Customs... A2 a canadian?
Well first off let me say I did some work on the blade already. The craftsman ship great but that stock MR blade is not that great. It bulbs and is does light up as evenly. I wanted it to be all it could be for the pics too. First I glued a mirror into the top of the blade. Second was a strip of reflective film at the base inside to help make less "side-spill".
The results are great. Unevenly lit my butt... if you can't live with a flare as minimal as this you are too picky.


The only other red blade I have is a plasma blade... that's not a fair comparison at all, lol. So no color on color comparison. Ironically I don't have an Vader ESB because my plasma blade is an ANH hilt made out of a Heiland flash so I haven't had the desire to get one. I have a Vader board for a Luxeon saber too... rather ironic indeed.
Now to compare it to other blades. Here is all three I could readily pull out. From bottom to top the Vader ESB, Stock Anakin ROTS, and finally my own MHS saber with Corbin's film.

As you can tell my Green MHS saber blows them out of the water, but the Vader is nothing to snub at.
Anakin to Vader:

Luxeon to Luxeon (Sorry it's blurry):

On to the hilt. It looks imaculate. The only thing I have to say about the hilt that is a gripe against MR is the wires are plastic... cheap. The TCSS holder looks mighty dandy there. The nice little touch I noticed was that normally you see the aluminum through the holes but Yoda fixed that. He placed a bit of the copper stuff in there.


The Luxeon Vader was a great prize. Maybe now some others won't be as reluctant and buy one from FX-sabers.

I need to find a dueling partner and take it out for a spin. I need some corbin film too...