Recycling an old homemade larp boffer sword part 1

Naturally when you are making your own weapons, its obvious you can unmake them too. A time comes in a homemade larp boffer when patchwork repairs just don't cut it and it needs a complete overhaul to be brought back in a game. Of course you might also need its parts for another project. Whatever the reasoning sometimes a larp sword simply has to be undone.


 This is my first sword which i had made by myself more than 3 years ago. Back then I could not do good looking weapons and even when it was brand new it was on the lower estimate as far as looks went. It was however (extra) safe and just the right size weight and length for me.  After countless action finally the damage is too much to be fixed with  (yet) another batch of tape. The foam of the blade is torn on multiple places, the guard is leaning and covered with more uncountable layers of duct tape, the pommel is about to break off any second now.But fear not -we can rebuild it, we have the technology! But first we have to pull it apart for spares.


Yeah its pretty mangled up as far as boffer swords go...Let's fix that shall we?

I started with removing the barely hanging pommel from the sword handle. No small feat considering all the tape involved.

After that I cleaned it out from the tape and it was ready for reuse. As you can see the pommel itself was from a water tap which used to be full of old rivets and screws to act as a counter weight.

Next the handle is unwrapped from the tape. An electric cable was used as decoration and to give better grip so I remove it  without cutting it, to be available for reuse.

 

Then the guard is removed as well and stripped from most of the tape holding it. Another small cable that was holding it in place before that is removed for future use.

 

Now the only thing left is to bisect the blade and slip it off the pipe core. This is actually the simplest part.

Finally we are left with a set of  parts ready for use - a weapon core, a pommel, cable for decorations and the sword guard which would need some repairs first.