How to make a larp boffer farming sickle

As I mentioned in my facebook page I'm going to make a couple of "improvised" weapons. Actually the term was a bit misleading, since I did not mean something cobbled together from a bits of scrap MacGuyver style. Actually there are an awful lot of tools of everyday life that also happen to have good weight or sharp edges and thus be quite good for chopping or clobbering someone over the head. Remember - not everyone can be a special snowflake, and hardly everyone was a mighty warrior or had a heirloom sword of power stashed in the attic. So when you are a simple farmer and those uppity orcs show up and trample your fields...well you grab the first thing that can go choppy on them, you don't wait for the army to arrive 6 days later. As it happens to be, that would be your sickle. Hell, as far it goes its a perfectly fine bladed weapon. A certain Paulus Hector Mair even had a chapter in his medieval fighting manual on sickles.

 

But enough about that. So you want a sickle? Lets make one!


LARP BOFFER SICKLE.


Budget: Usual for a weapon

Materials: foam, F20 pipe(you need a thin pipe or you won't be able to curve it) tapes, something for the handle.

Tools: Usual for the job AND also get a heat gun+ protective gloves. You can still use the other ways of heating the pipe, but as I discovered the heat gun is perfect.


 First thing to do would be to cut the necessary length of pipe and prepare for heat gun work.

 USE GLOVES AND CAUTION WITH THE HEAT GUN! 

Otherwise you will burn yourself or something else. So read the damn manual.

 

 Keep in mind - achieving the shape will probably take more than one pass. Do it slowly and steadily so that you don't damage the pipe, only bend it. As an advice - to speed up cooling put it in cold water while holding it in the right shape (or under the water tap). Thus it will get solid in the shape we want it.

After that its mostly trivial stuff. First the handle is made. Since I'm out of flip-flop pieces, I just taped a few strips of cardboard  to it.

Then I covered it with wood texture wallpaper and its on to the blade.

Keep in mind that the blade of the sickle is on the inner side. So most layers of foam and the tip(which you will be striking a lot with) should be on the inner side.

 Eventually we got our farming sickle done. Now we can have a peasant rebellion.

I say....how about lowering them taxes m'lord?