Authentic LARP Sword

This LARP sword was build for eastern europe style LARP, where hilt parts can be made out of wood or metal. Always check with event rules, if this kind of weapon is allowed.

Shape and feel of the sword is inspired by viking swords. Although this build took very long time, I opted for as simple approaches as possible (with hope for decent result).

These are all the things I've used. I am sure you could find alternative for each of them.

• 40mm S235JR construction steel rod (at least, that is what I have used, any kind of steel will do)
• (optional) Cow bone boiled in vinegar, for decorations (This starts to sound like potion recipe :D )
• Oak wood (I used door sill)
• 6x20mm fiberglass profile
• Power Tape
• Cloth tape
• Hot glue gun (of course :D )
• Soft foam sheet for blade, could be EVA foam, PU (polyurethane) foam or some kinds of Microporous rubber.
• Polyurethane construction adhesive
• Contact cement
• Leather strip
• Veg tan leather hide, for handle
• Chrome spray paint
• Water diluted black acrylic paint, for black washes
• (optional) 3D printer with filament of your choice

Pommel is made out of 40mm S235JR construction steel rod. This was a scrap that I salvaged, so make use of anything you could find.

I decided to make it flat on a lathe, but this is not really necessary. After flattening one side and cutting desirable sized piece off I sketched final shape on material with sharpie. Then I proceeded with angle grinder and grinded whole thing to the sketched shape.

I took a broom into my hand and measured how long should the grip be. All the other dimensions were just a wild guess :-).

I had to overcome my temptation to start rounding and beveling corners of the wood with a rasp right off the bat.

So the first step in making grip was drilling holes (and yes, my bit was blunt as hell) and rasping them to the square shape of the fiberglass rod, which serves as core of the whole sword.

I used my drilling jig, which can clamp the wood and drill parallel with the surrface material is on. Fancy jigs like this are not necessary, you can get away with vice and any kind of drill.

Shaping the handle is done after drilling, so you can comfortably clamp wooden piece. I first rounded corners with a rasp and then used sand paper to smooth it. There's no need to overdo sanding, grip will be covered with leather in the end.

Core of the sword is made out of fiberglass. Which can, under certain circumstances, cut through padding we'll add, and in the worst case scenario It may stab and hurt someone.

To prevent these scenarios, tip of the core is coated with hot glue (which is actually EVA material, so the same we can use as a padding).

The way I do it, is wrapping tape around the one end of the rod, making sure it wont stick to itself. I am wrapping it, so I build kind of a pocket, which I later fill with hot glue.

And by the way, power tape is the worst I could pick for this. Use cloth tape or any other heat resistant type. First try I did this was complete failure, because tape melted and glue overflowed. For later projects I even used cardboard reinforcements, to hold the tip shape and to prevent melting of the tape.

You can see I have fiberglass rod wrapped in painter's tape, thats because touching fiberglass with bare hands could result in great amount of tiny, nearly invisible glass splinters in your hands...so don't touch that I guess :-)

I drawn viking style guard on the door sill and cut it with my band saw. After cutting it was drilled in the same manner as the grip.

(And yes, its crocs shoes in the photo)

Is a great book trilogy, but in this step, let's rather talk about the blade of sword we are building.

Many sword builders are using two part PU foam with some kind of mold. Technique I've used in building this sword is much simpler than that, and could look good as well, if we combine it with good painting.

Material I've used is called Poreten and its used in shoe making. Its acutally common PU foam with hardness of 25 ShA and they sell it in sheets. I bought big thick chunk of it, and cut it to size on my bandsaw.

Three stripes I cut were same height as door sill I used for guard. The stripe I'll use in the middle is the same height as the fiberglass core.

Pommel was drilled in a shape of fiberglass rod as well. It was done by carefully wiggling metal drill bit in all possible directions, to drill out as much as possible, the rest was filed.

I put some cloth tape on pommel, so it wont get tangled by glue. Put some Powerkleber D4 PU glue inside and beat pommel onto rod with hammer. After it dried I glued grip and guard with same glue. This glue increases volume as it sets, so after few hours, it formed some strange shapes on the pommel (the tape was there for a reason, yay).

I transferred fiberglass core shape to the strip of the same height and then cut it with my trustworthy shoemakers scissors. Then glued it together with contact cement.

After it dried I've glued the rest of the pieces and cut edge of the sword on a bandsaw. Whole blade was then wrapped in cloth tape.

Strip of leather was then glued on the edge of the blade, with a hotglue, to prevent tearing of the foam, when hitting metal helmets or edges of shields.

Later I covered blade with one more layer of cloth tape, so the foam was entirely covered as well as the leather strip.

I wanted my transition between guard and blade seamless, so I first covered blade and part of wooden guard with cloth tape and then glued some 3D printed decorations.

First I modeled whole guard in 3Ds max (which is in my opinion better for this artistic stuff than fusion 360 I would've used othervise) and then put displacement map on the front faces, to form decoration.

I then 3D printed it on my trusty Prusa MK3s (well...everything I owny is trustworthy). I used PETG because I find PLA too brittle for battlefield :-). 3D printed piece was then glued on the wooden guard using 2 part epoxy. I spray painted it silver and later added black wash, by dabbing with wet sponge.

In the photo you can see some parts of wooden guard overlap printed design, this was later ground off.

This technique of mine is quite good, so listen. Its not only about stamping, but about finding the right shape of leather we need. First, I wrap whole handle in painter's tape, then i score it with knife at location, where seam will be. I then peel the tape off, which is now in shape and size of handle unwrap. This tape shape can now be sticked onto leather and cut off, without need to write to leather.

Now that we have the shape of leather we need, It's time for the design. I drew it on piece of paper (heavily inspired by designs I found on google images), if you are lazy, you can print it on paper.

The hide was soaked in lukewarm water for 15 minutes or so. Then the paper was put on the smooth side and outlined with red .2mm marker. By outlining on the wet leather, you will transfer the design, and thanks to the red color, you can be sure where you already outlined.

It was stamped with basic leather stamp set.

I've cut leather piece for grip a little shorter, because when leather is soaked, it can be stretched. When you wrap and sew toghether wet piece of hide, It will wrap tightly around your object, without need of gluing.

I sew two parts together with cross stitch. After it dried, I painted it with alcohol based leather dye.

Blade was first painted with diluted PVA glue (with water). If this step was skipped, the otherwise shiny spray paint would look bad, and the texture of the blade would be clothy. So I applied several coats of PVA glue, with light sanding in between. PVA is stretchy, so it will last even on flexible foam.

As a final touch, I've added cow bone that was shaped using dremel, to fit into pommel. It was then decorated with soldering iron. The bone is glued with epoxy glue.

Thanks for reading my first Instructable!

Cheers

Kudlas