Making practice weapons - New guy

[Guest]

This is my first post so greetings. This is a very awsome website to. I have a few questions.
What do you use for practice weapons (non steel) that you could make yourself? I am need of "mass producing" some weapons other than just using "dowel" rods or some other lame excuse for a weapon. Also cheap would be good... Any websights or books to look into? Any ideas?

One more question about combat. You all probably know you give someone a sword who knows nothing and they come at you flailing wildy. If it was a real fight you could disable them with no problem by running them through. But when you are not actually fighting with the intent to kill is there any way to disable them without actually hurting them. This might be a stupid question but maybe someone out there can help me. I am very much still learning about actual combat (that is why this websight is great). I have done choerography and some other stuff but just learning about what actually happens in a battle. Well I hope to learn a lot from you all. Thanks in advance.
-Dan Cox-

[Guest]

Hi Dan,

The bulk of our longsword training is done with wooden wasters. They are practice weapons made from hard wood like hickory. If you have some woodworking skill you can turn out pretty decent wasters with a little effort. I'm not sure about "mass producing" them, I've only made a few, usually one at a time. The best advice I can give you is to get a good look at one, you should then be ale to copy it. Maybe you could buy one, then make some yourself. You really need to see and feel a good one to know how they should be made. There are also commercial producers of good quality wasters, very good products are available from Wooden Weapons at:

http://www.woodenweapons.com/contact.htm

Also check out this article on the historical use of wasters:

http://www.thearma.org/essays/wasters.htm

Good luck and be careful, hardwood wasters can really hurt if you hit each other carelessly or too hard. Start slowly and increase your speed and intensity gradually as you gain control. A fencing mask is also a good idea.

[Guest]

Well it looks like Sean and Matt beat me to it for sparring swords here from my website: http://www.armanortheast.com/sparringsword.htm

[Jake_Norwood]

Sully-
Have you had any problems with your hocky-stick models breaking? We've been using them for some time, but they break on us as often as the old slat-models would. We have been using used hockey sticks (which are free), and we figure that that might be the problem. We also hit pretty hard...

What's your experience with them?

Jake

[Shane Smith]

My home-made oak wasters seem to last about 6 months or so and then it's off to build a new one.Hickory lasts much longer. We manage to break padded weapons at an appalling rate.No matter what we do different in the construction,the sparring tools fail.We have noted that for both wasters and padded weapons,that the straighter the grain of the wood used,the longer the service life of the tool in question.

Welcome to the forum Dan. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

[Guest]

It's true Shane, training tools break, this was sad for me when
I started because I cherished my swords. Now I'm fond of a little trick: when I build a sword, I make for it an hilt I like, no matter how complex it is, and when the blade breaks, I put the hilt on a similar blade, so it seems to me as if I repaired the sword instead of throwing it away <img src="/forum/images/icons/smirk.gif" alt="" />
Just a little psycological self cheating.
Carlo

[Guest]

Jake,

It depends on the stick your using. If you're using Street Hocket sticks then they will break. If you use Ice Hockey sticks such as Bauer or top brand names then they shouldn't break. But nothing is 100%.

[Jake_Norwood]

I think that they have been street hockey sticks, but I'm not sure (the guys I got them from played on a roller rink). We may try and build some this month.

Jake

[Guest]

Ah I should have thought about hockey stick shafts earlier I used to havea bunch of old hockey sticks but alas they are gone now. Talking about them breaking. Has anyone one of you made one using a graphite or kevlar hockey stick? They are pretty expensive but doubt that they would break. Maybe a stupid Idea but atleast an idea.
-Dan Cox-

[MurrayMoore]

This describes how to make ARMA padded swords.

http://www.anomaly.org/wade/paddedsword/index.html