little background: My brother-in-law and I came upon the ARMA website not that long ago and are really quite excited about what you guys are doing. Neither of us has more than a little fencing/martial arts training (some judo etc) but we have always enjoyed weapons study and were a bit frustrated with the formalized fencing as it stands today.
What we've constructed consists of wooden dowel, a red oak crossbar, washers and screws for the pommel/counterweight, duct tape (black and gray), epoxy, and string. Total cost for one of these would probably be about $8-10, and while you can't trust 1" wooden dowel to always hold up, I could churn a lot of these out very quickly if need be, and for relatively cheap. Dimensions are as follows:
overall: approx 50"
crossguard: 10"
hilt: 10-12"
blade: 38-40"
balance: 5.5" past cross (I need to take a couple washers off the pommel to push this a little forward)
weight: 2-3lb
The main con is that there is no actual flat, obviously. We've color taped the edges and the crossguard helps with that but I admit that it is a weakness in terms of practicing with it.
The positive side is that just about anyone who wanted to get started could construct one of these very easily, and they have held up thus far in freeplay quite well. Sadly, I likely won't be able to afford an actual waster until the winter is in.
I put pictures in a web album. I would really love some constructive criticism, as this is the prototype and the method of construction has left it quite easy to modify.
http://picasaweb.google.com/danielreid/ ... directlink
Thanks!
PS uncovered metal/sharp edges etc will be covered and filed. I left it as is so as to allow the construction to be more easily visible.
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