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Unlimited Run Vintage and Romans Graflex Blade holder
- Thread starter SolosHold
- Start date
Looking great!
SolosHold
Well-Known Member
Adapter/Holders are shipping.
The goal was to replicate the finish of the parts as closely as possible to the Black plastic to retain accuracy. See pic below.
http://soloshold.com/index.htm
The goal was to replicate the finish of the parts as closely as possible to the Black plastic to retain accuracy. See pic below.
http://soloshold.com/index.htm
Last edited:
Jedioz
Well-Known Member
Ehh its only $20.00 , its like $30 for us Aussies, speaking of that , how many Aussie ordered this fine product??
$20? What pricing page were you looking at?
Jedioz
Well-Known Member
The price rise is $20..................................
SolosHold
Well-Known Member
Hey guys, received mine yesterday and I wanted to share my thoughts/help anyone trying to decide if this Solo's (blade) Hold(er) is worth it;
Simply put: There is finally a blade holder worthy of the time and cost we put into acquiring our vintage Graflex 3-Cells! This thing is perfect in every respect. No, it isn't cheap, but this is one case where you definitely get what you pay for.
First thing you notice it feels so much more solid than any other Graflex blade holder (and I've used them all), like the metal itself is of better quality. Also, the finish is completely flawless; No machine marks are visible (important as it's meant to replicate an injection moulded plastic part) and the sandblasting (or whatever that slight texture is) is very even. The anodising is also fantastic, and took quite a lot of scratch to get to the raw aluminium below (I tested in an unnoticeable place as my vintage bulb holders all have some scratches in a similar place and I wanted to see if I could replicate that without getting down to bare metal)
Here's a couple of shots comparing the finish to KR Sabers' blade holder and the real Graflex part they're replicating:
As you can see the slight texture on the SH does a good job approximating the surface of the vintage piece (albeit slightly less glossy). The KR piece has visible machine marks.
Another thing to note on the difference between the SH and KR (as far as I'm aware the only blade holders with the two piece design and lip) is the general tolerances. You can see some scratches on the KR around where the screw goes, above the glass eye. This is due to the diameter being very slightly larger than it needs to and meeting enough resistance from the vintage Graflex tube to scratch it. The SH is also generally more accurate in a number of areas, e.g. the top of the protruding lip is chamfered on the KR and a sharp angle on the SH and vintage, the slots for inserting the reflector dish on the KR are further apart (possibly due to the 1 inch blade opening) etc. Nothing major, these details are tiny, but worth mentioning.
Also worth mentioning is the knock on effect of using a 1 inch blade in the KR version. While 1 inch is currently our 'standard' blade size, the accuracy of a vintage Graflex bulb holder replica suffers from it in a few areas. Most noticeably the sync pins. On the KR version, by necessity the depth of the cavity has to be reduced to allow the 1" blade to pass, meaning either short pins have to be used, or the pins will protrude uncomfortably. On the SH the depth is identical to the original, meaning you can use full sized sync pins.
I'd like to state that I'm not knocking the KR Sabers Graflex blade holder here, it was the first available for sale that improved the accuracy over TGS or TCSS versions, and up until the SH was, I believe, the best option for a vintage Graflex blade holder. It's still a solid product, but works with a different level of tolerance and screen accuracy than the SH. It is cheaper.
Back to the subject of the sync pins, one of the best aspects of the SH's design is that it is designed to re-use all the visible metal parts of your original Graflex. This means you can use your original sync pins, tabs and various small connector pieces. It really sells the look:
The natural ageing/patina of the original pieces makes a world of difference on the assembled product, and instead of replacing these vintage parts with shiny replicas, you get to put your Graflex back together with almost no discernible visual difference other than the lack of dust in the cavities
The ability to include even the metal tabs in the rectangular holes either side of the screw really helps here.
The final icing on the cake is the blade plug. Again designed to reuse as many vintage parts as possible the plug even uses the same spring to hold the bulb contact, meaning it depresses and springs back with exactly the same movement, feel and even sound as the real thing.
Overall I have no doubt that this is the best, highest quality, most accurate blade holder available for a vintage Graflex based lightsaber. Certainly the only possible improvement I can think of would be including the springs and mechanism to allow you to insert a vintage reflector dish, but as this is completely unnecessary/impractical in a lightsaber and would significantly increase the cost it would be a ridiculous thing to include.
A year ago I didn't know Graflex blade holders needed improving. There was no lip and the pins were shorter, sure, but as far as I was concerned that was just the way it was and a necessary result of using a blade in them. KR Sabers showed me that they did, in fact, need improving. Solo's Hold has now filled that need.
Simply put: There is finally a blade holder worthy of the time and cost we put into acquiring our vintage Graflex 3-Cells! This thing is perfect in every respect. No, it isn't cheap, but this is one case where you definitely get what you pay for.
First thing you notice it feels so much more solid than any other Graflex blade holder (and I've used them all), like the metal itself is of better quality. Also, the finish is completely flawless; No machine marks are visible (important as it's meant to replicate an injection moulded plastic part) and the sandblasting (or whatever that slight texture is) is very even. The anodising is also fantastic, and took quite a lot of scratch to get to the raw aluminium below (I tested in an unnoticeable place as my vintage bulb holders all have some scratches in a similar place and I wanted to see if I could replicate that without getting down to bare metal)
Here's a couple of shots comparing the finish to KR Sabers' blade holder and the real Graflex part they're replicating:
As you can see the slight texture on the SH does a good job approximating the surface of the vintage piece (albeit slightly less glossy). The KR piece has visible machine marks.
Another thing to note on the difference between the SH and KR (as far as I'm aware the only blade holders with the two piece design and lip) is the general tolerances. You can see some scratches on the KR around where the screw goes, above the glass eye. This is due to the diameter being very slightly larger than it needs to and meeting enough resistance from the vintage Graflex tube to scratch it. The SH is also generally more accurate in a number of areas, e.g. the top of the protruding lip is chamfered on the KR and a sharp angle on the SH and vintage, the slots for inserting the reflector dish on the KR are further apart (possibly due to the 1 inch blade opening) etc. Nothing major, these details are tiny, but worth mentioning.
Also worth mentioning is the knock on effect of using a 1 inch blade in the KR version. While 1 inch is currently our 'standard' blade size, the accuracy of a vintage Graflex bulb holder replica suffers from it in a few areas. Most noticeably the sync pins. On the KR version, by necessity the depth of the cavity has to be reduced to allow the 1" blade to pass, meaning either short pins have to be used, or the pins will protrude uncomfortably. On the SH the depth is identical to the original, meaning you can use full sized sync pins.
I'd like to state that I'm not knocking the KR Sabers Graflex blade holder here, it was the first available for sale that improved the accuracy over TGS or TCSS versions, and up until the SH was, I believe, the best option for a vintage Graflex blade holder. It's still a solid product, but works with a different level of tolerance and screen accuracy than the SH. It is cheaper.
Back to the subject of the sync pins, one of the best aspects of the SH's design is that it is designed to re-use all the visible metal parts of your original Graflex. This means you can use your original sync pins, tabs and various small connector pieces. It really sells the look:
The natural ageing/patina of the original pieces makes a world of difference on the assembled product, and instead of replacing these vintage parts with shiny replicas, you get to put your Graflex back together with almost no discernible visual difference other than the lack of dust in the cavities
The ability to include even the metal tabs in the rectangular holes either side of the screw really helps here.The final icing on the cake is the blade plug. Again designed to reuse as many vintage parts as possible the plug even uses the same spring to hold the bulb contact, meaning it depresses and springs back with exactly the same movement, feel and even sound as the real thing.
Overall I have no doubt that this is the best, highest quality, most accurate blade holder available for a vintage Graflex based lightsaber. Certainly the only possible improvement I can think of would be including the springs and mechanism to allow you to insert a vintage reflector dish, but as this is completely unnecessary/impractical in a lightsaber and would significantly increase the cost it would be a ridiculous thing to include.
A year ago I didn't know Graflex blade holders needed improving. There was no lip and the pins were shorter, sure, but as far as I was concerned that was just the way it was and a necessary result of using a blade in them. KR Sabers showed me that they did, in fact, need improving. Solo's Hold has now filled that need.
Great review, thanks!
Just to quickly add to my review:
Here are 3 genuine vintage Graflex 3-cells:
One of them has the SH blade holder in. Can anybody tell which one?
The blade holder is now installed into my screen accurate ESB (with Tri Cree XP E2 and Crystal Focus v8 board) and somehow even makes the 7/8ths blades feel less whippy. I suspect because of the really tight tolerances and solid engineering holding the blade securely.
The one downside is how the light comes through between the two pieces as they are not fixed together, as I understand it this is to install the electronics completely outside the saber and just slide it in, also to allow a full crystal core reveal. It's very possible that I've done something wrong or am not aware of a method to firmly close this gap tho, so I'll update if that changes
Here are 3 genuine vintage Graflex 3-cells:
One of them has the SH blade holder in. Can anybody tell which one?
The blade holder is now installed into my screen accurate ESB (with Tri Cree XP E2 and Crystal Focus v8 board) and somehow even makes the 7/8ths blades feel less whippy. I suspect because of the really tight tolerances and solid engineering holding the blade securely.
The one downside is how the light comes through between the two pieces as they are not fixed together, as I understand it this is to install the electronics completely outside the saber and just slide it in, also to allow a full crystal core reveal. It's very possible that I've done something wrong or am not aware of a method to firmly close this gap tho, so I'll update if that changes
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