Am watching a thread on RPGnet about larp safety:
forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?p=1 … st12803093
Thought this was interesting:
[quote=“Llewellian”]Its without doubt that there are better materials out there, way better. But in the calculation for Safety, Durability and Weapon building costs, you find one Maximum in the threesome of Plastazote, GFK and Latex that is finished with Boatgelcoat.
And the only two real new “Safety/Durability Inventions” that came up in the last 15 years were:
1: Dont glue foam layers parallel to the deforming stress (aka “Sandwich” of 3 foam layers), but take two THICK foam layers, and glue them rectangular to the blade and cut out your weapon from there.
2: Tip safety (Thats one of my inventions that is now pretty much used everywhere in the EU, even the Larp weapon producers in India and China copy that): Glue on top of the tip a tube of Plastazote the same diameter than the rod and wrap that in one layer of Kevlar. The socalled “Kevlar Tip”. Way better than flexible PVC tubes, leather and whatnot. Is lighter, smaller, absolutely unbreakable and Kevlar cannot be pierced by GFK - At least not with the power of a human. Makes smaller and safer tips.[/quote]
I think this guy is involved with Forgotten Dreams, one of the biggest latex weapon makers.
So, to break this down and compare with typical practice here in NZ:
First off, for materials he’s saying use Plastazote (a brand of closed-cell foam), fibreglass rod (“GFK”), latex, and a top coat of “Boatgelcoat”. That’s all pretty standard for making latex weapons here in NZ, except that we haven’t really found a local product that makes a good top coat to go over latex. I’m curious to know what Boatgelcoat is, and whether it’s any less toxic than the roofing sealent used as a topcoat in the UK. Also, it’s interesting he also complains somewhere that carbon fibre rods are more dangerous when they break, as they create a more splintered result than fibreglass.
Then the construction:
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We use the sandwich of three thin layers approach. The innovation of using two thick pieces instead and gluing them so that the seam runs down the blood gutter sounds interesting (at least, I think that’s what he’s suggesting). It means that you won’t be hitting people with glue seams, which is a good thing because those tend to be harder than the foam. And presumably pure foam will cope with the beating the weapon edge takes better than the seams of glued layers of foam. However, this would require us to acquire thick pieces of foam. Some people are using camping mat (even though it’s probably not dense enough to be ideal for weapons), which doesn’t come in this form.
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This is a totally different approach to tip safety, and it sounds nice. Basically you extend the length of the fibreglass core with a piece of foam the shape of the core, then you glue a sheet of kevlar around the foam “rod extension” and the fibreglass rod. I dunno what kind of availability we have for kevlar here, but possibly another material could be substituted. I can see how this would result in a core with a softer extension that won’t break, but wouldn’t be able to push through the main foam of the sword or to skewer a person if it was somehow exposed.