| Weapon Building |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| All weponry, except throwing weapons, are constructed from PVC pipe, and PVC padding. There are many variations of the building materals, however for our game, PVC is the way to go. Some of the other LARPs use fiberglass rods, and some use wood dowl. We do not simply because of safety issues. |
| Construction: |
| Creativity is a big part of making a good weapon. One could make a simple two handed long sword with no specific frills, and still make it look really cool. Pipe bending, custom cut padding, and different colors of tape are what makes your weapons unique. If your just starting out, you'll want to make some simple swords. Dont worry about the balance, and edges just yet. Once you get good at making the sword itself, then you can start getting creative with the look of the blade. |
 |
| The tape used to connect the padding, pommell, and gaurd to the pipe is any type of Duct Tape. You can find that at any hardware store. There are many different colors of Duct Tape, but silver is the standard. You may have to look for the different colors at a larger hardware store because smaller stores may only have silver. Some people use solid black or white for the blades, but it's up to you to choose your blade color, make it pink if you want. |
|
| Electrical tape can be used for the finishing touches. Highlighting the blade edge, and generally spiffing up the weapon, are what one would usually use electrical tape for, mostly because electrical tape cant hold as well as duct tape. This type of tape comes in many colors as well, more so than duct tape in fact. And they're a lot easyer to find. Most of the time you can find packs of multi-color electric tape. Electrical tape is not what you would use for the entire blade, simply because it would not hold up very long in combat, plus you would about five rolls of it to do a small weapon. |
|
 |
| This sword uses silver duct tape for the blade, with brown and white electrical tape for the gaurd, pommel, and grip. |
| Materials: |
| 1) PVC Pipe 2) Duct Tape 3) Electrical Tape 4) PVC Padding 5) Open Cell Foam (like the stuff from a couch cusion) 6) Industrial Scissors 7) Box Cutter (or somthing like it with a Razor) 8) Permanent Marker 9) Hacksaw or Pipe Cutter 10) Low grit Sand paper Optional: A small weight, to be placed in the handle for a balancing effect. NO weight is to be placed in the tip, because it woud HURT REALLY BAD!!!.... |
| First decide what weapon you want, and then figure out a plan on how to make it. Of couse a serpentine bastard sword with a twisted pommel is going to be tougher than a spear, so you want to have a plan of attack first. These Materials are general for any boffer making. This is a really simple process once you get it down. |
| Right now I'm just going to cover the building of a sword, since its the hardest to build out of all the weapons. |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
| BACK |
|
| Thrusting Tips: |
| There are two variations on the thrusting tip. One is to just leave the insulation itself about three to four inches long, and stuff it with half of a plastic bag from the grocery store. The other is to leave the insulation about an inch long off the pipe and then cut a cilinder of Open Cell Foam out, the place that on the tip of the blade, and tape it on. Either way is legal. It's up to you to figure out which one you like. |
| First off, cut the pipe to the length you want the sword with your hacksaw or pipecutter. That includes the handle and the pommel. You can get a good feel for that just by holding the length of pipe at the point you think would be a good length for a sword. Now you have your blade/handle. Grab your PVC padding and line the pipe BLADE with it, leaving about three inches from the pipe at the top for a thrusting tip. Take the excess of pipe insulation |
| Tape the padding to the pipe at the top of the handle on the front and back of the padding. This secures the blade padding in one spot so it doesn't move. |
|
