Swords (and armour) for Jade Empire

I was looking at all my straight larp swords and wondering what to do for the Jade Empire game, that didn’t involve money :smiley:

There were no good options, so I made some from scraps of high pressure water pipe I had left over from edging SCA shields:

The finish is horrible, and they’re bendier than a bendy thing. But at least they’re not straight :smiley:

I have a few spare lengths or pipe that I am prepared to swap for a cold beer or two if somebody else wants them. I’ll bring them to the game on Saturday.

I like the fact that you’ve made all 3.

Minor fact in case you make another set…The tanto tend not to have no cross hilt (its not meant for combat like the others are)

But look good.

I have seen Tanto with guards as well as without, but yes that’s a nice match set Derek, well done :slight_smile:

Cool - thanks for that - they’re only pushed on anyway; so it’s no effort to take it off :smiley:

You might find moderately more success using 20mm pvc pressure pipe and heating it with yon heat gun to gently curve it. Will give you a sturdier core to work from and can even be mostly flattened to avoid the horrible boffer scenario.

Well, the swords were horrible to fight with, pretty much as expected. Fortunately, nobody seemed to realize a strong blow would bend them in half like a limp bus ticket, so they managed to do all I asked of them. I never asked them to block, and they never broke on me :confused: It’s not a position I like being in, so I might be upgrading my swords soon…

I’ve now started working on some light oriental armour. Very plain, as befits my impoverished ronin status.

I’m reasonably pleased with how this turned out. I was umming and arring about what to use as the basis for the skull part of the helmet. While buying some plastic buckets and spades for the kids at Ikes Emporium in Browns Bay, I saw a really cheep costume bowler hat. It was the perfect shape and fit perfectly and cost $1.95 :smiley:

The leather for the skull is scraps of 2mm just glued on, with the neck guard from 3mm leather in a very similar colour. It only took a couple of hours to throw together and it’s amazingly comfortable. I must say that Oriental costume armour is substantially easier that European costume armour to make. I can’t imagine turning out anything this fast in any other style. Maybe an EVA barrel helm.

It’s now sitting in the corner calling out to me to be decorated. However, I shall resist, as I need to make it easy for all the wealthy samurai to look prettier than me :wink:

Oh, okay, maybe a little bit of decoration then.

What I want to try is laminating three pieces of 10mm x 3mm fiberglass bar to create curved fiberglass rods. 20mm PVC would probably do the job. But if I’m going to actually spend money on something, I want fiberglass.

I’ve been trying to find 10mm x 3mm fiberglass to make curved laminated rods from. So I can make Oriental weapons that are curved. While I was wandering around having lunch, I thought "Hey! What about the method people use to make laminated recurve bows. Like this:

http://us.geocities.com/salampsio/glass1.htm

Basically, you make a former like this:

And using clamps, glue, fiberglass sheet and some timber in between.

The tabletop L5R player in me is freaking out at the idea of a leather helm. Dead flesh, ewwww.

The rest of me thinks it looks awesome. :wink:

Its not dead flesh - its dead skin - besides your typing into a series of dead animals linked together with dead stars… everything we used comes from somthing that has at one point died :slight_smile:

On a light note - nice one Derik, if you get bendy swords going let me know I would definatly be happy to commission some / borrow the gear :smiley:

[quote=“JanetLin”]The tabletop L5R player in me is freaking out at the idea of a leather helm. Dead flesh, ewwww.

The rest of me thinks it looks awesome. :wink:[/quote]

Its ok he’s obviously a unicorn clan…dirty beggers they are :stuck_out_tongue:

Unicorn clan cameron? :wink:

Ki-rin if you want to call them that…but this is the jade empire not L5R so I guess (and am glad that) meat and leather are ok.

Sorry, the L5R reference is lost on me… But if this freaks you out, you wouldn’t want to see my armoury :wink:

I’ve started building some Oriental body armour, using the suit worn by Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai as the design inspiration. Except I’m working in a lightweight brown leather.

I’ve made us a steel “cookie cutter” so I can cut out the top edge of the scales with a couple of hammer blows. It works really well. I just cut strips of leather and work along the top edge, cutting off the top of each scale with a couple of blows.

I’m totally over lacing and I’ve only laced 20% of the suit. :smiley:

Once I’ve finished this suit, I’ll start on a nice colourfull one, probably in red.

If anyone else is interested in making some samurai armour, they’re very welcome to take a copy of my patterns and borrow the tools (especially the magic cookie cutter).

Also, if you can find me 100m of lacing, I’ll swap it for enough leather to do your own suit.

That’s the “cookie cutter” in the right picture. Lets me get all the scales tidy. Surprisingly easy to make from a scrap of stainless steel.

I’m lacing all the pieces hard together rather than using suspension lacing, because the leather is reasonably soft, so I think there will be enough flex even laced solid.

Sorry, the L5R reference is lost on me… But if this freaks you out, you wouldn’t want to see my armoury :wink:[/quote]

In L5R dead flesh is considered taboo and unclean…hence no eating of meat (not including fish) and no wearing of leather or bone products.

Sorry, the L5R reference is lost on me… But if this freaks you out, you wouldn’t want to see my armoury :wink:[/quote]

In L5R dead flesh is considered taboo and unclean…hence no eating of meat (not including fish) and no wearing of leather or bone products.[/quote]

I still have no idea what L5R is… The unclean flesh thing, I’d figured out.

Legend of the Five rings…

I’m surprised noone was more forthcoming, considering Jade Empire was (in)directly inspired by it…

That’s looking very awesome, Derek :slight_smile:

Oh sorry I forgot that its not a widely known acronum.Yes L5R= Legend of the Five Rings.

Its actualy in the rule book on the first few pages…its one of the major insperation of this game. In the same way as mordavia and…um…that computer game. Alot has changed though.

But on a different note. Hope to be starting my costuming and gear for the next game soon. Your gear is inspiring.