thealmightyguru.freeforums.org

I'm making a thread for discussion of all of the various boffers I've made or attempted since I started. Wanna see pics? I have most of them uploaded at my DevArt page, specifically these:

Yellow Jacket, a knife I made a while back. Handle is short but there's padding all around and should be safe for throwing.
Longswords: They'll boff you wide open! (puts on blonde wig, eyepatch, and wifebeater)
Maces and a redux of Yellow Jacket
New unfinished longswords- the fruits of my pool noodle cutting (now finished! They worked well)

I'll be getting pics of the newest ones, as well as any modifications I've made to old ones soon.

Okay, I think I've done all I want to my kite shield. It has a rather weak green tarp over it for color (the thing's made of foamboard so I'm not worried) and yellow hylian lettering which reads "R I P". I think I could stand to make the letters a little bigger or add some sort of skull and crossbones below the lettering. It's an ambi kite shield with shoulder straps for carrying on the back over either arm.

There is now a small axe made from a sponge and some PVC insulation. It's probably better suited for throwing than for melee because of its size, but it WAS my first axe... Pics coming tomorrow.

Okay, pics uploaded.
Lots of boffers!!! - the longswords built with pool noodle and a shot of the shield, with a tiny axe in front of it!
Back of shield, just so you get a glimpse of how everything holds together. All handles and straps are duct tape but it gives a tight feel.

A quick update so that this doesn't look completely dead... designs of my boffer butterfly I uploaded here. Be warned, it's a fairly huge download. While the thing doesn't cover the blade the way I wanted, it at least opens with a flick and is fairly easy to open with a single hand without much practice.

nice. how big is the butterfly knife?

Eight inch handle, eight inch blade. I figure that's about where a real one would be.

My plans include actually finishing this tower shield I've been meaning to build as well as making another butterfly knife. Let's see if I manage to finish any of it.

Rofl, I need to take pics of what I've done with the tower shield and what I want to do with it. Team Fortress 2 has been getting in the way slightly, but overall I'm just not as motivated to finish it as I should be. Handles and straps are on the thing and I have plenty of reinforcement glued to it, but I'll have to wrap those fiberglass rods better so they don't come out. I just don't trust the hot glue alone. Pic soon.

a good idea as far as making shields, i made one that is about four feet long, 2 feet wide, and it is made of pvc pipe and glue, then after i finished that i bought some apoxy like substance and fiberglass strips that are used to rebuild cars, and used that to go around the joints to hold it together better, then i dipped the hole thing in DIP and it is sollid and hasnt fell apart at all.

Okay, I've been really late on getting pics but I have a legitimate excuse- I couldn't load half of my internet pages for a few days now! They just finally started working again, so soon as this party's over I'll have some pics up for you guys to critique.

EDIT: Just found my camera. Not making a new post because I don't have any content to update with yet. Will soon!

A foamboard...shield?
That's really interesting. How many layers thick is it, pray tell? Does it hold up in combat well?

Your other weapons look great by the way! I'll have to get some pics of mine and my mates up. They're pretty similar to yours actually.

The "tarp" on my kite shield does not hold up too well against other swords. I've been too lazy to throw real tarp over it, but otherwise the shield holds up great. It's the duct tape straps that I built that don't hold up too well. I've had to strip it down in order to put handles back in a few times.

The foam I used is this jigsaw interlocking mat foam I found at Meijer. WalMart had some but it was thinner and all black, as well as six pieces as opposed to the four you'd find at Meijer. the shield was made from the Meijer stuff, and so is the tower, with additional plastic for reinforcement. I suppose if it were made with better quality straps it'd be awesome to sell, but as is I like it a lot.

Okay, an update! Now that I have a working camera once again (stupid Vista and my old digital camera didn't like each other and I was tired of hunting for batteries all the time) I have taken a picture for your viewing pleasure- those generic longswords made from cut to shape pool noodle were such a hit and held up so well that I'm making a v2 of them, this time with more padding for the tip and everything taped better to the shaft. Other than that they'll look just like the first batch, only not as beat up.

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/9263/boffersnw1.png

What did you do/use to make the swords flat?

When I try they always look like crap

My dad has a band saw where I mark off half an inch from the fence to the saw blade (as the side wall is one inch), then I run the pool noodle through the blade with the PVC pipe still in it for added firmness. A hint: be careful at the end as the noodle will have a tendency to roll to the side, even moreso than wood.

If you had access to a planer, you could always try that too after a preliminary run, but you won't have the same amount of scrap laying around, and I can use that for knife blades or something similar.

I'll have to try that, but I don't have any power tools.