Toy Swords...

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I am looking for a toy sword that me and my two brothers can be fairly forceful with that won't break or seriously hurt one of us when we beat each other with them. Basicaly we do this as a form of fun way to deal with our aggression, but find that the swords out there either break easy, or can inflict some serious pain... the foam ones don't work, as they whip too much, and sting very much so. Empty water bottles worked well, but were too difficult to hold.

Maybe make-shift a handle onto those difficult to hold water bottles? Another good idea, Water Balloons!

We are more of swords kinda people, screw having a shield, give us a sword in both hands for twice the beating fun... We like to play rough, but its hard because without the right stuff, and very carefully timed and positioned moves, I would injure my 13 yold brother. As for my other brother, playing rough with the 5 yold involves either empty water bottles that don't hurt no matter how hard you hit someone with them, and still keep some shape, or "trap" him as he tries to escape an impossible to escape from hold, but I let him escape, and he enjoys it to the point that he is now trapping me and telling me to escape.... I try to "escape" the way I'd have him escape, but I often just carefully stand up.

There's a Society for Creative Anachronism chapter in your area. You can find them by running a search engine. If you contact them and ask, they could have you introduced to the guys in their group who fight in tournaments.

People aren't allowed to fight in tournaments without proper equipment and training.

The fighters can show you how to make your own swords out of rattan & duck tape
and beginner's practice armor out of carpet and hockey equipment.

They will probably also invite you to fight training sessions to learn how to use all without hurting each other.

Yup, SCA types and LARPers make the best toy swords. PVC pipe and heavy-duty craft foam are great.

A brief safety training is very important for (UK and European at least) LRP weapons. In particular, they must never be used as stabbing weapons, should not be aimed at the head (well, not without care and consent), blows should always be "pulled" so they don't hit with full force, and the weapons should not be exposed to water (the latex will melt off) or touch the ground point first (as you might drive the rod through the foam).

That lot aside, they're great fun, although don't expect to become a champion fencer.

This bunch are purveyors of bog-standard European-style LRP swords and deliver worldwide. US ones tend to be less swordey and more hitty, so it's possible these ones might be more (or less) suitable for your hitting needs.

One SCA fighter explained to me that one learned early to accept light hits as legal blows because if you didn't, the next blow will be much heavier.

He also commented that if someone had a history of hurting other fighters, no one would "play" with them any more.

"Boffer" swords made with PVC and pipe insulation sting if you hit hard with them. Ones made with PVC and 'Pool Noodles' a much thicker foam, are okay for little kids, who aren't really strong enough to swing them that hard, and when they get strong enough they should have the self-control not to do ogre swings (swinging it as hard as you can.) For really little or wimpy players, use big thick ones made with couch-cushion foam, which is squishier but requires you to cut it the right shape.

I can advise you how to make some if you so desire, but it's hardly difficult unless you want them to really look like swords.

SCA guys will know how to make boffers, but the ones they use for fighter practice are much harder than even a stingy boffer. Not suitable for children.

And remember:

The first rule of Ogre Club is no ogre swings.
The second rule of Ogre Club is NO OGRE SWINGS.
The third rule of Ogre Club is, no head-hits, no hand-hits, no groin-hits.
And the fourth rule of Ogre Club is, when somebody starts to cry, the game is OVER for everyone.

The best thing for us is something that we can go full force with each other and not risk injury, or at least use a decent amount of force. I wouldn't mind a lessen in how to make them.

Sorry for the lousy quality of the photos, I just took them and it's nighttime and I don't light the house very well and was too lazy to adjust the images.

This is a pretty classic boffer sword, as a rapier. It's a length of PVC pipe. Around the pipe is the pipe insulation. You can get two kinds of that, a rubbery neopreny-like kind and a thicker kind. The second type stings a little less but makes a fatter sword. For a gentler one, use pool noodles. There are two kinds, solid ones and ones with a channel through the middle. Get the hollow second kind and you can just shove (with difficulty) the PVC up through it. You might have to wait 'til summer to find them for sale, though.

Cut your insulation or pool noodle so that it is longer, by a few inches, than the sword blade. When you assemble it, leave that extra length at the tip so that it's well padded there. Otherwise, you'll hurt somebody even if you forbid jabbing, because the hard end will scrape them if you just barely whiff.

The basket hilt on this one is two plastic coffee-can type lids glued together with the kind of hard-core rubber cement like you use for patching inner-tubes.

The handle is unpadded. You can see there's a little cuff 'round the end that's another peice of padding. You can make a cross-hilt, with a T-junction PVC plumbing peice and some short bits of pipe. Pad that, it's not as easy on people as the coffee-can-lid basket hilt.

Once assembled, it's just covered with duct tape. In this case the silver and black, but now you can get red and blue too and make them look different if you want. It looks nicer if you run it lengthwise. Overlap a lot. Eventually the adhesive on the tape will harden and it'll peel off 'cause the padding is flexing under it, and you'll have to strip it off and re-tape it.

Here is Isingrym, the boffiest boffer of all time. You can hit somebody as hard as you can with that, and knock him off his feet, and the part of him that'll hurt is his butt where he landed. You can see it needs to be retaped. It's really old. If kids want to play with them I'll give the bigger one this ax. The blade is a peice of couch-cushion foam. There's pipe-insulation on the top part of the handle and on the end. The spike at the top is another peice of pipe insulation, it's totally hollow and just has V-shapes cut out of the top so it folded together into that shape. It's too hard though, and a jab with that does sting a bit. It used to just have a spike there cut from the couch-cushion foam, but eventually it tore off. You could make a cartoony shaped big poofy sword by cutting couch-cushion foam like that. You can cut it pretty rough, the duct tape will make it look better. The only trouble is cutting the hole through it to push the PVC in. I used a long carving knife for this one. Just remember to leave plenty of padding space at the end.

You might want to use the black ABS piping instead of PVC, it's softer. But it'll warp and you'll get curvy swords if you don't store them hanging up.

Last edited by Electric_Kite on 18 Dec 2008, 10:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

try to use the wrapping paper roll thingys. the work well because they are made of paper.

Yeah, but those are destroyed after one fight. The hard cardboard mailing tubes are too hard and need padding.

Oh, yeah. Sometimes at dollar stores and other cheapo places you can get these really inexpensive toddler baseball sets with a foam bat and foam ball. You can really wail on somebody with one of those bats without hurting him, because they're thick and the foam's soft and the plastic core is this thin cheap hollow tube. They won't last very long with rough play and they're really short for adults, but they're a perfect 'my first boffer' for really little kids.

Now to get my parents to approve playing aggressivly with a 5 yold... He loves to play with swords, just the only other people who are "allowed" to with him are too big to easily get parental permission to do it.... the answer, when they turn their backs, lets play swords! I just hate him being so small, it means I have to be extra careful not to hurt him... The 13 yold on the other hand, if I hurt him, my response is, ya deserved it. And he just starts to try and hit me that much more, and so the game goes on.

Maybe you can give him the boffer sword and make yourself a dagger that's foam-only with no solid core at all, and perhaps a shield, and just let him wail on you 'til he gets bigger.

http://www.globalgear.com.au/

this places sells replica weapons from various movies along with other collectables.

it also sells wooden swords.