So… I need short axes for my LARP character. The first rule of LARP is ‘have fun’, so I initially decided to go with what makes me feel cool, instead of what is effective in battle. Hence, I did not go for spear or sword, but for dual short axes (le gasp from the fencers 🙂 ).
My first attempt resulted in two good looking weapons, but… let’s say they had their problems. First – I did not have PPE pipes for the handles, so I used PVC, which does not cover the durability requirements of a battle situation. In the end the handles did not break, but only because of the bigger problem – flimsy beards. If you have a giant axe, I suppose you can simply bash at people Warhammer-style as if it is a hammer and you won’t have any issues. However, for short axes which you try to use intelligently… well, advanced use brings advanced problems. It turns out that when you are deflecting blows from a weapon it is ridiculously easy to lock the opponent’s blade with the beard of the axe. This can be great advantage if you learn how to do it properly and strategically and if you learn how to do a follow up. However, the locking puts very large amount of stress on the axe’s head. When you smack someone with a sword, you put some amount of compressive stress on the EVA foam of your blade and it is always for a short amount of time. However, when you lock a blade or a shaft with your axes head the stress is continuous and it is a tension stress. So… I did not use actively my axes during the previous issue of our LARP, but did not let them rest during the training sessions after it. And it did not take that much for the axes’ heads to get ripped off. So… I needed a way to reinforce the heads. Here follows is latest iteration. I have already tested it (training sessions, so… much more beating that the axes will ever see during the game, as my character is not the fighty type). They seem to hold up well. Not only they did withstand locks (followed by frantic pulling of weapons during the fight for control), but they feel like they don’t mind the punishment. We’ll see, though, when and how they’ll fail.
So… the trick is the metal reinforcement. The problem with it is that it is metal and you need to really make sure the foam that covers it won’t just break and the let the reinforcement stick out and be a hazard.
What is good for reinforcement – I needed thin steel sticks to take and dissipate the tension of the weapon lock, letting the EVA foam not feel too much of the stress. I found the best solution for this – grill sticks! Steel ones, of course. There are many types that are too thin and flimsy, but I managed to find two brands that are thick and with the proper amount of springiness. So… the construction began.
The design of the heads is very simple, at least when it comes to the blade. I wanted the beard to be less pronounced than my previous axes, mainly because, as it turns out, you CAN have too many weapon locks. Sometimes you just want to block a strike. So I opted for smaller beards and more control.
The advanced parts are the small hammer head at the back, because why not have something to strike with in that direction too, and also the spike at the top because, come on, why give up thrusting if you don’t have to?
Here comes the grill stick. The ones I chose have a ring at the end, which is what the hammer heads are modeled after. Also, these sticks are flat profiles. They are stiff enough to not give in to a blow of a LARP weapon, but springy enough to dissipate some energy – if they were stiffer, I would feel too much of the blow in my wrist and also this have greater chance of damaging my opponent’s blade.
You can see that an axe takes two sticks – one for the hammer core and one that would support the beard.
Some cutting and shaping ahead.
And then – stick it to the core! One good side effect of the flatness of the reinforcements is that it is really easy to take them to the round glass fiber core.
Unfortunately I can not glue the coated steel to the fiber glass, but I have left enough of the steel to get taped to the core. The stress at this part would be parallel to the core length, so tape would do fine.
Time to get into the foam. I did not have suitable cardboard for the cut-out, so I continued using the paper model for the pattern. Not the greatest idea ever, but for an axe head it was not a problem.
As the layering was two 1 cm sheets of foam, I needed to cut grooves for everything in the sheets. It’s fiddly, but I got to employ the newest addition to mt dremmel – a round grinding head (thank you aliexpress). It is not magical by any means, but it does help. I also got to use a heat cutter with a pointy implement at the end.
Quite importantly – the grill stick came with safety caps for when you store them after use (or, more likely, for safety until you buy them and loose the caps after first use). That was nice, because I got to use the caps for safety.
In addition, there are two strips of 3mm foam below the reinforcements to prevent it from sticking through the ductape after some unfortunate accident.
Then… stick the core in the pipe of the handle, get your knife and go medieval on those forms. General shape, bevelling, you know the drill. I did not do particularily good job on the bevelling, but it turned out I was out of new blades and I did not feel like stopping for the day to go buy new ones. Momentum is important.
Good thing is that you can sand it afterwards with the dremmel. “Bury your sins”, as Adam Savage puts it.
The last one is after the heat gun – to smooth the cuts even more and to close the cells of the foam nicely.
The pommel also gets part of the core, for stability. I found that I do count on the pommel when fighting to stop my hand of sliding off so it does take some stress, even though not too much.
Lastly – some leather cover for the handles and we’re done. The half that’s close to the pommel is a bit wider, just for easier gripping. A layer of 3mm foam did the trick necely.
For the cover I got to use two different pieces of leather, for fancyness. I think at the end it worked out well.
P.S. A note about the use of the axes. I did mentioned that my initial idea was to fight with two short axes. It does indeed feel very cool, however during training I wound that I have to make a compromise for the sake of efficiency.
My current setup is one of those axes in my main hand, put forward. I use it to deflect and lock. In my non-dominant hand is a short sword that takes on the role of attacking from the back row, so to say. I’ve developed a somewhat reactive fighting style, heavily leaning on defense. My dominant hand takes the opponent’s blow and, preferrably, locks the weapon. Even without a lock I use the beard of the axe head to control the blade and push it aside, while simultaneously rapidly getting closer and attacking with the sword. Even if I can not get closer, whenever I manage to take the opponent’s blade aside, the arm becomes an open target for my sword.
For the sword part I casted one of the training short swords I made, but in time I’ll make a new one, specifically for that purpose. There is one important requirement. My fighting stance (for one-on-one situations) is similar to the HEMA long sword one. The shoulder of my dominant hand is forward. I found that ideally the point of the sword in my non-dominant hand (when in stance) precicely reaches the point of the spike of the axe. This way I am one shoulder forward which is good for my footing and movement and stability and for me being smaller target, but I have equal reach with both weapons. Drawback – I can not lunge with the sword, I can only do that with the axe, but that’s what the spike is for. Can’t have everything, after all.
I do plan on working on that technique and turning it into a stable fighting style. It looks promissing and, more importantly, it looks cool!