply done. Not horrible, but not great quality either. Looks like plastic, sadly.
Last, and maybe I'm nitpicking, but the D ring is also not right. It flops side to side pretty bad, and would make the saber hang crooked from a belt. The other D rings I've seen don't have any side to side movement at all. So this is just bad fit and finish work, again.
The sound and motion is ok, functions as intended, not very loud but not bad; in this case, no news is good news.
My ordeal with CS is ongoing, but it has been made very clear to me since the day it arrived broken, that it will not be repalced or refunded under any circumstances, and the best I can hope for is a repair of the broken one they sent me. They will talk around you until you agree with them, and if you don't they just send you to someone else, who reads off the same bs circular list of platitudes. It's mind-numbing.
This is not the worst saber I've ever bought, but it is definitely not a good saber. Especially for the high price. I do not recommend it. Even as a desk ornament it looks like plastic, and picking it up is near impossible without s...
