Making the 'SLUM FU' padded waster

Well, several people at SK asked me how I make these, so here is your quick no-frills guide (please bear with me since I'm no web designer so this is pretty crude)

The first step for me when making any kind of sparring weapon is to choose a real weapon to base it on. In this case I'm going by an early (14th century) greatsword found in the River Thames in London, near the old Templar temple (Oakeshott type XIIIa, example number 2)

Oakeshott typology by from historicalweapons.com The sword I'm doing is second from the left

Here is a replica available from ARMART.

Albion Armories is also doing this weapon, they have the Crecy, depicted here, and are developing a newer one they are calling the Duke.

The Key factor to making this type of padded weapon are the materials

From left to right you can see my hacksaw for cutting the pvc, the camping pad foam, the core material, a 3/4" interior diameter Schedule 80 PVC pipe and the stronger Microcell Puff orthopedic foam which is also blue but slightly darker.

For weapons up to 36" the 1/2" diameter PVC core is ok, for 36"-48" 3/4" is ok, and anything larger you should use 1"

CORE MATERIAL

The core is Schedule 80 PVC. It is normally only available at plumbing supply stores, but recently our local LOWES outlet has been carrying it. All PVC sold in the USA has the "schedule" printed on the side of it every 18 inches or so, along with a lot of other information. The most common by far is Schedule 40, (printed on the pipe as "SCH 40"). Schedule 40 is too weak, too light and too flexible for Longswords, though it is ok for single swords 36" and shorter.

FOAM AND OTHER MATERIALS

I use two kinds of foam. For the center or inner piece, I use the standrd blue camping pad stuff, (if you like you can substitute with the superior Landau or flotation foam). Whatever type you use it should be a 1/2" thick sheet. This again, is for the center or 'blade' of the padding. For the flats I use MICROCELL PUFF (a brand name) available from ACOR, a company which makes orthopedic foot inserts. They sell a 1/8" sheet 36" x 30" for $10 plus about $7 shipping (to my neck of the woods anyway).

I find that the relatively hard material for the flat with the softer foam in the center makes for a composite 'sandwich' which is firm and durable but very effectively softens a hard impact. You can play around with different materials to your own satisfaction, but if you use anything thicker than about 1/8" foam for the flats you will end up with weapons which are significantly wider than a wooden waster

I also use iron washers for counterbalance, duct tape (gaffer tape is better though for a variety of reasons, though considerably more expensive) electrical tape, some very light packing foam which i use for the grips, scissors and a knife to cut the foam, and a coat hanger whcih supplies the wire for the guard. I also am using a hack saw, a ruler, some sharpie markers, and a yard stick. Not pictured was the spray adhesive (I used Scotch, but several brands are available) which I used to assemble the weapons. (See below for more about this)

Since this is a more or less parallel bladed sword, cutting out the foam shapes is fairly straitforward on this. It's a bit more tricky when you are doing very tapered blades (but I have to keep SOME trade secrets! ;)

As you can see in this photo, I measure the width I want with the ruler, mark top and bottom on the central (1/2") foam sheet, and then mark for the cut with my sharpie marker, using the yard stick to keep my lines strait. (With a tapering blade you just measure two lines, and remember not to taper so sharply that you leave no room for your core and at least 1/4" of padding foam on either side of it) The next step is to then mark the center for where you are going to cut out a space for the core, and finally to cut.

Here you see the central piece of foam being fitted to the core

(you can see where "SCH 80" is printed on the side)

And here, the core is secured to the central (1/2") piece of the foam 'sandwich'

Carefuly secure the foam to the core so that the foam is strait, and not warped or wavy. If you screw up start over again because it's hard to fix once the sword is made. Also, be sure not to use too much tape here as it will add weight very quickly.

Here I am adding a small piece of the strong MICROCELL PUFF foam to cover the tip of the pipe core (something I'd neglected to do on the longsword some of y'all saw at SK) this keeps the core from poking through. At this point I also cut out two strips of the 1/8" MICROCELL PUFF, measuring and cutting in the same way as with the 1/2" core foam.

GLUING THE CORE

Next I take the core outside and spray one side with glue. The spray glue has noxious fumes so I reccomend using it outside. Then I apply one sheet of the 1/8" MICROCELL PUFF foam "flat" with two pieces of tape, (making sure that it's precisely lined up and NOT bunched up or wavy). I then spray the other side and repeat the process.

SECURING THE FLATS

Here I start securing the flat with vertical strips of tape. At this point you want to start cutting the tape with scissors if you haven't been already. It ends up looking a lot neater if you do.

Here I've cut out the tip shape and I'm covering with 1 inch half-strips of tape. Be sure to cross -reinforce here to keep it strong, and pull it tight so there isn't too much of a bulge or else your sword may take on a disturbing shape....

FINISHING THE BLADE

Here I'm just finishing covering the blade with long strips of cleanly cut duct tape. Use as long strips as possible and be very careful not to get any wrinkles in the tape, while simultaneously stretching the flat so that it stays strait and does not bunch up. Try not to get wrinkles like I did here!

You may have noticed up to this point the blade looks kind of sloppy. If you are more exacting of a person than I am, carefully measure and place every piece of tape neatly the whole way throuh. If you are a lazy bastard like me, here is the point where you can no longer be lazy and where you have to be very precise and fix any wavyiness.

Hold the blade at eye level along the "cutting edge" to make sure it's not wavy. If it is, fix it or go back a few steps and start over. This part is perahps the most demanding next to measuring and cutting out the foam (when it's a tapering blade anyway) so be very careful, and don't do it until you are ready to concentrate fully.

Here you can see me fixing a minor irregularity with a small piece of foam. This also reinforces the area near the tip which gets most of the abuse.

COUNTERWEIGHTS

The next major step is counterweighing the blade. For this weapon, to get the balance I want I'm putting weights (washers) at the forte or ricasso near the guard, and also at the pommel. Here you see me securing some flat washers to the forte. I later covered these with two smalls square of the MICROCELL PUFF (not pictured) for safety and to hide the shape of the washer.

WEIGHING THE POMMEL

At this point, test the balance with your finger, and weigh the weapon with a kitchen scale. This will give you an idea how much counterweight you need to add. You can add weight to the blade by adding a few verical strips of duct tape (it is surprisingly heavy)

It takes quite a bit of weight on the pommel end to get the balance right. I'm using about 8 or 9 3/4" washers here. It's VERY IMPORTANT TO PUT THESE ON VERY SECURELY AND TIGHTLY. You have to use a lot of cross - reinforcement and I alternate layers of electrical tape with duct tape, and stretch everything very tight. If you aren't careful you will end up with a wobbly pommel.

Here you can see where I've secured them to the pommel, alternating between electrical and duct tape. I secure this very tightly.

Next some larger washers to create the wheel shape and add yet more weight. Make sure this lines up with the flat of the blade.

And here I'm adding some foam for safety and to help define the shape a bit more. I also added some of the thinner 1/8" foam on the 'flat' of the pommel though that is not shown here.

Now everything is covered tight as a drum with duct tape.

MAKING THE CROSSGUARD

Here I make the basic skeleton of the cross. Don't make it too wide, as you'll be adding width with the foam. Then I add some soft 1/2" foam to the inner side which meets your knuckles.

Here I'm reinforcing the other side with the stronger 1/8" MICROCELL PUFF FOAM, something I forgot to do on the longsword I had a SK which led the guard to split open when I was sparring with Jake. Not a huge problem though as you can always addd this reinforcement later if you forget to do it while building the weapon. In general you do use a lot of tape here with a huge amount of cross-reinforcement. Sometimes I'll use electrical tape in layers on the guard which will make it even stronger. In fact you can actually make the guard with no wire core if you don't want to use the wire, and if you reinforce it well enough with the tape it will still be strong and fairly stiff. My guards are usually stiff enough to do binds and such.

Here finally, another layer of horizontal foam padding, which must also be heavily secured.

Here, I'm doing some pieces of thin foam along the blade edges of the hand-grip (just the upper portion) so as to get an oval as opposed to round grip, which is better for a variety of reasons. I also use some of the same stuff to build up the stage on that coke bottle type grip, though this is optional and not always a feature of this type of sword (it does appear on XIIIa 5-6 in the Records of the Medieval Sword)

Lastly, I add some thin layers of tissue-like packing foam, and cover it all up with electrical tape which shrinks it a bit and is easier on the hands than duct tape which gets slippery and tends to come off under constant rubbing.

FINALE

My padded sword, seen from the front and side, next to Arms and ARMOR.com's "Bohemian Broadsword" for comaprison (which is apparently based on Oaksehotte XIIIa #6, having a shorter grip than my Thames river example and a 36" blade)

Finally, go over it all for fixes, elminate any wrinkles if you can, tighten up warps and waves, cover sloppy tape with long, vertical pieces. Then weigh the weapon and test the balance again. The weapon I made here is 52" long (just over four feet) with a 38" blade (the original Oakeshott XIIIa #2 was a 39" blade). As you can see in the photo below, it weighed out at almost exactly three pounds, which is precisely what I was aiming for with this greatsword.

My longswords and bastard swords are a 6-8 ounces lighter, mainly due to more tapering blades, but this greatsword has superb balance. The balance point is about 3" from the crossguard, but the actual feel is more subtle than just a balance point. That is something you'll get better at perfecting over time. You can tinker with the weight mainly by being more careful and sparing with the duct tape, particularly when securing the core to the middle (inner) piece of foam (I used a lot of tape to add on weight) and also of course by limiting or adjusting the amount of counterweight.

In the end I believe if you follow these guidelines you'll have a pretty nice sword, I certainly did!

It should end up about 3/4" - 1/2" thick, about like a waster, with a vaguely diamond-shaped cross section (since the core is wider than the edge) which generally handles pretty much like a wooden waster, except with a balance much closer to a real steel sword, and an edge and point soft enough for full contact sparring.

DISCLAIMER

This is not an official ARMA design. Use these weapons at your own risk. Some people may want to add a open cell foam "thrusting tip" like in LARP weapons. Others may be more comfortable with a softer type of foam for the flat. I call these "padded wasters" because I personally have found that these weapons handle almost exactly the same as a wooden waster. They are not, however, as 'comfortable' to be hit with as softer weapons of more conventional design, but I have found personall that they don't bruise or cause serious injury, and I do hit very hard (as a few of you know!) Thats only my experience though and I make no guarantees. I have also found that my weapons do not normally break, and under those wierd circumstances where they do (like when I was sparring with a guy with an unpadded steel shield rim) they break cleanly and dont leavejagged edges. That aint no guarantee that it wont happen though! Use these at your own risk and tinker with this design to make them comfortable for your own use.

Jean Henri Chandler

bka "big dummy"