Pieter’s Airbrushed Metallic Blades

Pieter from Arcana is back at it again: these swords were shaped using a belt sander with 80 grit. He notes that this left the surface to coarse and looking a bit pitted. Higher grit sandpaper might leave the surface smoother, and heat treating the foam could potentially get rid of the last bumps, but Pieter hasn’t tested that theory yet.

The swords are first painted with black latex and then sealed using plastidip. After this sealing, the swords were primed for any available kind of paint. In this case Pieter airbrushed heavily diluted silver and bronze metallic model paint. Then the swords were sealed again with plastidip.

Ready for battle
Ready for battle
Another view of the sword
Another view of the sword
Leather frog!
Leather frog!
Matching sidearm!
Matching sidearm!
The airbushed blades
The airbushed blades

Electroluminescent Wire

Want to see something cool? Pieter of Arcana in the Netherlands shares a successful experiment in Electroluminescent Wire on a larp weapon.

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Inspired by this illustration, this sword is 1.5m long, with two AAA batteries in the handle and a converter housed near the crossguard.

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When powered on, the neon string lights up.

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And finally, a quick video. We’d never seen this done before, it looks like a really neat way to improve a weapon for a fantasy/scifi game. Thanks for sharing your creations, Pieter!

If you’ve got something new or interesting in the world of foamsmithing, write in to contact@foamsmithing.com – we’d love to hear about it!

Why PVC Sucks

John and I were having a discussion regarding different core materials for javelins. A lot of people, including me, have argued for a long time that PVC is completely useless as a core material for boffer weapons. Not “bad” or “substandard” but completely worthless, put it with lead pipes and cardboard tubes, nobody should ever use it again. Continue reading “Why PVC Sucks”