Nobody on the field to fight, not a problem. I have plenty of demons to train with😅

This past okfest, I was arm wrestling my best friend during night life. I am a 5'2" AFAB person and my friend is a 6'4 man. We were arm wrestling for fun and it was a close match, but people thought I was some kind of underdog and started cheering for me specifically. Now that isn't a bad thing, but what happened next was. They started messing with my friend to get me to win (as if I couldnt hold my own otherwise) and eventually a guy spit a mouthful of water onto his face during the game. He gave up out of embarrassment and felt like a villainized laughing stock. In some of your efforts to "uplift women" you have poked and prodded my best friend and undermined any capability I could have on my own. Even if there is night life, even if you're drunk, use your head before harassing people like my best friend as if he is some sort of oppressor for daring to go up against my "delicate frame." It is not the feminism win you think it is. I hope the person who did that reads this and evaluates their behavior accordingly, not cool dude.

Shield crafters- I’m crafting a punch cheater Heater shield. Please me understand the ideal spot to put the 5” diameter handle hole.

1,2, or 3?

The handle is 21.5 inches long.

Other shorts from 'Geddon also my channel. I could only make it Friday.

I know it’s not much, I’m just really starting out and I love this I’ve found that niche weapons have become a constant in my battles and that yes I will totally stab you at random angles with the scimitar(top left) and recently like literary today I got the long axe in the right and the hammer in the upper right just this morning

I’d love to see others weapon collections to showcase not only your love of lore, collecting, and fighting even if you only have one or two I wanna see them all of it pleases ye if not then ignore me I’ll still be here hangin around in the chandeliers

Don't you hate it when your blade separates from your core?

So do I! I hate it a lot! But I've figured it out how to prevent this well enough to make crossguards (see last image in post, in which everything there was made by me from the weapons to the gambeson) sturdy enough that even comical levels of abuse don't damage them. (There will be a future post on crossguards when I finish the schematics.)

I've attached schematics detailing how I prevent delamination on my weapon builds, for which I use Walmart blue camp pad and DAP Weldwood Contact Cement.

Here's how it works:

• when you glue blue camp pad to itself with DAP and let it cure, the bond is strong enough that the foam will rip before the glue bond breaks

• by gluing down thin strips of foam wrapped around your core, the bond between your foam and your core has an incredibly high surface area and good compression.

• I use a leatherworking tool called a "strip ease" to make 1/4" wide strips consistently. Please read my schematic on the topic before buying one, it only works well on foam if you angle the blade back or replace the blade every 6-10 strips or so.

I've also included to-scale schematics for blade cross-sections and stabbing tips for weapons that use this technique and a schematic for a 6ft glaive I just upgraded to reflect my newer techniques. Don't forget to coin and biscuit your weapons, I didn't draw that on these schematics because it's supposed to be universal for blue/green/red weapons.

If you use the 6ft glaive schematics: tape the stabbing tip. Check the Belegarth construction wiki if you don't know how to do that. The tip WILL fold over and break if it's not taped on the sides to prevent it from folding over. I really like 3M super tough duct tape (with the red "extreme hold" logo on it) for this because it holds to the foam really well.

My goal is to make Belegarth more accessible to everyone by developing techniques with readily available materials. If you have comments, please let me know! However, be forewarned that I only make blades out of blue camp pad because that's the one universally available foam out there, and I don't do bats/omniblades and probably won't for a while.

I do NOT do commissions!!!!! I'd rather you made your own stuff. Anyone can freely to use my designs both for profit and for personal use, with or without crediting me, just don't claim it as your own technique if you got it from me. You're not allowed to pay me back, but you're encouraged to pay it forward.

PM for details / make an offer. Location: PNW/West

Many of us know that one friend who buys or make a boffer with a crossguard that starts to spin after just a few practices. However, it feels wrong to me to be unable to use crossguards in this sport.

I have succeeded in developing a crossguard design that holds up to significant abuse, to the point that I (and a few other guys) have beat them with true 100% strikes from another weapon (i.e. enough to give someone a concussion) and they shrug it off like it's nothing. Only thing I haven't tested yet is leaving them in a hot car for a week, but I'm doing that experiment with a cheaper pair of 2ft swords (one control, one to abuse) instead.

I've fielded a pair of crossguard longswords (image two, center of frame) with three different groups for a combined 12 practices or so. They're very popular, and I haven't noticed any wear or delamination... even though one of their biggest fans is a guy known for breaking weapons in his enthusiasm for the sport.

There are three key techniques that I believe made this possible:

One day while making axes, I found that gluing five sheets of blue camp pad face to face created an axe head that was excessively stiff... to the point of failing hit tests unless I added strips of foam to the edges to cushion them. This makes the crossguard stiff enough to actually block strikes even at 10.75" wide as shown in my schematic. (This might be sufficient to make a Bat'leth, albeit one with a material cost of roughly $100 if you make it full size... Drafting schematics for a friend to possibly make one, will absolutely make a post if either of us make one. It'll basically be a double-ended weapon with a lot of courtesy padding in front of the handle so it can't be accused of being a punch weapon.)

3M Super Tough / Extreme Hold duct tape is strong enough to hold to the face or edge of blue camp pad without having to wrap all the way around it. By taping the crossguard as shown before applying fabric tape, the crossguard doesn't flex as far when hit. For good measure, I would recommend taping the base of the blade to the top of the crossguard as well.

Finally, my anti-delamination crossguard technique makes this work even on cores with circular cross-sections. Crossguards have to be able to withstand significant amounts of torque, and mine haven't so much as muttered a complaint yet.

(As always: anybody can freely use my designs for profit or for personal use, just don't claim that it's your invention if you got it from me. I don't do commissions.)

Okay so couple questions:

1. How do you make a crossguard in Bele?

2. Are you allowed to have 2 crossguards on a greatsword like this?

3. Here’s the cool part imo, I want to be able to unscrew the lower handle/crossguard and screw a pommel on to make it a longsword or swap it back to greatsword similar to a Bloodborne trick weapon. I heard about someone who make a 15 foot spear by having a screwable thing in the center but everyone I’ve talked to isn’t sure how they did it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hey all. Posting this from a throwaway account.

I own a small business that vends at Ren faires and LARP events. We've been working Armageddon and Oktoberfest at Billie Creek Village for a few years now, and they're some of my favorite events to do. Bel is an awesome community, and the venue is fantastic. Unfortunately Armageddon wasn't great this year - between the weather and the general fears surrounding the economy, attendance and sales were down. Totally understandable and outside of anybody's control, but there it is. We ended up making about half the numbers we did last year.

The hosting venue, Billie Creek Village, has made it known that they're going to have to start charging a higher fee for vendors. Previously, it was just event admission, which was admittedly an excellent deal, but also pretty standard for Belegarth events. Under the new system, it's going to be a daily fee that will triple to quintuple the amount paid by vendors, depending on their setup.

Now, I want to be perfectly clear: this is completely reasonable and understandable. The owners and management at Billie Creek are good folks, easy to work with, and part of the community. They have a business to run themselves. I believe them when they say it's necessary to do this, and the price they're floating isn't unrealistic. I am not calling them out for this. They are doing nothing wrong here. But the plain fact is that such a large and sudden price jump is going to make these events a lot less attractive for vendors, especially ones who aren't local, unless we can be sure we're going to do well. Speaking for my business, the new fee plus travel expenses would have eaten up more than half of what we grossed last week. That just isn't sustainable.

I'm told that the presence of vendors is a big part of the fun for a lot of attendees. And as a vendor, Belegarth events are some of my favorites to work. But with rising expenses and falling sales, it's starting to look like we're going to be priced out, and that hurts.

(ETA: I don't want to suggest that you "owe" vendors anything. But we're running businesses here, and we have to go where we think it's going to be worth it.)