Sword Handles/Hilts

Hey Guys & Gals,

I’m building a few Fibre-Glass Cored, Foam swords, and while I’m cool with the blade construction, I’ve reached the point where it’s time to make handles.
I’ve checked out the posts made on this topic (Old and New… some very Old), and was just wondering what people use nowadays?

My current plan is to do a bit of foam and then glue leather over the top. Has anyone else done this? I saw someone saying to put PVC pipe or something around the handle and then binding that…
Not really 100% sure what the best way to go is, and since they’re my first swords I figured I’d seek help from y’all.

Cheers.

  • Reuben.

I use the usual 3-layer sandwich for the grip, to form a block roughly 4 inches long, 1 inch wide, and 3 layers of foam thick. I bevel the edges, latex it with the rest, and simply glue leather over it (either spiral-wrap, or a rectangle, which may have some thinner leather binding added for decoration). I don’t bother weighting it or using PVC.

For pommels, try and make it integral with the grip, part of the same sandwich (this prevents weak points). The Oakeshott Typology is useful for inspiration. If you just want something basic, go for a cylinder: take your grip block to the end of the core, wrap a 1-inch wide strip of foam round the end, then cap it with another piece. Bevel the top edge, sand it a bit, and it looks OK. For thicker pommels (e.g. the thick wheels, or the “tea cosy”), make it seperately from 4-layer sandwich. Just remember that you want the core through most of it; a floppy pommel is asking to be torn off.

I use PCV pipe around the core. I pipe some epoxy resin into the pipe to ensure maximum firmness, and then (after it has cured) I drill a couple of holes all the way through and insert a small nail (such as a brad) to act a rod - this keeps the pipe from twisting around the core.

NB: I use 10-12mm sail battens for my cores, and the pipe for the handle is just big enough to go over the batten.

If you want a counterweight in the pommel, the best method is to make the PVC pipe about 15mm longer than is needed for the handle. Smelt a counterweight out of lead (you can pick up cheap lead at a metal recycling business, it was used as a seal in old houses with corrugated iron roofs). You can smelt lead on a stove or portable gas fire. Drill out a hole that is the same width as pipe and then glue it on with araldite.

Use F2 to attach the handle wrapping (e.g. leather) to the pipe.

Presumably, if one was going to do this, you’d want to do it outside with lots of ventilation.

I build up the entire handle from spiral wrapped leather glued directly onto the core. I prefer not to have foam under the leather.

For my hilts i usually split a piece of dowel and use an epoxy to glue to either side of the fibreglass batton, then wrap in wire, then leather or cloth over the top of that. The last 2-3cm of the hilt I cover in foam. .

Presumably, if one was going to do this, you’d want to do it outside with lots of ventilation.[/quote]
Actually, we did it inside with lots of ventilation (a fan pushing the fumes out a window). But, yeah, it is important to consider safety when doing this kind of thing.

Interesting how many ways people approach this.

Derek’s method has to win for simplicity: get some leather, glue it on. Seems like it might take a fair amount of leather though.

My preferred approach back when I made weapons was to glue foam to the rod, cover it with hot melt glue, then ram a PCV pipe over the top to form the handle. Then cover it with leather. Gives a firm handle, very messy with the hot melt though. Come to think of it, cutting the PCV pipe lengthways with a hacksaw and then glueing the halves on would be less messy, and then it could be covered with the leather. It still wouldn’t give the nice double-tapered shape of the grips on the swords I bring in though, that makes them nice to hold. For that you’d need a different shape than a regular pipe, or maybe to heat one up and re-shape it a bit.

I think it’s a good idea not to glue a foam pommel by itself to the rod, they tend to come off. Better if it’s attached to some foam or something that runs up into the grip, to help hold it onto the rod.