Most weapons are fundamentally the same.
Making a baseball bat really isn’t that much different to making a sword. They’re just different shapes and different colours.
I’ve done a tutorial here on making weapons. I’m sure you can imagine the same thing but a wooden baseball bat, using a fibreglass core, not aluminium…
Walter gave me this crazy whimsical idea for my teonn character, and since i am not at all inclined/knowledgable in the craft of weaponmaking i thought i would ask all of your advice. I am wanting to make/commison a Trident for my water elemental.
kind of like this:
or i would say this, but that’s very elaborate:
Yeah – same idea I had – I’m making one as well 
For the trident, would it be recommended to use a solid core for all three prongs? And if so, what sort of solid core? I had the idea that using a spring sort of thing might work (but what material for said spring?). Something like this:
I was thinking I’d just use three layers of foam, with two layers of fabric in between, for the fork. Otherwise, as drawn…
My worry with using just foam is having the fork break in combat. I guess it would work well if the fork was thing and long - you could use it just like an elaborate spear. But if the prongs were wider you would risk them breaking off if they caught on something.
If you want to be able to stab with it, then the core can’t be too close to the end. But if the core is a long way from the end, then the foam points will break off because they’re not supported.
Fabric glued in the place of core might help prevent tip breakage, but I dunno if it will be enough.
For stab-safe spears, I believe there’s a construction method in the UK that involves using softer foam for the tips. The softer foam takes the initial impact of the stab, then is backed up by the firmer foam underneath. Coreless soft foam is less likely to snap than coreless hard foam, but perhaps more likely to tear.
I’m looking for instructions online, but here’s all I’ve found:
I’m not entirely sure what that means. I think the thick leather is the puncture protector, to stop the fibreglass core pushing through (like arrow construction, except I’d use a coin for that purpose not leather). On top of it is some closed-cell foam, so that the protector has something firm to press against. The rest is open-cell foam. But how much of the length of the head is closed-cell and how much is open-cell? And what’s this talk about thin layers of closed cell foam “top and bottom” to give it support? Is the spear head he’s suggesting made of vertical layers of closed and open cell foam? Seems a bit weird.
I have a stab safe spear hear in Wellington if you want to take a look sometime Idiot.
I made some stab safe stakes by ending some normal density foam handles with low density foam striking points. I got hold of a small amount of closed cell soft foam in the UK, I need to find a supply over here as the open cell foam just soaks up the latex, so you have to prime it with glue first which can make them a little too stiff.
If I find some low density closed cell foam I’ll let you know.
Bryn.
I’m not into polearms yet, but I can try my hand eventually.
[quote]I made some stab safe stakes by ending some normal density foam handles with low density foam striking points. I got hold of a small amount of closed cell soft foam in the UK, I need to find a supply over here as the open cell foam just soaks up the latex, so you have to prime it with glue first which can make them a little too stiff.
If I find some low density closed cell foam I’ll let you know.[/quote]
Para Rubber?
Unfortunately, your nearest one is in Palmerston North.
Ah, so I was wrong to translate “soft foam” to “open-cell foam”? Do people tend to use a lower-density closed-cell foam for stabbing spear tips?
We can a wide variety of closed-cell foam densities from Dunlop Foam in Auckland, but it comes in 1x2m sheets.
Cheers guys,
I’ll look into those suppliers when I need some, probably not for a while yet.
I think people tend to use soft open cell foam as it’s easy to come by. However low density closed cell foam seems to be better as it doesn’t need the layer of glue to seal it.
Bryn.
The sky blue and grey camping mats from the warehouse tend to be quite squidgy as well…
Odyssey - a classical larp in the UK - has a guide to making thrust-safe spearheads here:
images.profounddecisions.co.uk/r … ety1.0.pdf
How do people feel about these?
My initial concern is prettiness - 40mm minimum between core and edge seems a bit wide. Though with 7.5 inches minimum of spearhead above that, you may want something that big.
I’m also wondering where I can get low-density foam suitable for the tip.
[quote=“IdiotSavant”]Odyssey - a classical larp in the UK - has a guide to making thrust-safe spearheads here:
images.profounddecisions.co.uk/r … ety1.0.pdf
How do people feel about these?
My initial concern is prettiness - 40mm minimum between core and edge seems a bit wide. Though with 7.5 inches minimum of spearhead above that, you may want something that big.
I’m also wondering where I can get low-density foam suitable for the tip.[/quote]
Having been stabbed in the eye by spears (twice) at the last Teonn event resulting in temporary retina damage I am going to have to say that I totally dissaprove of any larp weapon designed to thrust.
I think the end result looks quite nice, the width wouldn’t bother me at all. The minimum width of the hard part of the spearhead is probably to ensure that the soft part is wide enough (and thus contains enough soft foam) to absorb a thrusting impact.
You only need a small amount of the low-density closed-cell foam for the tip, so there’s not much use me recommending places that only sell big sheets (and mostly to commercial customers). If we put our thinking caps on we might come up with some product or packaging that uses small amounts of this sort of foam, that you could plunder.
Where “small amounts” means a 6 inch by 4 inch by one inch slab.
I wonder what I’ve got lying around in the garage…
First test will be with $2 shop car sponge. Its nice and squishy.
Idiot, are you coming down tomorrow for weapons practice? If so I’ll bring my stab safe spear along to show you.
Even more than normal weapons stab safe ones need to be even more stringently made and tested. The advantage with closed cell foam is that it doesn’t soak up the latex and become too hard. I made a batch of stakes for the last game of SWG with closed cell foam to produce stab safe stakes and was pleased with the result.
I believe some people use open cell foam and seal it with a thin coat of Ados, trouble with that is it can stiffen up the foam too much.
Things to think about are putting cheeks of normal density foam where the low density foam butts up too the normal density foam, to stop tearing.
I think it’s worth taking a proper look at a stab safe weapon before undertaking building one, so next time we catch up I’ll bring mine along (just remind me!)
another material that i know from experience is squishy and god for thrusting tips is plumbing insolation, a bit expensive but if nothing else works that will do the trick and seeing it comes as a hollowed tube it is almost in the right shape already. the only real problem is it has little to no modeling ability so you wont be able to change it’s shape with out a lot of glue or tape.
here is a website that gives more details.
groups.google.com/group/swordtag … nstruction
Hope this helps