Thursday, 23 August 2012

How to make a larp boffer scottish claymore

That is it! You positively need someone dead! No, you don't call a GM! You don't call a wizard! You don't call a dozen archers! You get a big damn two-handed sword to put him down on the ground for good!

The Scottish claymore(don't mix it with the basket-hilt)  is the first large weapon design I post. This is for advanced fighters only - standing at 135 sm, the weapon can be dangerous in inexperienced hands. Get good with it though, and you'll love it. Well, killing seven with one strike might be a bit hard - my record was 3 at once.


BUDGET - about 15-20$ - the weapon itself is almost twice the size of a normal sword. You'd need a bit more of everything. 

MATERIALS: Polipropilene pipe F32 about 1.20m long (optional - piece of pipe size F20) Foam, tapes, plastic bottles, leather or substitute to wrap the handle. Something for the counter weight.


TOOLS: Usual.


This is again a recycled old weapon, actually from my first weapon ever made years ago.



As such, it already had its own special counterweight made from a big bolt, a metal water valve and some nuts and rivets for extra weight.




Here's the optional part with the 2nd pipe piece. The F20 can just barely fit inside the F32, and will make it less springy(also it will again help with the balancing) You don't have to do it if you think the weapon becomes too heavy.




 After the 2nd pipe is fitted inside, a basic measuring is done to decide where to start fitting the guard.
 Next, the handle is given two pieces of hard flip flop foam to make sure the sword is steady in the hand.
 Now its time to make the guard. Anyone who'd read some of the previous guides can guess that I'm about to murder a ton of plastic bottles...And I did. The claymore has a bigger guard piece than a normal sword and thus required a lot more layers of plastic.

 

 To ensure it stays where its supposed to, I actually nailed it to the pipe(thus securing the twin pipes together as well)
 After that - its business as usual, leather is glued on and secured firmly with tape on both ends.
 The blade is the more specific aspect of the claymore(and any type of great sword) You can't skip on protection and make it slim. The pipe is quite and heavy big itself(but without it it would be a spaghetti sword...) and hitting someone with the flat will hurt like hell. Therefore - two thick layers of foam are used. I was thinking of a 3rd, but gave up - it was becoming too thick.

 Finally the claymore is done. Here you can see it again in full size and in comparison to a 1 handed sabre.


 I tried again to follow the model of a real claymore, but alas - boffer limitations can be annoying sometimes.

4 comments:

  1. you would probably be better off using contact cement to stick the hilt on, last time i nailed a hilt to a sword it snapped in the middle of battle

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  2. Unlikely - the nails are more to keep the pipes firm, the guard is still kept in place by wire and tape.

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  3. my meaning being the sword snapped, rather than the hilt

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  4. Oh, well its possible, if they were big nails...but these are barely 1mm in diameter compared the the very wide and tough F32 pipe. Also - don't forget there is an F20 pipe inside the last 3rd of the sword(where the hilt&guard are). Snapping the F32 at the hilt is very very unlikely, snapping both - almost impossible. If you actually strike with such force, you'll seriously injure someone.

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