Are you tired of getting limbs cut off
in practice combat?
Maybe you should learn how to make a sword out of foam
Hi! I'm Chris from Lost Wax. Today I'm
gonna show you how I made a foam sword
that's strong, safe but still looks
pretty cool. The main ingredient we need
is a piece of foam that's reasonably
dense and smooth on both sides. I used
one of those puzzle piece floor mats
which isn't smooth on both sides so I
needed to take my sander and smooth out
some of that texture. I put on my
respirator to protect me from the foam
dust and started sanding with some
coarse sandpaper. The palm sander works
ok but I found my belt sander to be a
lot quicker and easier to remove that
texture from the foam.
Either way it's a bit of a
time-consuming annoying process so if
you have some time it might be worth
ordering some quality foam. The foam
doesn't have to be totally smooth
because it's gonna be on the inside of
the sword where you're not gonna see it
so as long as you get those big bumps
off you're good. Print out the pattern
and tape it together, lining up those
alignment marks. Cut out your pattern
pieces and trace the sword twice on the
ugly side of your foam. Now grab a brand
new high-quality knife blade for your
knife and this is super important
because unless you have a really really
really really sharp knife things are
gonna get ugly.
Now these cuts right here are the most
important part for making your sword
look good. This is where we create the
beveled edge of the blade and we want to
cut it perfectly so we don't have to go
back and sand it later which ends up
making it look just kind of fuzzy and we
don't want that on a sword so as you can
see I'm holding the knife blade at
an angle and I'm trying to keep that
exact angle through the whole cut.
I'm also concentrating really hard on
staying right on the line because I need
my two halves to turn out exactly the
same so that they match up later. Try to
cut about halfway through on your first
pass then extend the blade and cut all
the way through on the second pass.
Definitely take some time to practice
this on some scrap foam before using the
foam that you spent a bunch of time
sanding down. You can see here how I hold
my index finger against the foam to
maintain the correct angle for the knife
blade and keep it consistent. If all goes
well you should have two sword halves
that match up almost perfectly.
Grab some half-inch PVC conduit and cut
it off at sixty four and a half
centimeters long. Take a strip of paper
and wrap it tightly
around the PVC tube, lining up its top
edge. Slide it off, squish it
flat and mark those two creases. Now when
you slide it back on the tube you can
mark two lines exactly on the opposite
side of the tube from each other.
Perfect. Now lay a permanent marker flat
on the table then roll the tube until
the mark on the tube lines up with the
tip of the marker and then you can mark
that line all the way down your tube and
it's gonna be a nice straight beautiful
line. Make a mark at 44 and 48
centimeters down the tube and use your
fancy white piece of paper to draw a
nice line all the way around on the
other end of the PVC. Make a mark every
three centimeters down one of the lines
and on the other line start your marks
one and a half centimeters down from the
end and mark every three centimeters as
well. This means your marks should be
staggered on either side of the pipe and
don't make any marks past that 44
centimeter line. Grab a three millimeter
drill bit and drill a pilot hole at
every mark and then drill out each hole
with a big old twelve millimeter bit and
you should end up with something a
little bit like this. Now the reason that
I've got the hole staggered is because
we're gonna heat it up with hot air and
I want the hot air to go in here then
hit the backside and heat up the other
side at the same time so that it's not
just heating up right along this edge,
that the heat is actually going through
the pipe so that it's more even when I
compress it.
Okay now PVC releases toxins when it
gets heated too hot so make sure you do
some research and know what you're
working with here. Do your heating
outside and wear a respirator and you
only want to heat the plastic up just
enough to get flexible and no more. Even
at lower temperatures PVC still releases
fumes so you really need to be careful.
So anyways, clamp your pipe between two
pieces of wood with the holes facing out.
You don't want to flatten the handle so
that wood should only go down to where
the end of the guard will be. In
hindsight I should have actually
squished the PVC up to the next line on
the handle. Okay once you've got the
clamp set up it's just a matter of
slowly heating the PVC in sections and
tightening up the clamps as you go,
heating equally from both sides, and like I've
already mentioned before: Don't get it
too hot, don't breathe the fumes, take
your time and eventually it'll look
awesome.
I did find those C-clamps a bit annoying
to use because they kept wanting to fall
off so if you have access to four
trigger clamps like I have on either end
you'll be a lot happier than I was. Once
you've got it squished how you want it,
leave it for a while and let it cool
down. And here's the final piece ready to
go inside my sword. You will notice that
I left a bit of a taper as I got to the
handle to give it a little bit more
strength right near the hand. I did also
go back and heat it up and squeeze it a
little bit more on that section in
between the two lines for the hilt.
Line up the bottom edge of the sword with the
line on the PVC pipe and trace around it.
Extend your knife blade so it only goes
about five millimeters past the edge of
the knife so it can't cut any deeper.
Then you can make a five millimeter deep
vertical cut along the lines you traced
around the PVC. Divide the space in
between those cuts into five sections
and make a 5 millimeter cut down each of
those lines. Make an angled cut on the
first line in from each side that will
connect to the bottom of the outside cut
removing a small wedge of foam. Now angle
your cut in the other direction from the
first line into the second line in,
removing another couple strips of foam.
Looking from the back it should look
kind of like that.
Now get your knife as flat as possible
and cut out that middle strip. Now that
you can hold your knife relatively flat,
you can work from the center outward and
remove the peaks on each of those first
two strips you cut. And again I will
remind you this is only gonna work well
if you have a very sharp knife. If you
don't you're gonna be as frustrated as a
frustrated person. Use a bit of sandpaper
to even everything out and then repeat
the process on the other piece. Cut out
the handguard, transfer the contour onto
the blade and cut it out. Now it's hot
glue time. Glue the embellishments to
your handguard pieces, glue your fancy
custom-made PVC pipe into the cutout in
one of the blades.
Once that's cool you can glue the tip of
the blades together, then being generous
with your glue, Cover the PVC all the way
down to the bottom of the blade. Keep
some pressure holding the two halves
together until the glue has cooled. Also
make sure the edges are lining up as
close as possible because this is your
last chance to make that happen. Now go
around the edge of the blade, gluing it
together a section at a time, making sure
the edges are lining up as you glue. If
you find you're having a problem keeping
the glue seam nice and clean you should
totally check out my hot glue gun tips
video. It'll change your life. For the
groove we'll start with a line straight
down the center and then one on either
side. Make a cut along each outside line
with a shallow angle towards the center.
Remember we've already cut in from the
backside so we don't have a lot of foam
thickness left here. All right well
there's the blade. Now it needs the
handguard. Glue the two handguard pieces
together only gluing the outside edges.
Once it's cool you can slide the guard
up into place on the sword. Now glue the
guard as tight as you can around the PVC
pipe without actually gluing it to the
PVC pipe. You need to make sure you hold
it together until the glue is totally
cool, otherwise it will want to pull
apart.
I found it work best to glue one side at
a time and you don't want the guard to
stick to the blade yet so leave a small
gap for the moment. Once that's done you
can slide the guard down the handle a
little bit, apply glue between it and the
blade as well as on the PVC pipe and
then slide it back into place. Clean up
any extra glue before it hardens with a
piece of cardboard or something similar.
And just to be sure everything is good
and strong, squeeze in some extra glue
from the bottom. Trim off any weird bits
on the tips of the guard and it's time
to paint. Time to paint it black. Once
again I'm using DecoArt Americana
Premium acrylic paint in the color
carbon black which I received from DecoArt through their helping artists
program. So the question I always get is:
do you need a primer for your foam
before you paint it? And I'm gonna say I
don't know. Maybe. If you're gonna
spray-paint your foam you definitely
need something on there to seal it
otherwise the spray paint it's so thin
it just goes in. If you are just gonna
paint your foam
with acrylics like I generally do then
why not just use the acrylic paint of
the primer? Because really what is a
primer? It's just something to seal the
foam, fill in fill in the holes, something
that stays flexible, adheres to your foam...
and really acrylic paint does all those things. Apply at least three coats of
acrylic paint. Once the black is
completely dry it's time to make it look
metallic. I'm using DecoArt Americana
Decor Metallics paints. Right now my
favorite sort of antique silver color is
actually a mix of two of their paints so
I mix the silver color and the pewter
color in about equal proportions. Now go
ahead and rub that paint onto your sword.
If you need more information on my
painting technique you can check out
some of my other videos but the basic
gist of it is: Dip your finger in some
paint, smear it around and then smear it
on your sword,
remembering that areas that would get
the most use should be the most silver. 
Once that's done go pull out your pile
of leather scraps that you've been
saving for years for no particular
reason. Cut two strips approximately
three centimetres wide and 70
centimetres long but don't use it yet.
Instead grab some hockey tape and start
wrapping it around the center of the
handle. We're doing this to add some
contour to the handle so we'll create a
bit of a bulge in the center. As you wrap
the tape give it a couple twists. This
will build up the thickness much quicker
than if you had just used it flat.
Keep going, wrapping around it around,
trying to concentrate the most thickness
at the center and having it taper down
as it gets toward either end. The great
thing about using hockey tape is it has
a bit of a rough texture and can
sometimes be a bit sticky on both sides
so when you wrap your leather over top
of that it kind of helps to hold it in
place without it sliding around. Once you
like how it looks, wrap it one or two
more times with the tape just flat and
there you go.
Cut a steep angle on your strip of
leather, glue it to the top of the handle
and start wrapping it down the handle,
making sure you have a bit of overlap
over each previous wrap. Add a touch a
hot glue at the end to hold it in place.
I'm gonna use my other strip of leather
just to make like a big leather strip
stack or something at the back of the
handle. So just wrap that strip of
leather around it around it around,
gluing it as you go so that it doesn't
move. And then a little foam circle to
close off the end and that's it. We just
made a sword.
There you go, super-sweet foam sword
ready for your next adventure. There will
be a link for the template at the end of
the video and in the description below
so you can get that. I'm gonna have it be
free right now. I might incorporate it
later into a bunch of patterns for
different weapons so get it now while
it's free. If you're watching this video
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All right now you can go out and have
fun with your new sword and don't forget
to play safe. See ya
