Vader's vault is 19 minutes from my dad's home in Cummings GA. When I visited him in December I stopped by Vader's vault. They had a limited run of mace windu replica lightsabers hilt by 89 sabers... and my son is Samuel L. so I bought one on the spot for his 5th birthday present, he'll be 2 this july... it one of those "your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough" things. And I ordered the pictured one for me so we could duel. It's a rev-n elite with some custom machining and the pommel from the havoc to make it closer to the dimensions of a mitsurugi 3k which felt perfect in my hands but the whole "if Darth Vader was a space samurai this would be his lightsaber" aesthetic of the mitsurugi 3k just didn't do it for me.

Btw this is the mitsurugi 3k to illustrate the if Darth Vader was a space samurai aesthetic, but the thing is super well balanced for 1 and 2 handed dueling, it just feels right in the hands and is small enough to hang on your belt (unlike the 2 handed legionnaire)

If I get super into lightsaber duelling I might buy one as a beater, with suncrusher blue in hilt led and a photon blade. Plecterpixel blades like what I got in the rev-n and mace are rated for medium dueling rather than heavy dueling. In hilt led's are needed for heavy dueling and a photon blade with suncrusher blue led (3 blue led die's) will get you a superbright green blade https://vadersvault.com/photon-blade/ reportedly not quite as bright as plecterpixel but the next brightest thing.

This is an 89sabers "mace" hilt installed by Vader's vault. The one I got for my son has the black plastic grips cut down a bit to be easier for a 5 year old to hold.

For someone who wants to get into the hobby with something quality for a reasonable price (about $350). I'd recommend getting something from https://electrumsabers.com/electrum-smart-sabers/ electrum sabercraft. From what I've read as of the very recently released D3 sound card they have the best tech, but they have a very limited selection of hilts as of now. Btw this is the only thin neck saber that I'd consider buying because it's one actually made for dueling (most aren't, every combat class saber from Vader's vault is made for dueling, but the "hero" i.e. Luke's rotj saber isn't because the blade socket isn't deep enough, one of the pit falls of getting something super close to screen accurate). The Aurora (electrum sabercraft pictured) has an option for no control box which makes it ergonomic for a 2 handed grip.

If $350 is beyond your price point and you and a bunch of friends want to get into the hobby for as cheap as possible ($59 apiece) then get a x5 mystery box (discounted price) from

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

But from the research I've done, quality issues are common with ultrasabers and saberforge because they don't use a chassis inside their hilts to hold everything in place, so I'd avoid them. But saberforge does have some really nice looking hilts.

You can learn a lot about custom sabers by watching the rebel chumps channel on YouTube.

Btw custom lightsaber blades in real life don't look like they do on camera. The white core isn't white to the naked eye, it's just a bright red or green or blue that oversaturates the camera which interprets it as white. Eyeballs are superior to man made video equipment in this way, bt the man made video equipment while less accurate makes it look more awesome than real life.