I still need to test the weapon in actual combat; I’ve tried whacking a few things with it and it seems pretty sturdy. The main stresses seem to be at the bottom where there are two smaller dowels running through plastic holes. The Nightfinder has three holes below the barrel. Once you take the electronics out it’s pretty easy to secure a dowel in there with foam wrapped around it.
My choice of using dowel was mainly because I couldn’t find any fiberglass rods at Bunnings, and I was buying a bunch of stuff from there anyway. There is significant padding around the core dowel, so I didn’t think this would be a problem. The blade is easiest wielded with two hands, so most of the plastic underside would be covered by your hands.
Regarding the blade itself, i was hoping to get the lower edge cut straighter, but it just wasn’t working for me. I thought that a slghtly rougher edge would work in with Ashes on the Wind’s post apocalyiptic setting anyway.
Hopefully I’ll get a chance to do some finishing paintwork on it sometime - I’m not terrible good at the fine details, so if anyone has any tips?