Philosophy

Making a functional polearm for a LARP requires the balancing of two factors: The overall mass of the weapon, and the whippiness of the shaft. Lighter polearms move faster, and hit lighter, but tend to be excessively "whippy". For the purposes of this article, the acceptable degree of whippiness is 10° or less for the entire length of the weapon.

Materials List

Tools List

Making The Shaft

Making the Striking Surface

Making the Thrusting Tip

Towards the aim of safety, these weapons meet certain minimum requirements.

1. A weapon should not have any exposed sharp edges, or "hard bits", such as the rigid core of the blade.
2. A weapon should be durable enough that routine use won't make it fail a safety check
3. A weapon should be light enough, and padded well enough, that a blow delivered with normal force should, at most, sting.

Ultimately, weapons should be used for fun in a live action role-playing game.

Materials List

The following materials are required to make a polearm, legal for IFGS or Magic Horizons.

1. A 1/2" diameter aluminum garden stake. They're typically available from spring to late summer in the garden sections of Wal-Mart or ShopKo. Typical prices range from $1.50 to $4.00. They're coated in a green plastic with little bumps on it, and come in 94.5" lengths, total.
2. A 3/8" diameter length of PVC. 10 feet of it will make sheathes for two polearms. This can be found at almost any plumbing supply store.
3. A foam Fundoodle. These are closed cell pool toys that range from 3-5' long by 3" in diameter. They typically cost $3 to $6. If you can find one with a 1/2" hole in the middle, take it.
4. A supply of high density cold cure. You won't need much, and many upholstery stores sell it as remnants for a quarter for a block the size of your fist.
5. A supply of the wavy soft foam that electronics are shipped in.
6. Rip stop nylon for the blade cover
7. A 1/2"x8" bolt, or something else suitable for counterweighting a polearm.
8. 3/8" thick pipe insulation, suitable for 3/4" pipe.
9. Some remnants of 3/8" camping foam, or some other stiff foam to put on the bottom of the butt-cap.
10. A tube of Shoe Goo/Household Goop (aka industrial rubber adhesive).
11. A can of 3M spray adhesive.

Tools List

The tools required to make these blades are as follows:

1. A hack saw.
2. A utility knife.
3. Visquine, or some other plastic surface that can be glued on.
4. A sharpie pen.
5. Scissors for cutting fabric.
6. A tape measure.

Making the Shaft

Use the hack saw to cut the aluminum core down to the correct size. Make sure to cut off the sharp bit of the core, and to file down any sharp edges. Polearms of less than 5 feet in length are almost pointless, and most games have limits on polearm lengths that are far shorter than the 8 foot length of the garden stake.

Once you've got the aluminum core cut down to length, use the utility knife to shave off the raised bumps on the green plastic cover. If you're feeling particularly industrious, you can shave off all of the green plastic coating, but it's probably not worth the time.

Take the tape measure, and the sharpie pen, and mark 2" from the butt end of the pole arm (this is the part of the aluminum core that you cut the point off of, and is a hollow aperture). This is where your butt-cap will be. Mark off somewhere from 6 to 18 inches off of the front end of the polearm.. This is where your cutting edge will be.

Measure the distance between your two marks. This is the length that your PVC will need to be cut to. Cut the PVC to match this length.

Slide the PVC onto the garden stake, putting a dollop of Shoo Goo ahead of the edge of PVC, and twisting the PVC on. It will be a close fit, and the pressure differential will suck the glue in. By twisting the PVC around the core, you'll spread the glue evenly, which will make the weapon sturdier.

After letting the glue cure, you should line a bead of the glue onto the outside of the PVC, and put the foam covering for the shaft. This results in a shaft whose exterior diameter is a bit bigger than I like. If your local LARP allows non-striking surfaces to be covered with less than 3/8" padding, use the thinner padding.

Making the Striking Surface.

Cut a length of the Fundoodle approximately 3" longer than the exposed length of the aluminum core. Coat the exposed length of aluminum liberally with Shoo Goo, and then socket the Fundoodle onto it. Pack the remaining hole of the Fundoodle with scraps of cold-cure foam. Cut out a section of camping foam equal to the flat area of the Fundoodle, and glue it on top. This gives you a base to build the thrusting tip off of.

Wrap the bolt you got as a counterweight in duct tape, so that it doesn't rattle inside the aluminum, and cot it liberally with glue. Slide it inside the core, and then tape it down at the bottom. Cut a similar length of Fundoodle foam to cover the bottom of your weapon with, making sure that you've put enough space under the bolt to pack with cold cure. Cut a large piece of camping-pad foam and glue it to the bottom of the butt-spike, and tape the entire assembly together.

Making the Thrusting Tip

To make the thrusting tip, cut a cylinder of cold-cure foam equal in diameter to the Fundoodle that you've been using as a cutting surface, and about 3" deep. Cut a similar cylinder of the electronics packing foam, and use the spray adhesive to glue the flat surfaces together. By pinching the ripple pattern of the packing foam in, you can make a rounded tip for the weapon, which will spread the force of the impact out as it deforms. To add some structural strength to the thrusting tip, wrap the entire assembly in cloth, and glue it all together. Finally, when the the thrusting tip is complete, put it on the base-cap of camping foam you attached to the top of the cutting edge of the polearm.

The total depth of the thrusting tip should be no more than 6 inches to the base of the foam; anything more than that, and you're inviting tip-shear in the course of general combat.

Cut a cover out of rip-stop nylon for your blade, giving about 1/4" over the "circumference" of the blade. Keeping the sock "inside out" (from sewing it up), slide it over the tip of the blade, and roll it right side out. You will need to compress the foam to get the sock to slide on, and it's not easy to do. (Ripstop nylon isn't very stretchy).

Making the cover out of duct tape may make your weapon more durable, and add more rigidity to the thrusting tip. If you are covering the tip with duct tape, be sure to poke holes through the tape for air to escape, allowing the foam to compress under impact.

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