Should NZLarps invest in a lightsabre

Nerds just want to have fun. We just want to have fun…

Thinking a bit about this, it would probably be quite easy and significantly cheaper to make them;

10mm/1.5m fibreglass rod from RD1 Albany (we have a contact there) - $6.49ea x 2
10mm wall / 10mm dam. aerocell tubing (Para rubber, 2m long) - ~$20
Closed cell foam for handle shaping etc - free, cause Gaffy has a whole bunch Moo gave him
leather/cord/cloth/whatever for the grips, there should be plenty lying around for $0
Liquid latex - $20/L from that place in Ellerslie, or off trademe. From David’s experience, 1L is enough to maybe to 3-4 full weapons easily
Paints to mix for latex colour (Spotlight, per tube) - ~$4.95ea, lets say one colour for each sabre (and 1 tube should be enough)
Single tube of metallic to mix for the handles - ~$9.95, one should be more than enough for a few sabres

The plan would be to make them like US boffer weapons (horrible I know, but the shape is right), tip them using Derek’s hose-method, cap the ends with compressed opencell foam, stylise/detail the handles using the extra closed cell (ala David’s chainsword), and latex the whole lot. If you want to get a little snazzy with the latexing, you could try getting on of those $10 compression-action weed sprayers from the Warehouse and use it to spray the latex like they do these days for most of the professionally made kit (this is an experiment I never got to try).

All up, that would put each ~1m weapon at about $25 in materials, plus time to build, and you’d get a 50cm length of fibreglass rod that can be used to make other stuff like shortswords, maces, or even axes. Given the state some of the gear is in, this isn’t a bad thing.

If you wanted to get really cool, for about $15 a weapon you could add some colour-matching [color=#0000FF]glow in the dark powders[/color] to the top coats of the blades, so after a day of use in the sun they glow like real lightsabers at night, kinda like [color=#0000FF]this![/color]

Eldritch says:
“However, we don’t make lightsabres on glass as they’re basically bats if you do! Glass fibre is heavier that the carbon fibre and less stiff. So the weapon will be thicker across the cross section with glass fibre, which adds to the weight. Since carbon fibre is also stronger than glass, the weapon can be thinner.”

We won’t be making them out of a Fibre Glass core then…

Also:
" We use interference colours for the blades although we can also do them with translucent colour layers so that they look extremely bright in daylight. Again, there’s no additional charge for this since we assume that’s the kind of effect that you’d want for a light sabre."

The intended purpose of these is not just larp combat but to draw in a crowd at events like armageddon and battle cry - similar to that of the golem (who currently needs repairs that we are looking into)

Trust me guys - this is being looked into - mebe i should have locked the thread from discussion lol.

Pro tips later please.

What, you’d rather I use a 20mm piece of PVC pipe instead? Fglass cores are used in almost everything else, they’d be fine for this too.

Just trying to offer a practical alternative to spending $200 on a single weapon.

That’s funny, starting a thread in an online forum and then not wanting discussion :smiley:

I think pipe lagging around PVC pipe would end up too fat and un-pretty. I also think to get ‘pretty’ jedi duels, you’d probably want to ban thrusting. The genre is all sweeping arcing motions, so I don’t think this would be a big loss.

The trademe auction had pipe lagging that was 6mm ID 26mm OD – 26mm OD seems about perfect to me. Maybe, not in the quantity in that auction, but I’m sure it’s available locally because Aucklanders have pipes as well.

One possibility I’d suggest for construction is:
~ 1100mm long 7mm diameter fiberglass rod core (or carbon fiber if you can lay your hands on it) with a small piece of hose on the end, to stop punch through. I also have some rubber archer blunts we might use instead. Or rubbed chair leg stoppers would do. These fit very nicely over a 6-7mm rod and are basically a solid cone that expands out to about 12mm diameter. 1-2 small disks of foam inside the tube at the end and (if you don’t do thrusting) you have a pretty safe tip.

~ various disks of foam of different diameters / thicknesses to do the tops and bottoms of the handle, probably in a slightly denser foam like Ryan suggested the other day. You might even want to consider slightly weighting the handle, because the blade is meant to be light, not mass, so they should handle like the balance is way way back in the handle.

~ Once the handle has been built up, I’d give it several coats of black automotive underbody car sealer. That gives it a reasonably sturdy, modern looking texture to it and when dry, different areas can be dry brushed silver, to give a metallic look. You probably want a handle about 300mm long

~ 800mm of pipe lagging for the blade (6mm ID and 26mm OD – should be able to get over a 7mm core

~ what I’d then consider for the bright glowing blade is a ‘stocking’ of bright lycra. It comes in lots of bright colours and if you have access to an overlocker you could probably knock up 10 blade covers from 1m of lycra in about 30 minutes. This is also very light, so the weight of the blade would remain low.

The EVA Moo and I gave Gaffy had a wide selection of densities, so you should be able to get some good designs of handle cranked out.

David, if you see this can you please link the photos of your chainsword here so people know what I’m talking about - foam is a wonderful thing in the hands of the creative.

The weighting is definitely a good idea.

I’d be hesitant about the lycra stocking for two reasons - one, I’ve never seen this done effectively that didn’t look rediculously fake (the gear shed has a few, sorry but they do look quite sad), and two, latexing adds a bit more weather resistance - especially if you give it a very thin spray of silicon, cans of which are available in the automotive section of the warehouse for $9.95

just as requested Dave.

facebook.com/home.php?#/phot … 1123564220

this is a while back, i have painted and latexed it since then, but not taken any recent pics.

Just so that people are aware of what a light saber built with the larger foam will look like:

With a thicker core - such as fiber glass the size of the surrounding foam must increase to maintain the 2" of foam rule and so you end up with what looks more like a bat than a thin beam of a light saber.

There’s a misleading post. They home made sabers need not look like that…

If you keep the 2 inches of foam rule then yes you will get what you showed in the pic no matter the size of the core as the “beam” will be at least 4 inchs across. But remember the 2 Inches of foam thing is a guide line not a hard and fast rule…most of the swords arn’t 4 inchs across the blades.

If you look at what derek was suggesting, was 28mm OD pipe lagging (not the beefy pool noodles that seem to be used in the pic) which is - strangly enough - only ~3cm across (once you add a thick layer of paint).

It need not look like a purple base ball bat like in the pic.

i like the option of making them ourselves, but those ones do look really nice… and very profetionally made… tho, the price is pretty steep…
fact is, we dont really know how to make them properly ourselves.

i’d be willing to play with the light sabre bat as practice, or in a high combat melee situation… but if we’re using it for display or for attraction, it’ll look really bad… and make the star wars game look like its not a serious game… . if anything, those ‘bats’ would make the game look more like its a kids party than a serious LARP game… whitch is what we’re trying to avoid if we want to attract people into larping…

we could get 1, mostly for show/special events… and also, use that as a base template to build more out of…

The fiddly bit is the handle. And if you need a template, you could just splash out for a plastic one from the warehouse to use as a model. Much cheaper.

The fiddly bit is the handle. And if you need a template, you could just splash out for a plastic one from the warehouse to use as a model. Much cheaper.[/quote]
And yet not larp safe…

poll has been edited to let people make their feelings more clear - previously a no was just a flat no - not a “lets look at other options”

You keep referring to “not larp safe” as though it is a defined measurable thing. The light sabers at the warehouse are kids toys and would stand up to any but the most anally retentive definitions of larp safe (i.e. ones where they were defined as not safe because of materials used).

I’ve seen kids thrashing each other around with the warehouse light sabers and they never injure each other.

We used to larp with pieces of bamboo without injury.

Derik - I would trust you in a larp to abide by the rules and not injure any one with a metal weapon.
You and those who train regularly are not the issue with having to make things larpsafe. I don’t know if perhaps you don’t realize other people are not as safe as you or perhaps you just don’t care because you are used to being hit at full strength with rattan sticks - some of the newer players are not.

This is not a crusade against you it is designed to make sure that people do not get injured and that the weapons can be used in any way.

Larp safe weapons in the uk can be used more traditionally - ie using the pommel etc.
I would not trust some of the weapons I have seen here to be used like that because of the method of manufacture.

Please do remember that just because you can do something doesn’t mean the rest of us can.
Larping is supposed to be about being able to do things you can’t in real life - while having the skill to do some things is nice I would hate to play a character who is a computer hacker / programmer - even though I could do it for real at a larp.
I would much rather play the C4 expert or the crazy scientist etc stuff i have a vague knowledge of and a high interest.
Being able to attack someone with a shield because it is well padded is great - but at the moment we can’t even risk letting one person do that here because of the wild variation in what is considered to be “larp safe”

The fiddly bit is the handle. And if you need a template, you could just splash out for a plastic one from the warehouse to use as a model. Much cheaper.[/quote]

thewarehouse.co.nz/red/catal … KU=1013579

Not actually much cheaper…

What was the results of the last poll? Could you post them?

Just for my voting purposes and deciding personaly if it is worth it:

How many people where at the SW last game?
How much profit (not revenue) did the last SW game make?
How much profit did the last SW game make in the past year?

Basic fact is I’d have no problem dropping $200 for something like Wolfgang’s as I know the audience for the game is there and the item can most likely be used in further games of the fantasy genre…but a lightsaber seems to be a one game specific item…how ever “cool” they are (and beleive me I think they are cool). Frankly, I’d prefer to see $200 go to something more general like a bunch cheap firearms (you could get 6 to 8 for the $200) for “modern/future/post apoc setting” larps that could be used across multiple different games. I would just have to see the need for the investment demonstrated before I for one put my support behind getting such a specific item.

There are currently no / few sci-fi props in the NZ larps gear shed. As such I have to buy all props required for each star wars game - revenue the game does quite well.

Profit?

I run it at a loss most of the time every now and again I will break even.

Does this matter?

Not really - I am not a NZ Larps Project. If I was I would be constantly draining money from NZ Larps and Starwars would probably have been closed down / discouraged.

Mebe not - mebe I would have had this budget along time ago.

Who knows.

NZ Larps was set up to support all larp in new zealand.

We budget a lot and do well with what we have.

Having said that we are not broke. $200 is not going to leave us in debt. In fact it is an amount that the society can easily afford without coming close to effecting any other current projects.

We have a good slush fund at the moment - Sure we can’t buy the $10,000 van we want but we are not having to beg borrow and fund raise like hell just to put down deposits on venues.

I would classify the Account as Healthy at the moment.
$200 is not a lot of money - Frankly if I was still living in tauranga I wouldn’t even be asking for the money but I have moved to Auckland to be closer to friends and larp - so now I don’t have the luxury of being able to throw $300 into advertising for star wars (as I did last year)

I wasn’t going to bring that up but the constant fretting over a few cents is really starting to get on my nerves.

We are not broke…

okey… here is a different set of questions.
just purely from an ‘advertising/pomoting larping to people not already larping’ point of view…

how many other long running larps do we have thats based on a main stream movie/book/tv series/comic book that people can point at and instantly reconise and potentially get outside interest from?
do we want those games viewed by outsiders as a serious game with proper props?
or a bunch of kids running around a park with half arsed foam bats?
will having one get more people more interested in larping on the basis that it is instantly reconised by fans, and it attract possible new interests from non-larpers?

and less on the advertising front,
can we confidently say that we can make profetional looking larp safe light sabers right now?
has anyone tried?
would having one of those at hand save us alot of time when modeling/trying to make some ourselves?

and honestly, i’d much rather be running about with that LS-bat than the warehouse one… if you’re thinkng of just using the hilt, and adding in a foam saber, that may work better…

Hey I encourage larps approching for funding…I just think that it needs to be shown that its a worthy investment for the gear libary and club to purchase a professionaly made lightsaber.

This is Not a witch hunt.

My point about the game specific nature of the purchase still stands.

$200 may not be a large amount but if anyone could start a non-NZLARPs project ask for $200 and it was given without asking questions to be spent on item that we cant use if that larp was to stop running, it would be.

I’m just wanting my decision to be based on the need of the community to make this investment and that should take into account the attendance of these games and the likelyhood that it keep running or the usablity of the item in other projects should the game it was purchased for fall over.

Without figures as too how many people attend the larp, which to me is a sign of the “health” of a game, I can’t put my support behind getting a professionaly made one.

Right now I have to base my descion on no information…because when I asked for it you took it as a nitpick and witch hunt (as it was not intended) and only provided me with the fact that the game runs at a loss (which I now see is a non issue now as SW is not a NZLARPs project :slight_smile: ) but I still lack info about attendance.

Seeing that in the end the commitee will be the one OKing or Dismissing the request, and that we are both on said commitee…In the interest of tranparancy and fairness, I think I’m intitled to ask a few questions. Don’t you think?