C.A.R.P.S.

I have never LARPed before, but have been looking into it recently. I'm very excited to start, but I had a question about the sword padding. The current rules state that the padding must be 5/8", and I was wondering if this meant like on all sides of the CPVC pipe, or just on the two sides. I guess I mean to ask: do the swords have to be round, or can they be flat, having the 5/8" on two sides rather than all around?

Thank you for your time.

The rules in the book are for making a basic boffer sword, for which the foam needs to be at least 5/8" on all sides. If you want to make flatter looking swords you would need to have more then 5/8" on the "edge" sides, because you need padding on all the sides for safety reasons. It is possible to make weapons with cores other than PVC but you should talk to one of the games current weapon marshals or foam smiths before doing so. Even in this case though there needs to be padding around the entire core.

[quote="Gekek"][quote="alleyb"]I have never LARPed before, but have been looking into it recently. I'm very excited to start, but I had a question about the sword padding. The current rules state that the padding must be 5/8", and I was wondering if this meant like on all sides of the CPVC pipe, or just on the two sides. I guess I mean to ask: do the swords have to be round, or can they be flat, having the 5/8" on two sides rather than all around?

Thank you for your time.[/quote]

The rules in the book are for making a basic boffer sword, for which the foam needs to be at least 5/8" on all sides. If you want to make flatter looking swords you would need to have more then 5/8" on the "edge" sides, because you need padding on all the sides for safety reasons. It is possible to make weapons with cores other than PVC but you should talk to one of the games current weapon marshals or foam smiths before doing so. Even in this case though there needs to be padding around the entire core.[/quote]

How can I contact a weapons marshal? Unless I'm missing something, I don't see any way to contact them on the website.

Your best bet would be to try and contact them on Facebook. My recommendation though as a foam smith is to talk to them at game so they have visual examples to use.

Facebook is a good idea. Maybe they have a Facebook group or something. Or if you know the name of the person, you can simply try google and see if you can track their email or something.

We do have a Facebook group (general, not marshal specific): https://www.facebook.com/groups/1215149 ... =bookmarks