Yesterday I bought my 16th month 20 day old son's 5th birthday present

[EliasWindrider 2,714]

I have a conference (COCOA 2018) in Atlanta this weekend and spent a couple of vacation days ahead of it to visit my dad in Cummings GA.  Vader's vault is 19 miles from his home so I stopped by their store.  My son is Samuel L. ... and I had planned to get him a fury elite https://store.vadersvault.com/fury-elite/ because it looks a bit like mace windu's lightsaber and I'm totally playing up the Samuel L. Jackson/mace windu  namesake.  But in the kitchen/workshop they were working on 2 limited edition replicas, obiwan from ep 4 and ***Mace Windu's**ķ, woot!  So I paid $871 for a mace saber with plecterpixel blade and the grips cut down to be closer to the size on the fury elite (my son wouldn't be able to hold it with 1 hand if it had screen accurate grips when he is 5.

Edited December 13, 2018 by EliasWindrider

[oneeyedmatt87 208]

I hate to break it to you man, but my sons (ages 3 and 1) both love my kyberlights and are simultaneously completely unable to handle them. And by that, I mean "they love to crash them together" but also "try to eat them sometimes". My point being... if I can't talk my 3 year old to watch a single star wars movie/episode with me (which I can't), you might need to reevaluate what they want at 5 years old, since it might be something Paw Patrol/(something of similar genre).

I'm not hating on your idea (I'd personally LOVE if my kid loved Star Wars as much as I do), but maybe wait and see if your kid is into it, before spending $800?....

If nothing else, surely a lightsaber will be just as effective for cheaper in the next 4 years, so you can pick it up then? 

Again, all props to you, Jedi-Dad! I truly hope everything works out for you!

[EliasWindrider 2,714]

You know those cheap lightsabers you get at 4th of July celebrations?  I'm  talking these things 

https://www.extremeglow.com/store/c/31-LED-Light-Up-Swords-/-Toy-Guns.aspx

Anyway I got my some 6 of them (2 green, 2 blue, 2 red) for his first birthday, they're his second favorite toy... first is a toy broom... he understands that they're swords that you whack things with them, we had our first (two) lightsaber duel(s) this past Sunday, and my son thinks RVD2 (on YouTube) is so freaking cool (it totally absorbs his attention)... but the reason I chose his 5th birthday for this present is I remember being 4 and a switch being turned on in my head... *I* wouldn't have appreciated the present on my 4th birthday but i would have appreciated it on my 5th.  I got one of those plastic whiffle lightsabers for my 5th birthday, the ones you that made a humming sound when you swung them and I thought it was the coolest thing ever at the time.  So basically the decision of 5th vs. 4th or 6th birthday was based on the assumption that my son is like me.

My decision to buy the present now is that a limited run replica mace windu saber is being made *now* I won't be able to get it 2 years from now.

 

Edited December 14, 2018 by EliasWindrider

[AceSolo5 389]

I don’t even like lightsabers... give me a good blaster any day 😃 

Buuuuut... That is awesome!!!

[EliasWindrider 2,714]

5 hours ago, AceSolo5 said:

I don’t even like lightsabers... give me a good blaster any day 😃 

Buuuuut... That is awesome!!!

Vader's vault does sell blaster props, there's one on their website and they had avynother in thnde store (I think they modded a real gun to make it because that was surprisingly heavy, and just felt like a real gun, a "gun enthusiast" friend took me shooting once)

[AceSolo5 389]

I checked out the website, they’ve got Rey’s blaster on there at the moment which is pretty cool!

Ive got a 3D modelled A180 blaster pistol from Rogue One, love it but wish it was heavier!

[EliasWindrider 2,714]

1 hour ago, AceSolo5 said:

I checked out the website, they’ve got Rey’s blaster on there at the moment which is pretty cool!

Ive got a 3D modelled A180 blaster pistol from Rogue One, love it but wish it was heavier!

I didn't hold the blaster on the website, it looked a lot lighter than the one I held.  Btw they do custom work.  I love the way their mitsurugi 3k saber feels in my hands but I hate its aesthetics (I like the aesthetics of the brawler elite pictured on their website, but it's too long for me to use effectively in 1 hand, I'm looking for something good for 1 AND 2 handed dueling), so I sent them an email to ask about making a custom saber for me.  Haven't gotten a response yet but it's only been a day and they seemed super busy when I stopped by their store, they're only 8 people total.

[EliasWindrider 2,714]

Btw the mace saber is definitely a one handed, the left vertical gold button in screen accurate pictures is turn on, the right one is the "auxiliary" (e.g. for blaster sound effects, changing sound-fonts/colors) the middle rectangle and top arc are dummies (there just to be screen accurate), the texturing/pattern on the rubber 180 degrees around the cylinder from the buttons is exquisite, and it comes with the genesis custom sabers a.k.a. rob "mad cow" shatterpoint sound font on it.  For the combination of quality and price it's really hard to beat vader's vault (high end sabers by the sabersmith "yoda" go for upwards of $16K, so you can get better if you pay more,  and if you're willing to sacrifice quality, then you could pay a lot less, but vader's vault hits the sweet spot), the only quality/price ratio that might beat it is this https://www.thepachstore.com/products/kyojin

Now that's the cheapest "real" saber (light, sound, you can duel with it) out there, but it's got a severely limited feature set, you can't change the sound font, I don't think it has blaster reflect sounds, can't get color changing, etc.  I plan to pick up several of them right before my son's 5th birthday so his friends can borrow them when they come over to play with my son (it's kind of pointless to have a lightsaber if you can't use it to duel with your friends) also going to use them to break open the pinata.  Samuel's little brother or sister (we don't know the gender of our second child yet) will certainly want one and I don't think an approximately $900 toy is appropriate for a small child who is too young to appreciate it, but I'm not worried about wasting $59 (plus shipping) on a toy that a child is too young to appreciate.

[EliasWindrider 2,714]

Today I bought a  customized revan elite for me, extra machining to take out some of the ridges and a custom pommel to increase the length of it to match the mitsurugi's length.  It was the owner's Allen Johnson's idea about how to achieve the effect I was going for.  That guy is awesome, he's got cool stories like about how his dad machined him a lightsaber when he was a child, oh and Ray Park, you know Darth Maul in the phantom menace recently ordered a lightsaber from them.

[Demon4x4 222]

That VV "The Light" Saber is hot, I've been eye-balling it since you shared the link above. I have three Saber Forge sabers, myself. I like the custom-ability of them. 

[EliasWindrider 2,714]

9 hours ago, Demon4x4 said:

That VV "The Light" Saber is hot, I've been eye-balling it since you shared the link above. I have three Saber Forge sabers, myself. I like the custom-ability of them. 

I have no personal experience with ultrasabers or saberforge, but their online buzz about not holding up under dueling is the primary reason why I went with VV.  Saberforge does have some beautiful hilts though.   After these two from VV I'm only planning to buy a few of these

https://www.thepachstore.com/products/kyojin?variant=51742109574

Until the bun in the oven is old enough to appreciate a high end saber.  When Samuel L. ... is old enough (teenager)  I'll get him a second saber that he chooses himself, might take him to VV in person so he gets one that feels right in his hands. A First saber for "becoming a padawan,"  the second for "being knighted" type deal.

Edited December 18, 2018 by EliasWindrider

[EliasWindrider 2,714]

On 12/17/2018 at 9:51 PM, Demon4x4 said:

That VV "The Light" Saber is hot, I've been eye-balling it since you shared the link above. I have three Saber Forge sabers, myself. I like the custom-ability of them. 

I like the saberforge "exile"  like the picture except with the black part in the emitter section colored copper... too bad they don't have neopixel blades.

[Benjan Meruna 797]

Maaaaaaaan, I wish MY dad had done that.  Hey, are you adopting by chance? 😁

[EliasWindrider 2,714]

On 1/17/2019 at 9:37 AM, Benjan Meruna said:

Maaaaaaaan, I wish MY dad had done that.  Hey, are you adopting by chance? 😁

We may adopt in the future.  But it would like be an orphan from Peru.  (My wife was Peruvian until yesterday, now she's an American of Peruvian descent)

[slope123 29]

On 12/15/2018 at 1:39 AM, AceSolo5 said:

I don’t even like lightsabers... give me a good blaster any day 😃 

Buuuuut... That is awesome!!!

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster by your side. 

[penpenpen 1,748]

On 12/14/2018 at 12:43 AM, EliasWindrider said:

I have a conference (COCOA 2018) in Atlanta this weekend and spent a couple of vacation days ahead of it to visit my dad in Cummings GA.  Vader's vault is 19 miles from his home so I stopped by their store.  My son is Samuel L. ... and I had planned to get him a fury elite https://store.vadersvault.com/fury-elite/ because it looks a bit like mace windu's lightsaber and I'm totally playing up the Samuel L. Jackson/mace windu  namesake.  But in the kitchen/workshop they were working on 2 limited edition replicas, obiwan from ep 4 and ***Mace Windu's**ķ, woot!  So I paid $871 for a mace saber with plecterpixel blade and the grips cut down to be closer to the size on the fury elite (my son wouldn't be able to hold it with 1 hand if it had screen accurate grips when he is 5.

Oh man, sounds like things are going to be tough when he hits the teenage rebellion phase and becomes a hardcore trekkie.

I know your first instinct as a caring father will be a re-education camp at Skywalker ranch, but remember, he will need to be allowed to make his own life choices and (as in this case) his own mistakes.

Well, unless his answer to "Kirk or Picard?" is "Archer!". In that case, tie him down and call the cult deprogrammer and excorcist right away.

[EliasWindrider 2,714]

I like Trek too, just not as much and Archer is my answer (halfway between Kirk and Picard) so that rebellious behavior would be tolerated.

[Nytwyng 5,759]

21 hours ago, penpenpen said:

Well, unless his answer to "Kirk or Picard?" is "Archer!". In that case, tie him down and call the cult deprogrammer and excorcist right away.

The proper answer to that question is "Mackenzie Calhoun."

To the best of my knowledge, Calhoun is the only character original to a novel to receive an action figure. 😛

[penpenpen 1,748]

8 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

The proper answer to that question is "Mackenzie Calhoun."

Half-way into the second episode of ST: Discovery I was fully aboard with it being Philippa Georgiou. Then the rest of the season happened and I went back to team Sisko.

[Nytwyng 5,759]

30 minutes ago, penpenpen said:

Half-way into the second episode of ST: Discovery I was fully aboard with it being Philippa Georgiou. Then the rest of the season happened and I went back to team Sisko.

Forty minutes into the pilot of Discovery, I was fully on board with a nominal parody by someone whose work I don’t nornally like demonstrating a better grasp of Trek than current Trek.

[EliasWindrider 2,714]

4 hours ago, Nytwyng said:

Forty minutes into the pilot of Discovery, I was fully on board with a nominal parody by someone whose work I don’t nornally like demonstrating a better grasp of Trek than current Trek.

I'm out of touch with current tv and movies... since my son was born my wife and I haven't gone to the movie theater, we wait until movies come out on Netflix or maybe rent it on Xfinity if we can't get it on Netflix.  We don't want our son watching violence so we stopped mid second season on the iron fist, we haven't watched season 3 of daredevil, season 2 of Luke cage, or season 2 of punisher.  Jessica Jones we stopped early in and I only got to watch Luke cage season 1 by fast forwarding past parts with nudity and scantily clad women (wife gets jealous).  Point is I've seen comercials for discovery, but seriously I don't have time to watch it.  Finding time for the manifest is hard.  When our tv is on it's usually  "if I were an animal" 13 episodes or so in a day (restarting after ep 13, because my son watches it over and over and over, but at least it's not coco... I got so sick of that movie twice a day for 6 months will do that.