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Making Foam Weapons | |||
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Making foam weapons is an easy process, but can kinda
suck the first time you do it. There are some mistakes to be made the first few
times that can effect the overall quality of your weapon. To help, I've
put all my knowledge into this handy page. Isn't that nice of me?
You get to benefit from my five years of foam weapon construction. Number one: you will be needing a lot of electrical tape. Duct tape is BAD. Don't use it except on one notable exception that I will mention later. Duct tape is not very flexible, and it doesn't stretch, so it will make your foam harder (and more painful). Menards sells 10 packs of electrical tape for like $2.50. I suggest buying that if you have the intent of making more than one of these. Now just before I go into making these, I want to go into WHY these are the way they are (weighted). 1. It balances them since all the weight I add is in the hilt (handle for you non-sword guys). 2. Its more realistic. Swords are made of steel. Steel is heavy. Hence, my swords are. weighted. 3. It reduces the flex in the weapon, making them less "whippy." Whippy weapons hurt more than non whippy. 4. Slower weapons are more fun to duel with. If I wanted to, I could slap in some kite spar or even a graphite shaft, cut out the last few steps of construction, and could have a weapon that would be darn near weightless. It could also be swung faster than human reaction time. Seriously, I used to have some like that. Sounds great, but in our game, we ALL get the weapon sets. When the other guy has a light sword too, it sucks. So I weighted the swords (and soon the staffs and lances) to slow them down. Lastly I want to say that the point of these is to
have fun whacking your friends. Make sure you play it safe, and know that
there is always the possibility of getting hurt when you start swinging stuff at
each other. If you get hurt, don't come whining to me about it
please. By making one of these, you take it upon yourself to be safe and
not get hurt. These are supposed to be fun, keep it that way :) | |||
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Basic Swords | |||
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1. First, get some 1/2 inch PVC, the thicker schedule
not the thin, it will break. 10' rods are cheap, around $1.00. Cut
the PVC to however long you intend for the sword to be, minus a few inches.
The thrusting tip will add around four inches to the length. 2. Get some fun noodle of tundra noodle, the kind with the hole down the middle (fig. 1). It's hard to find if it's not summer, unless you live in Florida or California. Figure out how log you want your handle to be. I suggest three full hand widths minimum, four is fine too. Cut the foam noodle so it covers the rest of the rod, except for the last inch of the sword. Tape the foam to the rod after you slide it on. Make sure there are no sharp edges on the PVC or it will cut up the inside of the noodle. 3. Take some electrical tape and tape a nickel to the end of the PVC to close of the hole on the trusting tip. This weapon is gonna cost you about five bucks, another five cents won't hurt. 4. Find some durable, slightly more ridged foam. The stuff I use we found at a construction site, so I can't help you here. If you can't find anything, tundra noodle will work if all else fails, but fun noodle is a bit on the soft side for this little bit so don't use it if you can avoid it. Take some duct tape (this is the only time you will use duct tape) and line the inside with three or four layers. This protects the foam from the PVC corner and makes the tip last longer. Take a piece of your ridged foam (or tundra noodle) and line the part that will be against the nickel with duct tape. Then tape it in the hole so you have solid foam on the tip (fig. 3). You shouldn't be able to feel the rod underneath the foam. Tape this tip you've just created to the fun noodle with electrical tape. 5. Get a Nerf foam ball and cut it in half. Tape it to the end for the thrusting tip as shown in fig. 4. Then run one circle of tape around the pieces of tape holding the ball on, between the ball and the foam it sits on (fig. 5) 6. For the next part of the weapon, I use twilight carpet foam from Mendards. Its 11 cents a square foot and very soft, like the foam in a cushion. The stuff they sell by the yard at craft shops will work too if your hardware store doesn't have twilight foam. Lay out a piece about 6' long on the floor, and roll the sword in it (fig. 7). Five or six inches extra should stick out from the tip. 7. After rolling it in the foam (NOT tight, snug. If it squishes, it gets harder, and therefore more painful) make rings of electrical tape around it to hold it in place (fig. 8). The electrical tape should make a complete circle and stick to itself. It won't stick to the foam. 8. Now to make the thrusting end, FOLD the foam into the middle gently (fig. 9 and fig. 10). Don't pack it, it will make it hard. When it's all done, it should look like fig. 11. 9. Now tape it the same way as you taped on the foam ball earlier, like in fig. 12. Here I taped it with three strips, but I usually use four. Make sure you run a circle of tape around the tip to hold these strips on, or they will come off on the first swing. Doing this part is usually a three or four hand job, so ask a buddy to help you. I use Joseph. That's what brothers are for right? However, Joseph may live too far away from you, so I suggest you use your own brother, wife, girlfriend, roommate, whatever. 10. Get some fabric and sew up a cover for the sword. I can't help you here, my mom did this for me. Sorry. Roll it up, and then put it on the end and roll it down the weapon (fig 13). Yes, I'm well aware of what this looks like. You may not want your friends in the room when you do this...After you're done, tape it in place. 11. Now to weight the sword and reduce its "whippiness" get some re-rod at the hardware store, Menards for me. Its cheap, about $1.50 for 10'. Get the 3/8 inch not the 1/2. Now you're probably thinking "re-rod, your nuts!" Nope, these weapons don't hurt unless you swing them like Mark Maguire. Cut off some rebar, the amount is up to you. Then put circles of electrical tape around it every 6 inches or so to keep it from vibrating inside as seen (barely) in fig. 14, and make a tape "cap" on the end (fig. 15). Now just slide it on in the rod (fig. 14 again) and tape the end on. 12. Hit your friends with it. If they complain, do it again :) | ||
 Fig 14 Fig 15 | |||
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Lances and Double Ended Staves | |||
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To make a lance (fig. 1), you'll need to change just a
few things from making a sword. If you can make a sword, you can make a
lance or staff. You'll need the same foam you used to make a sword, and
most of the same processes. 1. The core of this weapon can be one of two things. It can be a wooden closet dowel, or a fiberglass painters pole. Make sure its good an strong, you are gonna be swinging this thing at people, so it needs to be good and strong. Spend several minutes inspecting the closet rods before you pick one. It should be straight, feel ridged, and be in good condition (not cracked, good grain). 2. Take a knife and cut a slit down the foam noodle so you can spread it open. Be careful not to cut through. Now put it on the rod. It won't cover the rod the whole way around. That's ok, we're gonna fix that. Take another piece of fun noodle (I use scrap pieces of scrap from other weapons) and cut it to fit the gap (fig. 2). It'll take about 1/3 of the piece to do it, and you'll need to do some creative cutting to get it to fit as well as you can. Tape it in place. Fig. 3 shows a piece in better detail after it has had sections taped on. There was a piece filling in that gap but I took it out for detail. Yours should be filled in all the way down when your done. Lastly, tape the foam to the rod to keep it from slipping. 3. From here it's like making a sword, so follow steps 4 to finish in the sword section. To make a double bladed staff, just pad both ends instead of just one. | ||
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Whip or Flail | |||
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I'm not a fan of flails. I've never made one
because I don't like them. I have made this whip however, and a flail is
just a short whip. This whip can add some interesting variety to a
game. Now, when using the whip, don't try to crack it. It'll fling
the tip off, and it's really not that effective to fling. It takes getting
used to to use this weapon effectively, but it can devastate when used right, or
be crushed easily when used poorly. Blocking is difficult, because it is
made of rope. You'll have to rely on offense and cunning instead of
defense. Oh, This doesn't hurt to get hit by either, just want to reassure
you. Here's how to make one. 1. Cut a 1-1/2 foot piece of PVC for the handle. Tape up one end so it doesn't get dirt in it. 2. Cut a length of rope. The length is up to you. I used nine feet. Really, I figure that's about perfect, but if you want, make it longer. 3. Now push the rope into the PVC. There are a myriad of ways to do this. One is to tie a big knot in the end and push the other end through the PVC, Then tape it in place. 4. Get some pipe insulation and cut it into sections about 1 to 1 1/2 inches in length. If they split (pipe insulation has that seam down one side that can split apart) tape them back together. Put these sections on the rope so that they cover all but about a foot or two of the rope. Get a piece of soft squishy foam and tape it securely to the end so the rope tip is covered. It will hurt like crazy if this tip comes off, so make sure it is secure. 5. The last thing I do is tape a pair of tights over the rest, with rubber bands between the links. It helps the tip stay on, and protects the foam. It makes the end smooth to the skin on impact too. | ||
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Ben, these don't look like swords... | |||
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I know. I could tell you how to make ones that, but truthfully, it's very
difficult, time consuming, and the resulting weapon is usually harder and
therefore more painful, especially on the flats. Now, I can make ones that look like real weapons (looky
over there to your left) This bad boy is six feet long, perfectly balanced
at the top of the hilt, looks like a broadsword (this picture really doesn't do
it justice) and has a nifty strap that you
can use to attach it to your back that clicks to an attached clip. The strap
retracts back inside the weapon when you unclip it, on a spring loaded mechanism
inside. Yes yes, I was bored. But it shows that I have mad skills
as a craftsman of foam beating utensils. If your gonna do it, do it right,
right? Just wanted to
show this off a bit. Now to show you a glimpse of the past. To the left, under my cool sword, is an original, generation one sword. It's the first of a set of six I made, before I ever thought of staves, lances, whips, or that crazy grim reaper scythe (good ol' Big Daddy) this is what we had. Two of these. A wooden dowel rod, really ridged foam, and wrapped in duct tape. They were actually nearly perfect, except for one problem...they were kinda painful. If your buddies couldn't practice restraint (*cough* Mike *cough* Mike :) ) then ouch was a word you became fond of saying. Sometimes I'm astonished parents let their kids play with these when they came over. It looks like crap now cause it almost 6 years old and has been neglected for the last four. We don't use them, I kept this one as a memento. This, and the closet rod my first lance was made out of. I made it into my new lance. I strike fear with my original equipment that I marked as my own with symbols on the handle. It looks sweet up close. | ||
