How sound is this dagger design?

[ken]

By Kyrax...

Here's my design for a bulky but sturdy dagger:
Cap off a piece of pvc pipe (eight inches does sound good), though I use a pvc cap glued onto the tip rather than Pickles' quarter taped on. Glue the core into a cylinder of fun noodle for haft padding, with the end of the core flush with the top of the cylinder. Cut a circle or two of blue foam to fit on top of the round piece of fun noodle, perpendicular to the core. Glue the layer or two of closed cell foam onto the core/haft padding. Next cut a mini nerf type football into two cones, trim off 1/2 inch of the tip to flatten the end. Now glue the half football onto the flat side of the closed cell, build a pommel and cover it. Voila, a dagger!


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How's that for a picture?

These daggers are for stabbing only, but the bulk of the fun noodle haft padding gives them an extra bit of umph when hitting that some daggers lack. I also build them so that the handle is just big enough for my fist, so that my fist fits comfortably between the haft padding and the pommel. This means that my hand is steadying against the back end of the fun noodle haft padding/football tip combo, giving the stabs a little more solidity while still being safe.

Seems good to me...might be hard to find noodles in March though...pool season has barely begun.

[Zaron]

This design sounds like it will work fine to me.

[Frost]

Its a great design. I never saw that before I made my dagger, but mine is initially the same design.

Instead of a pool noodle, you can take a strip of blue foam and wrap it a few times. After I think 3 or 4 wraps of the blue, I capped it twice and put on the open cell foam. I taped the cover over it, did the tape over in black, decorated it with green tape and put a runic F on the bottom for Frost. My daggers hilt fits perfectly to my hand, too, so, yeah, use either design, im sure they both work greatly. When wrapping the blue, dont forget to DAP both sides except for the area that will be the final blue. One whole side DAPed and the other a little less than half, I think. The side completely covered with dap is the side you put against the PVC.

that all sounds kinda confusing...
tell me if you have any questions.

[ken]

Well the smithing went well last night...

Turns out FunNoodle doesn't fit easily over 3/4" pipe (for whatever reason I just can't wield 1/2"....feel like my hands will cramp up just thinking about) but it's doable. I ended up DAPing the core and then forcing the noodle on, using the DAP as a lubricant while it was wet. Tight fit and wasn't sure how it would work last night (They were slightly loose) but giving them a day to sit and dry, it's dried solidly.

I did the pommels similarly to the construction of the tip minus the football. A 2" section of FunNoodle goes on much easier than 5". I've DAPed two blue discs and think I'm ready to tape. Alric, remind me next time you see me to check out the pommels on these to make sure they're safe, I think they should be. Same basic dimensions...equivalent of two wraps and two caps DAPed on...the only difference is that both caps are the same diameter as the noodle foam, as opposed to a small one to cover the core, wrap, a larger cap and a wrap. At the end of the day it's the same amount of foam, just a different method so I think it's okay.

As it turns out, I should have made the core shorter. 12" of core results in a good 16" or so dagger. Right now I have some looonnnnggg daggers. I think the next batch will have cores of only 6-8" which would give total lengths of 10-12" which I think would make a nice dagger length. Both tips are passing the <.5" through a 2.5" hole rule (unless it's been changed? I know the official Dag site is using 2003 rules...) and don't hurt as much as the spears I've been poked by (only green tips I have to measure against) so hopefully they're passable.

[Balor]

What did you use for the tip of the dagger?

[ken]

A mini Poof football. Exactly like what's on the end of Ryan's spear, just significantly smaller (maybe 3" diameter at the fattest part). They're like $2.50 at Walmart, and that was the only place I could find the small ones. Toys R Us had the big'uns though, and fun noodles were only $1.50 for a 5 foot length.

[Balor]

Awesome! Cheap too!

[Alric, son of Harland]

POOF is so much better than Nerf. They're softer, and usually cheaper.

Alric

[ken]

Yeah....but they tend to make the daggers look kind of....interesting... *wink wink*

[MacDimm]

Dag is half gay anyway. Any weapon you can poke people with comes out phallic. So it's a bunch of sweaty guys in leather and fur running around poking each other with giant unmentionables.

[ken]

Hahahaha....well, so much for being subtle.